A Day in the Life of an Independent Solo Traveling Woman

Everything went well today, even though it had a couple of interesting moments. BTW,  I sprained my foot a few days ago and you would never know it now. It feels perfect…100%

Hard to leave my new friends – hotel staff – in Sarajevo. They were sad to see me go. They took such great care of me when I  had to stay off my foot for a day.

Bus ride to Jajce went well. When I got off the bus and walked into town, everywhere I went had no rooms available. I was thinking I might have to get on the next bus to my next destination about 4 hours away – arriving about 8 or 9pm in a bigger city. Didn’t sound inviting.

People kept directing me to ask the next place, most of which seemed to be uphill, to ask if they knew a place. I was about to give it up. Was tired of lugging my bags, probably about 28 – 30 pounds, uphill. A man who works in one of the two main hotels in town told me I probably wouldn’t find anything as there was a big national film festival in town all week.

Then, presto!!,  a German speaking woman had a room for one person in her home hostel. And it works!! It’s only about 6 feet wide and it’s clean, in good condition, large window, clean shared bath, seemingly filled with guys, 15 Euros, safe and do-able for one night. Plus she’s fixing breakfast just for me one hour early so I can have breakfast and catch my bus at 8am!!

Can’t beat the price! Then I saw a man from Canada that I had dinner with at the hostel in Mostar staying in same place so if he feels good enough, we’ll have dinner together. It’s all worked out perfectly. A day in the life of independent travel.

I needed more Bosian marks and made it to the bank 2 or 3 minutes before they close and my bus is at 8:20am so I really needed that money.

After exploring the medieval fortress at the top of a high hill, and the atmospheric catacombs where apparently Tito hid for a while in 1945, I bought some delicious cheese from a modern, very Western, supermarket. And they had 70% dark chocolate bars. Yummm!  I’m getting all my essential food groups!!  🙂

Then as I’m walking home, two imams begin to sing the call to prayer from different locations in town. I sat down and enjoyed listening.

Tomorrow I catch two buses and head back into Croatia to visit Pritvice National Park. You might enjoy Googling it so you can see the photos.

As you can tell, it has a been a full day!!