I’m still on the train, it’s half past seven. One and a half hours after we were supposed to arrive in Sarajevo.
There are less mountains outside the windows now, and more industrial buildings. People are smoking in the corridor outside my compartment, and once in a while a man with a small shopping cart walks by, selling soda and booze in tiny bottles.
The old man who’s been sitting in my compartment ever since we crossed the Croatian border turned out to know some Swedish. He spent some time in Gothenburg. Probably during the war, but I don’t know. I didn’t dare ask. I’m afraid his opinion of Sweden might not be that good. Sweden in the nineties was not a very good place for a refugee. It isn’t now either. Still better than having to stay in a war, though, I guess. There is always that.
But I have to say, despite the lateness and the smokers and the whiff of the pungent toilet smell that occasionally floats into the corridor, this train ride might be one of the most scenic I’ve ever traveled on. The mountains outside the windows can only compare with the drama of the Andean slopes on the train ride from Cusco to Aguas Calientes (the village below Machu Picchu). And that is a major international tourist attraction. Here, I feel like I’ve found a hidden treasure.
Well, that’s how I feel now. Let’s see how I feel after we arrive and I somehow have to find my way to the hostel through the nightly streets of yet another strange city.
Katja Malmborg 