Terrifying bus ride in the snow to Pristina, Kosovo

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(the article below accompanies this video)

Today was a long day, and had moments of fright and moments of sheer boredom.

It started in Zaječar, Serbia, where Masayo and I spent our final night in Serbia. My BG when I woke up was 181 — a little high, but better than the nonsense it was all day yesterday.

We had breakfast in the hotel again, same as yesterday: three eggs, bread, and coffee. Then we walked the very short distance to the bus station and got tickets to the large transport hub of Niš, which we had passed through on our way from Kraljevo a couple days ago.

It was raining again today, and the bus pushed through with its wipers working hard. We started to climb up into the mountain roads though, and I could actually see the rain turn to snow — it was at first gradual, and then it was full snow.

I became concerned about the road surface: not only for ice, but for the slippery, powdery snow. It was falling fast and hard, and the vehicles were all going pretty slow. It was a tense sensation, but our driver, for what it was worth, was going pretty slow and seemed careful. I had an unending series of awful images and thoughts in my head, all of them involving a bus tumbling down a powdery white mountain.

After a stressful hour or so, we finally emerged from the higher elevations; it was still snowing but the road seemed much better. We pulled into Niš; we had missed our 12:30 bus to Kosovo, but the apparently well-done website Balkanviator had said there was another one at 1:30 pm.

We asked at a window about tickets, and the lady wrote down that the next bus to Kosovo was 5 pm. Well we knew that wasn’t right, because the next one was 1:30. Maybe it was a different bus company? Do companies operate their own windows at this station?

We found another lady, who spoke some English, and asked her. She said the next one was actually 6:00 pm! I took out my computer and showed her the page with the schedule, but she didn’t recognize those bus times (nor the website). She assured us that the next one was 6 pm. Great. We had over five hours to kill. (The 5 pm time we had been told before was not to Prishtina, but to somewhere else where we would have to get yet another bus, and it would all take longer that way.)

So we went to the cafeteria we’d spent an hour in coming through the other way. I was 241 when I checked at the table. Sigh. We got a large sandwich that we split, and got some chocolate treats and Turkish coffee. Masayo wrote in her diary while I worked on t1dwanderer.com. It took forever, and the snow kept falling outside, eventually tapering off after dark.

Finally it was time. We got on the bus bound for Gračanica, Kosovo, which also stops in Prishtina. On the bus, I checked my BG. How had I handled that sandwich and chocolate? Not well — 299. At least it was less than 300!

I was looking forward to this border crossing. Kosovo declared its total independence from Serbia in 2008. Many countries have recognized this — including the United States and Japan — and many haven’t, including Russia and (of course) Serbia. So it was going to be a new and interesting experience. Because whatever Serbia says, Kosovo acts independent, and they have a smooth border system set up. But Serbia doesn’t consider entering Kosovo as leaving Serbia. It’s all very silly and confusing.

Just outside of Niš, a guy on the bus came and took everyone’s IDs or passports. He wrote down everyone’s names and passport numbers on a paper, and handed them all back.

At the border an hour and a half later, a Serbian official got on the bus and took everyone’s ID again. He did his thing in the office for a few minutes, then the bus guy took the stack and handed them all back to everyone. We pulled a few meters forward, and a Kosovo official got on and repeated it all again. Neither stamped our passports, to our disappointment. And we were stamped into Serbia last week, but not out. Weird.

So it was in fact painless, and we were now in Kosovo. Our big bus ambled down the tiny, poorly-maintained road (just as it had been in Serbia) to the capital, Prishtina.

Actually, I wasn’t sure where we were when the bus pulled to the side of the road. Anyway it wasn’t a big bus station, so not our stop. I figured it was the outskirts of Prishtina.

Thinking maybe I could get them to drop us close to our hotel so we wouldn’t have to take a taxi, I said the name of the area of town our hotel was in, but he didn’t understand. He got off to find someone who spoke English; another passenger who had just disembarked came up and told us nobody knew what I was talking about, but that we should get off here because this was the Prishtina stop: we were near the bus station but weren’t actually going in. (Strange, that.)

Masayo and I got off, and the English-speaking guy and a woman were standing out on the dark sidewalk. They were Serbian journalists, and said they were taking a taxi and we could ride with them. Awesome!

But when the taxi came, there wasn’t enough room for all four of us and our bags. The woman, who also spoke English, called to a guy who was standing nearby. Just some guy, as far as we could tell. She asked him if he could take us to our hotel — Hotel Prima; he knew it by name. He said yes, and they worked out a price of €3.

That was fine, except I had no euros, only Serbian money. Thankfully, this duo was Serbian so she exchanged €3 for 300 dinars. They told us to enjoy our time here and rode off. We went to this new guy’s car and got in. Not a taxi — again, just some guy!

I knew enough of Prishtina to know that he was indeed taking us the right way. He drove us gently through the quiet, dusty city, past the railway station and right to the hotel. We thanked him profusely, and he was clearly a genuinely nice person. He insisted on walking us up to the door of the hotel, even though it was plainly evident.

We checked in and then realized we needed to eat. But the hotel couldn’t change our Serbian dinars, and it was too late to change it at a bank or wherever. We would have to use a credit card.

We decided not to walk around looking for a restaurant; it had been a very long day already and there was a small supermarket right across the street. They took credit cards. We went over and picked out a meal fit for a king: cinnamon cereal, yogurt, and ketchup-flavored potato chips. My BG, happily, was now 151.

After eating in the room, I looked at the BBC News website as I often do. It said there had been some problem in this city yesterday — police had thrown some tear gas at protesters in the street. Everything seemed ok now, as far as we could tell though. So we hoped.

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