17 Nov 2017
Today I had a wonderful daytrip to various places around Mostar with tourguide Dado. I was the only customer so I had many opportunities to ask questions. Dado told many stories and gave lots of information about both the old and the recent history of the Mostar region. He knows a lot of insider information because he grew up in Mostar. We first visited a place where in the past an islamic mystic lived and told a lot about the derwish tradition in islam. Then we visited a beautiful orthodox monastery that was rebuilt after the war, an ancient village, a field of thombstones, and a beautiful waterfall. I fired many questions at him about the recent conflict in his country and it's origins, the relations between the various ethnic groups and how this effects people now. He always had extensive answers and interesting views about this. He also shared his childhood memories about the war with me after I asked him about it. In short he was an excellent and enthousiastic tour guide and thanks to him I know much more about the region now then I could have learned from internet. It was the most pleasant tour guide I experienced so far.