We Do Adventure

This is this evening out by the lakes in Jajce. What you can see around the the top of the mountain in the middle of the photograph are not clouds but smoke from fires that have been burning up there for the past two weeks. We spent last week 'camping' out by the lakes: the inverted commas indicate that I understand staying in a bungalow doesn't equate to real camping; but neither I or any of the young people involved seemed to be complaining about that. Almost every day was cloudless but every day we saw smoke. A few days before our camp started I had read about similar fires on a mountain outside Sarajevo. The article said no one was able to attempt to put them out because the area still had so many landmines it was too dangerous. According to a guy working on the rental boats we went out on, no one has attempted to put out these fires because there is no agreement over who the land that is burning belongs to, so no one feels the need to take responsibility.

“UK Government congratulates #Nepal for clearance of last remaining minefields & its designation as landmine free country.” So tweeted the Foreign Office this morning. This is good news for the Nepalese, and for visitors to their country. When it comes to the scars of war, clearing up the physical mess can take a lot longer than it does to return to some kind of psychological normality. We hear people talking about choosing to move on, but bombed-out buildings don't mend themselves. In the fifteen years since the shooting stopped in Bosnia and Herzegovina many of its marks are still clearly visible. This morning I woke to see the sunlight streaming through the bullet holes in the shutters on the window of the bedroom I was borrowing. I'm in Mostar. I drove down from Jajce on Sunday evening. One section of the journey passes through what has been, until recently, a largely unmarked minefield. Last month a sudden proliferation of bright yellow hazard tape alerted me to th...

On today's impromptu after-lunch stroll my wander up to the view point overlooking Jajce's waterfall was interrupted by a familiar looking strip of yellow tape. MINE: not an indication of ownership but an announcement of clear and present danger. After a quick glance around I decided they was no need to do what Hilary said she did in Bosnia. I did not duck and run; I stopped and took this photo for you. Only last week I saw a new article posted on Facebook about a cliff fall a few metres from where I was standing. My mind was putting two and two together hoping for four. Was the danger not so much a mine as an undermined area? Is it wrong to suspect that MINE tape was being used as an all-purpose hazard tape? Having experimented with various ways of capturing the view and the tape in a neatly composed image I wandered back down to the path that leads out to the side of the falls. The sun was in completely the wrong place for capturing a good photo – why I had headed for t...

I’ve long been an admirer of Land Rovers . I’ve never owned one, or even driven one, I just like the concept of them. I know they have their detractors but they have their defenders – the pun was unavoidable! In Mostar there is at least one, maybe two, royal blue Defender 110s that are used by a mine clearing team. Bosnia Herzegovina is still littered with mines from the conflict and the work of clearing these often unmarked areas continues today. In Michael Palin’s recent New Europe series it was said that in parts of the country it will take a hundred years to finish the job. Today I was walking into town when I spotted one of these Land Rovers parked on our street. There were people in matching blue overalls standing around. Then I noticed a plot of land where the remains of a ruin were being removed was taped off. I know they still find unexploded bombs from the Second World War in the UK. That there should still be unexploded ordnance a street away from the former frontline of a ...