Day 91: Banja Luka to Pakrac Croatia

May 17, 2023

Rain Rain and more Rain

“I haven’t seen a minaret for a long time,” Rachel says as we’ve gone about 20km. Then just at the border we see one last mosque.

We set out early today, and by 8am when yesterday we were just having the hotel breakfast, today we’ve gone 22km and stop for coffee. Our room was okay, but barely. Patrick wakes early, checks the weather and wakes Rachel. We have our bowl of cereal and get out at about 6am. The forecast calls for rain starting in the afternoon, but also for increasing winds against us. The forecast has not been very accurate though, and as soon as we are leaving Banja Luka on a bike path it starts to sprinkle. It is foggy and grey. Just like that the mountains and hills disappear and we are riding in flat farm lands. Our road follows a major toll road, and for that reason there are probably a lot of people still using the secondary road.

As we stop for coffee, a guy waves to us to put our bikes under the shelter. Inside another guy that speaks English helps us order. When we didn’t get milk in our coffee, he gets up and brings us a small pitcher of milk. He works at a nearby weapons plant that makes AK47’s, blueing the weapons and magazines. There is WiFi and we check cycleblaze messages. As we sit in a café filled with men drinking coffee, we read a comment from Lori about Patrick’s comment on yesterday’s post about women having too much work to do to drink coffee.

As we get ready the leave the café owner won’t take our money, the coffee is on the house.

Blurry because of no flash....The Owner "bought" us coffee.

Hey Lori, Men enjoying coffee, very friendly

About 25km further is the border crossing with Croatia and the European Union. Just before we get there we stop at a gas station to spend our last few Bosnian Marks. “That’s the last of the marks to the penny!” Patrick buys a handful of chocolate bars that cleans out even the smallest coins. We get our Bosnian exit stamp and cross the bridge. Just before the “no-photos” sign we stop to get some photos. We figure the sign only applies to what happens behind the sign and not in front of it. Right?

Entering in the EU is painless too, the guy does ask us how long we intent to stay. The ninety day limit is indeed an issue for many cycletourers. Not for us this time, we have tickets out of Amsterdam in just over a month.

Last photo of Bosnia and Herzegovina across Sava River.

The raingear is needed again. While we stop at a restaurant for omelets and more coffee the wind picks up as predicted. Is wind better than rain? The next 20 km are hard, into the wind and slightly uphill. The last part steepens to about 8%: then a downhill and the last part on a busier road into Pakrac. We are surprised by the number of abandoned buildings in Croatia. We later read that Pakrac lost almost two-thirds of its inhabitants after the Croatian independence. The Serbian population first resisted, lost a skirmish and left after the chips were down. The town went from over 24,000 people to less than 8,000 today. Many buildings show bullet holes.