Rick Steves Travel as a Political Act Read online

  Traveling to El Salvador, we’ll learn about the impact of globalization and the reality of a poor country at the mercy of a rich country—from its own perspective rather than ours.

  In Denmark, by delving into contemporary socialism and a hippie attempt at creating a utopia in a society routinely rated the most content in the world, we’ll have a stimulating chance to consider a different formula for societal success.

  We’ll witness the moderate side of Islam in quickly developing nations by visiting Turkey and Morocco. This helps balance our perspective at a time when the news of Islam is dominated by coverage of extremists and terrorists.

  In the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, and Washington State, we’ll compare European and American drug policies, contrasting how equally affluent and advanced societies deal with the same persistent problem in fundamentally different ways.

  Exploring Iran, we’ll see how fear and fundamentalism can lead a mighty nation to trade democracy for theocracy, and what happens when the “Axis of Evil” meets the “Great Satan”—from an Iranian perspective.

  In Israel and Palestine, we’ll illustrate how a visiting a conflicted land helps you connect with people on both sides. You’ll hear both narratives, not just the one that receives more media coverage within our society.

  Finally, I’ll explain why flying home from each trip reminds me how thankful I am to live in America, why I believe the rich blessings we enjoy as Americans come with certain stewardship responsibilities, and how we can enrich our lives by employing our new perspective more constructively back home.

  Chapter 2

  Lessons from the Former Yugoslavia: After the War

  Red Roofs and Mortar Shells in Dubrovnik

  The Balkans

  Buffalo-Nickel Charm on a Road that Does Not Exist

  Bosnian Hormones and a Shiny New Cemetery

  Nouveau Riche and Humble Devotion on the Bay of Kotor

  Monks, Track Suits, and Europe’s Worst Piano in the Montenegrin Heartland

  Since World War II, Europe has enjoyed unprecedented peace…except in its southeastern Balkan Peninsula. As Yugoslavia broke apart violently in the early 1990s, the rest of the world watched in disbelief, then in horror, as former compatriots tore apart their homeland and each other.

  Today—just a generation later—some parts of the former Yugoslavia are re-emerging as major tourist attractions. In recent years, I’ve enjoyed trips to countries that once belonged to Yugoslavia, including Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro. As destinations, they offer profound natural beauty, a relaxing ambience, and a warm welcome. Life goes on here. Local people, while not in denial about the war, would rather not be constantly reminded of it. Many think about this ugliness in their past only when tourists ask them about it.

  And yet—although I realize that, in some ways, it does a disservice to these places to view them through the lens of war—I can’t help but think about those not-too-distant horrors as I travel here. Seeing the bruised remnants of Yugoslavia is painful yet wonderfully thought-provoking. And, because this book is about how travel can change the way you think about the world, I hope you (and my Balkan friends) will excuse my narrow focus in this chapter.

  We begin at the region’s top tourist hotspot: the town of Dubrovnik, in Croatia. Nowhere else in Europe can you go so quickly from easy tourism to lands where today’s struggles are so vivid and eye-opening—one of many heartbreaking sectarian conflicts all around the globe. Within a few hours’ drive of Dubrovnik are several new incarnations of old nations, providing rich opportunities to study the roots and the consequences of one such struggle.

  Red Roofs and Mortar Shells in Dubrovnik

  I was ready for a little culture shock. Flying from France to Dubrovnik, I got it. I passed through the mammoth, floodlit walls of Dubrovnik’s Old Town and hiked up a steep, tourist-free back lane to my boutique pension perched at the top of Europe’s finest fortified port city. Upon reaching my favorite Dubrovnik B&B—a bombed-out ruin until a few years ago—I was greeted by Pero Carević.

  Pero uncorked a bottle of orahovica (the local grappa-like firewater) and told me his story. He got a monthly retirement check for being wounded in the war, but was bored and didn’t want to live on the tiny government stipend—so he went to work and turned the remains of his Old Town home into a fine guest house.

  Hoping to write that evening with a clear head, I tried to refuse Pero’s drink. But this is a Slavic land. Remembering times when I was force-fed vodka in Russia by new friends, I knew it was hopeless. Pero made this hooch himself, with green walnuts. As he slugged down a shot, he handed me a glass, wheezing, “Walnut grappa—it recovers your energy.”

  Pero, whose war injury will be with him for the rest of his life, held up the mangled tail of a mortar shell he pulled out from under his kitchen counter and described how the gorgeous stone and knotty-wood building he grew up in suffered a direct hit in the 1991 siege of Dubrovnik. He put the mortar in my hands. Just as I don’t enjoy holding a gun, I didn’t enjoy touching the twisted remains of that mortar.

  Showing me the mortar that destroyed his home, Pero smiled.

  I took Pero’s photograph. He held the mortar…and smiled. I didn’t want him to hold the mortar and smile…but that’s what he did. He seemed determined to smile—as if it signified a personal victory over the destruction the mortar had wrought. It’s impressive how people can weather tragedy, rebuild, and move on. In spite of the terrors of war just a couple of decades ago, life here was once again very good and, according to Pero’s smile, filled with promise.

  From Pero’s perch, high above Dubrovnik’s rooftops, I studied the countless buildings lassoed within its stout walls. The city is a patchwork of old-fashioned red-tiled roofs. Pero explained that the random arrangement of bright- and dark-toned roof tiles indicates the damage caused by the mortars that were lobbed over the hill by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army in 1991. The new, brighter-colored tiles marked houses that were hit and had been rebuilt. At a glance, it’s clear that more than two-thirds of the Old Town’s buildings were bombed.

  In Dubrovnik, brighter tiles mark homes rebuilt after the shelling.

  But today, relations between the Croats and their Serb neighbors are on the mend. The bus connecting Dubrovnik to Serb-friendly Montenegro—which was stubbornly discontinued for a decade—is, once again, up and running. And Pero—whose B&B now houses Serbs who may have bombed his home years ago—says that, with age, someday all the tiles will fade to exactly the same hue.

  Poignant as a visit to Dubrovnik may be, rich rewards await those who push on into the interior of the former Yugoslavia. Dubrovnik—the most touristy and comfortable resort on Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast—is an ideal springboard for more scintillating sightseeing…including some sobering lessons in sectarian strife.

  The Balkans

  We hear the term “the Balkans” now and then, and even if we don’t know exactly where that is…we know it’s a challenging place. The Balkan Peninsula—a wide swath of land in southeastern Europe, stretching from Hungary to Greece—has long been a crossroads of cultures. Over the centuries, an endless string of emperors, crusaders, bishops, and sultans have shaped a region that’s extremely diverse…and unusually troubled. These troubles are most profound in the former Yugoslavia—roughly the western half of this peninsula.

  Yugoslavia’s delicate ethnic balance is notoriously difficult to grasp. The major “ethnicities” of Yugoslavia were all South Slavs—they’re descended from the same ancestors and speak closely related languages. The distinguishing difference is that they practice different religions. Catholic South Slavs are called Croats; Orthodox South Slavs are called Serbs; and Muslim South Slavs (whose ancestors converted to Islam under Ottoman rule) are called Bosniaks. For the most part, there’s no way that a casual visitor can determine the religion or loyalties of the people just by looking at them.

  While relatively few people are actively religious her
e (thanks to the stifling atheism of the communist years), they fiercely identify with their ethnicity. And, because ethnicity and faith are synonymous, it’s easy to mistake the recent conflicts for “religious wars.” But in reality, they were about the politics of ethnicity (just as the “Troubles” in Ireland are more about British versus Irish rule than simply a holy war between Catholics and Protestants).

  “Yugoslavia” was an artificial union of the various South Slav ethnicities that lasted from the end of World War I until 1991. Following the death of its strong-arm leader Tito, a storm of ethnic divisions, a heritage of fear and mistrust, and a spate of land-hungry politicians plunged Yugoslavia into war. Many consider the conflict a “civil war,” and others see it as a series of “wars of independence.” However you define the wars, they—and the ethnic cleansing, systematic rape, and other atrocities that accompanied them—were simply horrific. It’s almost miraculous that after a few bloody years (1991–1995), the many factions laid down their arms and agreed to peace accords. An uneasy peace—firmer and more inspiring with each passing year—has settled over the region.

  And yet, hard feelings linger. As a travel writer, I’ve learned again and again that discussing this region is fraught with controversy. Every time I publish an article on the former Yugoslavia, I receive angry emails complaining that I’m “taking sides.” (Strangely, I typically hear this complaint from each “side” in equal numbers…which suggests I’m actually succeeding at being impartial.) I believe you could line up a panel of experts from this region—historians from prestigious universities, respected journalists, beloved diplomats—and ask them for their take on a particular issue or historical event…and each one would have a different interpretation, presented as fact. One person’s war hero is another person’s war criminal. One person’s freedom fighter is another person’s rapist. One person’s George Washington is another person’s Adolf Hitler. It’s aggravating, and yet so human. As an outside observer, the best I can do is to sort through the opinions, force myself to see all sides of the story, collect a few random observations to share as food for thought…and encourage readers to learn from the region’s tumult.

  But there’s no substitute for traveling here in person. Walking with the victims of a war through the ruins of their cities gives you “war coverage” you’d never get in front of a TV. Seeing how former enemies find ways to overcome their animosity and heal; enjoying the new energy that teenagers—whose parents did the fighting—bring to the streets; and observing combatants who followed no rules now raising children in the ruins resulting from their mistakes, all leaves a strong impression on any visitor.

  Buffalo-Nickel Charm on a Road that Does Not Exist

  Looking for a change of pace from Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, I drove from Dubrovnik to the city of Mostar, in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Almost everyone doing this trip takes the scenic coastal route. But I took the back road instead: inland first, then looping north through the Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  While Bosnia-Herzegovina is one country, the peace accords to end the war here in 1995 gerrymandered it to grant a degree of autonomy to the area where Orthodox Serbs predominate. This Republika Srpska, or “Serbian Republic”—while technically part of Bosnia-Herzegovina—rings the Muslim- and Croat-dominated core of the country on three sides.

  When asked for driving tips, Croatians—who, because of ongoing tensions, avoid Republika Srpska—actually insisted that the road I hoped to take didn’t even exist. As I drove inland from Dubrovnik, directional signs sent me to the tiny Croatian border town…but ignored the major Serb city of Trebinje just beyond. Despite warnings from Croats in Dubrovnik, I found plenty past that lonely border.

  In spite of what some said, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Trebinje not only exists, it thrives.

  As I entered bustling and prosperous Trebinje, police with ping-pong paddle stop signs pulled me over to tell me drivers need to have their headlights on at all hours. The “dumb tourist” routine got me off the hook. At an ATM, I withdrew Bosnia-Herzegovina’s currency, called the “convertible mark.” The name goes back to the 1980s, when, like other countries with fractured economies, they tied their currency to a strong one. It was named after the German mark and given the same value. Today, while Germany has switched over to the euro, the original German mark lives on (with its original exchange rate) in a quirky way in Bosnia. But like the country itself, convertible marks are divided. To satisfy the country’s various factions, the currency uses both the Roman and the Cyrillic alphabets, and bills have different figureheads and symbols (some bills feature Bosniaks, others Serbs). I stowed a few Bosnian coins as souvenirs. They have the charm of Indian pennies and buffalo nickels.

  Coming upon a vibrant market, I had to explore. The produce seemed entirely local. Honey maids eagerly offered me tastes—as if each believed her honey was the sweetest. Small-time farmers—salt-of-the-earth couples as rustic as the dirty potatoes they pulled out of the ground that morning—lovingly displayed their produce on rickety card tables. A tourist here was so rare that there was nothing designed for me to buy. Coming from Croatia, I was primed to think of Serbs as the villains. Wandering through the market, I saw only a hardworking community of farmers offering a foreigner a warm if curious welcome.

  High on a hill overlooking Trebinje is a spectacular Serbian Orthodox church, with an opulence that belies the modesty of the town filling the valley below. And, as with everything here, its symbolism is loaded: It’s modeled after a historically important monastery in Kosovo, a land that Serbs claim as their own but have recently lost. Exploring the grounds, I bumped into a youthful monk who had been an exchange student in Cleveland. He had a great sense of humor about our cultural differences. I explained that part of my mission was to help Americans understand rather than fear people who looked different. Stroking his long black beard—which matched his long black robe—he joked, with a knowing wink, “Around here, a priest without a beard looks suspicious.”

  As I continued along the road, it became apparent that the complex nature of things here comes across in the powerful language of flags. Just as bars throughout Europe don’t want football team colors, and pubs throughout Ireland don’t want the green or orange of the sectarian groups, flags in this region come with lots of pent-up political anger. Throughout the day I saw different flags, each one flying with an agenda. Croats salute their red-and-white checkerboard flag, while Serbs proudly hoist their flag with four C’s (the first letter of “Serb” in the Cyrillic alphabet). But in the not-too-distant past, each of these flags was also employed by an oppressive regime—so Croats and Serbs each view the other’s flag as equivalent to a swastika. Meanwhile, the country’s official flag—which nobody really embraces (or is offended by)—is a yellow-and-blue, triangle-and-stars configuration dreamed up by the European Union.

  While most tourists can’t tell the difference, locals notice subtle clues that indicate they’re entering a different ethnicity’s home turf—those highly symbolic flags, discreet but hateful graffiti symbols, pictures of old Serbian kings stenciled onto abandoned buildings, ruined castles guarding ghosts of centuries-old threats on strategic mountain passes, new road signs with politically charged names, and even ATMs with instructions in just one language—Croatian, Bosnian, or Serbian—but not all three. During the days of Yugoslavia, these languages were all lumped together into a single, mutually intelligible mother tongue called “Serbo-Croatian.” But, stoked by the patriotism of proud new nationhood, each of these groups has artificially distanced its language from the others—inventing new words to replace ones they find “too Serbian” or “too Croatian.”

  While I met generally gentle and thoughtful people in all communities here, I can also see the potential for more of the sectarian tumult that made the 1990s so terrible. There’s a certain strata of society here in each ethnic community, and when you see them, you can’t help but think “For war…just add bullets and agitate.” A café filled with skinhead bo
dybuilders made me think brains and brawn are a zero-sum game. Some are built like big tubes, with muscles that seem to squeeze their heads really small. They live in poverty, amidst broken concrete and angry graffiti, with little but unemployment in their futures.

  Later, after a two-hour drive on deserted roads through a rugged landscape, I arrived at the humble Serb crossroads village of Nevesinje. Towns in this region all have a “café row,” and Nevesinje is no exception. It was lunchtime, but as I walked through the town, I didn’t see a soul with any food on the table—just drinks. In this village, where unemployment is epidemic, locals eat cheaply at home…and then enjoy an affordable coffee or drink at a café.

  A cluttered little grocery—with a woman behind the counter happy to make a sandwich—was my answer for lunch. The salami looked like Spam. Going through the sanitary motions, she laid down a piece of waxed paper to catch the meat—but the slices landed wetly on the grotty base of the slicer as they were cut. A strong cup of “Bosnian coffee” (we’d call it “Turkish coffee”)—with highly caffeinated, loose grounds settled in the bottom—cost just pennies in the adjacent café. Munching my sandwich and sipping the coffee carefully to avoid the mud, I watched the street scene.

  Big men drove by in little beaters. High-school students crowded around the window of the local photography shop, which had just posted their class graduation photos. The schoolgirls on this cruising drag proved you don’t need money to have style. Through a shop window, I could see a newly engaged couple picking out a ring. One moment I saw Nevesinje as very different from my hometown…and the next it seemed essentially the same.

  Nevesinje teens gather to see class photos.