Tribute to the Balkans
This is dedicated to Madeja, Ales, Katarina, Mira, Mirko, Stanislav and the rest of my balkan friends.
Goran Bregovic´s “Ederlezi” in playing in the speakers of my computer. The high-pitch female voices sing the chorus that sounds so familiar to me even if I haven´t got the slightest idea of its meaning.
Sa o Roma,
babo, babo
Sa o Roma,
o daje
Sa o Roma,
babo, babo
Ej, Ederlezi
Sa o Roma, daje
So many memories spring to my mind. Memories of dancing, hiking, trips across that so much troubled part of Europe. I can remember the campsite in the Soca river valley, the night so dark that the Milky Way was easily distinguishable in the sky, after rafting and swimming in the turquoise waters of the river. I remember the breathtaking mountains that line on both sides of the deep valley. I remember us dancing around the campfire.
Winamp changes the song. Now we hear Sank Rock´s “Hvala va zse”. Exactly one of those songs they played at the concert in Koper 5 years ago. Koper, Sank Rock and night parties.
And Piran, or course. Piran the beauty. Piran sitting on a tongue of land, is backside guarded by the wall built on the top of the hill. It should be compulsory to leave the car on the outskirts and hike to the wall before entering Piran. Because the first view of Piran must be this one:
Oops, Winamp changes the song: Siddharta (Hvala, Ales) takes us through the drum strokes of “Eboran” to the Croatian roads. Memories of our road trip from Zagreb till the impressive Dubrovnik, the pearl of the Adriatic sea, passing next to the cathedral (white, whiter than white) and fortress of Sibenik, the pleasant harbour and old town in Zadar.
The car broken down. 4 hours waiting at the hard shoulder of a motorway, while we ate peas straight from the tin, heated in in the stove, like homeless. But it didn´t matter, it was fun. Fun telling the croatian police that we hended no help, that another car was coming, that actually we were having a great time.
Another stroke of hard Rock courtesy of Siddharta, this time the song “Mr. Q”. The wild Bohinjsko jezero, the north face of Triglav, 1.500m of vertical wall till the highest point in the Balkans. Kobarid´s museum about the First World War next to Mount Krn. The hike up to Krnsko jezero. Ales trying that we ate grasshoppers and teaching us how to climb.
Now we are back to the northern part of slovenia. We row the canoe in Bled lake, pointing to the sole island of the country. Yes the only island and it´s not in the sea but in the middle of a lake. It´s this one:
Bregovic is at it again: “Mesecina moonlight”.
We are at the hills of Fruska Gora, near Novi Sad. Party nights in a lost cabinet in the middle of the forest. Spicy smells that remind us more of East than West. Rakija, the typical liquour, runs through our throats, as well, as that drink made out of fruit of the loom and sweet flavour whose name now I can´t remember. Far in the distance we can see the huge PetroVaradzin fortress, the bridge destroyed by the NATO in 1999 an the Danube, which is not blue, but on whose waters we swam anyway.
“Kalashnikov” closes the playlist of Winamp. I stop travelling with my imagination and come back to my bedroom. But I cannot forget the paths we walked, the roads we drove, the waters we swam.
I´ll be back.
For sure
Luis
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