The bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo is seven hours long, but far more beautiful than I had anticipated. Mountains and lakes and rivers, fields of sheep, villages nestled in the hills. I was so impressed. I only had one piece of cheese burak for the entire ride, but reading on the bus had made me feel too nauseous to eat anyway. At 7:30pm, I arrived in the city. I try to never arrive in a new city at night, but with such a long trip I didn’t have many options. Crunch time - I had 30 minutes until sundown to find a place to sleep. Although I was unsure which of two bus stations I would be brought to, I knew I would either need to find a bus or a train to take me downtown. I followed google maps to the relatively random pin drop of a bus stop, and jumped on the first bus I saw. There were no ATMS in the area, but in Bulgaria and Serbia buses can usually be ridden without a ticket. I took my chances. Ten minutes later, a man with a shirt that said some variation of “enforcement” climbed onto the bus. I’ll be honest - my first instinct was to run. But my bag was on the seat opposite from me and extremely heavy, so I had to veto that impulse. I saw the eyes of other riders grow wide, and shift closer to the door. One girl rapidly bought a ticket. But the enforcement officer did not seem to be in any hurry - he chatted with the driver and then sat down with his phone. I didn’t have many options. I didn’t have a ticket, and I didn’t have local cash to buy a ticket. I had seventy dinars in my pocket, which has a value of USD$.70. I could hope he didn’t speak good English and try to talk myself out of it. I could get a fine. Two young men sitting near the enforcement officer just noticed him, and both stood up immediately and walked to the back of the bus. I turned to a woman my age behind me. “Do you speak English?” “Yes.” “Does that man check the tickets?” I asked, in a low but clear voice. “Yes, but I think that he will not check,” she responded carefully. She was right. He didn’t check. The bus went directly to the center where I wanted to go. There were still no ATMs, so I couldn’t buy a SIM card, but google maps still worked without cell data to show me my (slightly inaccurate) location. I navigated to a hostel I had pinned on the map earlier, walking briskly to outpace sunset. I had no reservation, because that’s just who I am right now, but I rented a bed without hassle. Although I was hungry, cashless, car sick, internetless, and dirty from a full day on a bus, everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped.
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