my voice of fearlessness | kravice waterfalls

I always experience a moment of fear before jumping into a new-to-me body of water. A lake, a river, a swimming hole - there's a moment of hesitation, like taking the plunge means more than literally diving into the water. I had that moment at Kravice - a stunning, truly spectacular series of waterfalls that form a near semicircle around a translucent, tealish blue-green swimming hole.

I found the perfect spot to enter the water. I know people swim there often - they cliff jump, too, off the moss and grass covered rocks that jut out several feet from the various falls. But nobody was in the water - yet - that morning. There was no "I will if you will." It was just me. The water was ice cold and so clear that Christian - my college roommate Ellie's sister - saw a water snake slither through cracks in the rocks below. That didn't calm my nerves.

I joked to Ellie that were my mom with us, she'd have already dove in . She'd be teasing us for our unfounded nerves and our fear of - watch out! - cold water. With that thought - my mom's fearless voice in my head, I finally jumped in.

I spent the morning swimming, taking photos in the falls, carefully sidestepping rocks and navigating slippery boulders, and just taking in the entire experience. It was profoundly special to be in that water alone - just the falls and the fish and the moss and me. It felt like one of those truly once-in-a-lifetime experiences. It was every reason why I travel, why I explore. It felt hidden, nearly secret, like a place so special I wanted to shout it to the world and keep it all for the four of us there that day.

I knew I had to cliff jump. I say it's an activity I love - and I had talked up my excitement over doing it here. Climbing up the giant boulder to get to the jumping point made me reconsider. My heart pounded as I crept up slowly - barefoot, literally rock climbing, the path slippery and wild, brush and weeds sliding up my shins and mud and dirt creeping between my toes. If I slipped - a possibility that felt too real in the moment - the only option was falling straight down to treacherous rocks - not a fun natural waterslide but a painful pinball game in which my head is the ball.

At the top, finally, I couldn't see down to the water, couldn't see where I would land when I jumped. It was only a 7-meter jump or so, maybe 25 feet. But for about the millionth time this summer, I had the realization that 29 is not at all like 21 - or even 24. Or however old I was the last time I thought these shenanigans were a good idea. I hesitated so long at the top that a local guy who was rowing Ana out to the rock in a canoe to grab a photo of me doing said jump stripped down and scaled that "treacherous" rock in about 10 seconds flat to show me how it's done... Twice. He had to demonstrate it twice for me. That's embarrassing - but it was comforting to see him survive.

As I hemmed and hawed, trying to psych myself up, my mom's voice popped in my head again. If she were there, she'd have swam out to watch and be yelling for me to jump - to be careful! - but to jump. With that thought - my mom's fearless voice in my head - I finally jumped in. Maybe 29 isn't so far from 21 after all.

After all my moments of hesitation - getting into the water initially and jumping into it from that rock - I couldn't will myself out of it at the end of the day. I couldn't pull myself away from the up-close sight of those spectacular falls. I kept dunking my head in the water - telling myself I'd get out and dry off this time - only to swim right back out towards those thundering falls.

Swimming - mostly alone again, I kept thinking about my mom's fearlessness. She has an uncanny way of making things seem safe and normal that give me pause and make my heart pound faster. She's never met a body of water she's scared to jump into. It's her ability to chart her own course, to get into - and out of - sticky situations, and her contagious, big spirit that give me permission - encourage me - tell me it's okay - to set off into the unknown. I live for adventure not because I'm fearless but because she constantly shows me that most of the very best things in life require us to take a deep breath and just dive in.  

right here right now | a cafe in mostar

Lately, I've often found myself wistfully thinking, "I wish this were it. I with it weren't an internship. I wish this were my job, my first post. I wish this were real life."

Sitting at a cafe in Mostar - often called Bosnia and Herzegovina's most beautiful city, potted plants on the walkway trellis, a tea in my hand, I thought it again. I felt that way again. And I have got to stop.

If that were true, I'd have wished this summer away - wished right past the work I'm enjoying, the relationships I'm building. I would've wished past Zan's and my two-week trip through Croatia later this summer. I would've wished past solo traveling through Slovenia. I'd have wished through Scandal nights with girlfriends this fall and patio brunches after the snow melts and the sun sneaks out next spring. I would've wished past my 30th birthday - and my god, I may forget that it happens for other reasons, but I certainly don't want to wish it away. I would've wished past the classes I can't wait to take and all the learning I have left to do. I would've wished past A-100, the basic training for Foreign Service Officers. I would've wished past the emotion of receiving my first bid list and combing through it with Zan, imagining what our lives would be like in dozens of different countries. I would've wished past my first flag day - that day, with my mom and Zan, my friends and my family, with my heart pounding, butterflies fluttering - when I'll find out where my first post will be.

I'm in love with this summer. It's a summer romance with Sarajevo, a passionate affair with the mountains of Bosnia and the vineyards of Herzegovina. I'm crazy about every bit of this experience and this place - about how I feel more me and more confident than I've been in too long. I'm at peace, and it's easy to cling to this incredible moment right now and wish it could last longer than it will. But all that wishing washes away too much damn life I have to live between now and this time next year.

So I'm embracing right here and right now. Next year will come fast - and I want to focus on living it instead of wishing it away. 

your life story in 4 minutes

"It's one of those days when it'll rain if we go, and it won't if we go home."

So we did both.

We hailed a cab, the wine bottles clinking in our backpacks and totes - an anticipatory toast. We rode all the way to the Yellow Fortress. Those heavy, dark clouds followed us up, greeting us with hints of raindrops at the top. My favorite spot in the city, with that view that held me captive just a few weeks ago, that view that tugged at me to stay all day, to make a home out of dirt and trees and ground and sky - it was a restaurant. That small cafe I had smiled at then was now an institution, tables lining the length of the semicircle ruins. As it was days before Ramadan in a predominantly Muslim area, we drank in the view instead of the wine, then made our way down the steep road back to town, into a taxi, and all the way to the gazebo in our yard.

We poured wine and ate meats and cheeses and turned the 36 questions on the way to love into a game. We asked and answered - finding our commonalities and enjoying our differences. We told our life stories in 4 minutes, falling in love with friendship and the shared experience of this summer, of being in this place - this city with its fortress cafes and sidewalk cafes and homemade patio cafes.

To know each other gave context for our ticks and neuroses, our actions and inaction. Knowing each other, I realized that night, replaces judgment with understanding, eye rolls with compassion. To know someone is to create space for them in our hearts, to more easily forgive because we know their motivations. We start to defend them instead of assume the worst. To get to know someone is to call them friend.

Only the clouds were gray that night.

{photos: a monday night at kino bosna}

the moments that fill me up

More than adrenaline or adventure, more than a new story or a stamp in my passport, I chase the moments that fill me up. It's those moments that make me feel like a little balloon is inflating right in my heart. Everything comes more alive in me. It's a high. A spiritual, emotional, and mental high. It's emotional. I'm emotional. It's like an endorphin rush. Like the almost dizzy, out of focus, fuzzy head feeling of falling in love. It's happiness that can't be contained, and you'd never want to try. It's the last few minutes of a long run, when I can spot the finish line - or a hard workout when my vision clears and I get pumped up, determined to finish strong. It's a long weekend reunion with friends I haven't seen for years, around whom it's impossible to be anything but wholly and imperfectly myself. It's those friendships that are so deep they feel like a part of my soul. It's what my friend Melanie calls a happiness hangover. It's the moment at the top of a roller coaster before the sudden drop - that one incredible instant of anticipation. It's the silly "I love everyone" phase of a wine night with close friends. It's recognition for killing it at work, after it felt like the work might kill me. It's receiving the admission letter to my dream school. It's holidays with my family after being away for so long. It's emerging out of a forest onto a mountain peak - that first view around me.

And it's some places in this world. It's without rhyme or reason. It doesn't usually happen at the Eiffel Towers or the Great Walls but at the taste of a local specialty, the warmth of strangers, the sight of an animal I never knew existed or had only seen in movies. It's the feel of the sun, that burns differently on each continent. It's the unexpected moments, the rural villages, the first time seeing a new landscape, the charming wine bar in a new city, the heart-stopping shock of plunging into an ice cold lake. 

I live in search of the moments and the people that fill me up. 

skakavac hiking guide, sorta

There's only one road towards Skakavac, Bosnia's tallest waterfall, situated just 7.5 miles outside Sarajevo. At 320 feet tall, the waterfall, whose name means "grasshopper" in Bosnian, is a quintessential destination for tourists and locals, alike. When I set out to hike it with a few friends, I had a difficult time finding a trail guide. So hey, I thought, why don't I write one?

Most hikers drive up the mountain, parking their cars in front of Dragan's - an incredible mountain hut restaurant and bar run by - you guesssed it - a man named Dragan. Without a car, the hike is doable but much more demanding. A taxi will take you from Sarajevo to Dragan's if you're exceptionally lucky and to about a mile below Dragan's on the mountain road if you're just a normal amount of lucky. If you're not lucky at all, it'll drop you as soon as the road gets steep and leave you to climb the mountain. The taxi costs around 15km, or maybe $8. An even cheaper option is to hop on local bus 69 from Sutjeska in Sarajevo and take it to the end of the line. It will drop you off in Nahorevo, the town closest to the waterfall. There's pretty much only one road, and it leads straight up the mountain.

From Dragan's, signs point to a few different trails, and a trailmap proves helpful in visualizing how the hike should go. It can be done as a loop, and I recommend doing it that way. From Dragan's, continue straight down the road to head towards Skakavac - the gravel road will eventually turn into a true forest trail. You'll pass a spring or two - natural water fountains that stream the freshest, cleanest water you'll ever taste. You can use these to fill up your water bottles or repeatedly splash your face and head and clothes, if you're like me. You'll also pass a few signs confirming you're on the right path to the waterfall, one in what looks like a pretty nice camping area, complete with yurts.

After an hour or so, you'll come to a sign directing you to the left to the falls. After maybe 300 feet, there's a fork in the trail without signs. If you head left first (highly recommended), the short path ends at a fenced in overlook point of the top of the waterfall. After drinking it all in, retrace your steps, and - like a choose your own adventure book - take the other route this time. I can't stress enough that you should do the top of the falls first!

This trail climbs for just a few minutes before leveling out and then going into a long, steep descent. There are stairs for a chunk of it and a well-trodden, if slightly nerve-wracking (especially for any newer hikers) trail the rest of the way down. You'll hear the roar of the waterfall before you see it. The trail flattens out at the base of the falls. The view here... well, you'll have to hike it to see it.

It's possible to get into the falls, so to speak, in a small pool at the base. It's ice cold! Either way, be prepared to get wet. The spray will hit you even at a distance and will cool you off nicely if you step onto a small bridge that passes right in front of the waterfall. When I went, the bridge was broken and half submerged and very slippery.

There are 3 options back: up the way you came (hell on earth) and onwards on the trail that crosses over the falls - over one of two bridges (much easier!). You can cross over the broken bridge in front of the falls or walk down a set of earthen steps to reach a bridge below the falls. I suggest the latter - from that lower bridge, the view is spectacular. The trail loops around, and after about an hour and a half or so, dumps you back in front of Dragan's, where grilled sausages, Bosnian fried bread, cheese, and homemade rakija wait for you. I have to pause to say that the food is hand's down the best I've had in Sarajevo, and Dragan's homemade rakija - don't get me started. Dragan and his son, who helps run the place, are friendly as can be and speak English! As Dragan told me, "Hikers come through here and drink rakija with me and just say 'ciao!' and take a piece of my heart."

Getting back to Sarajevo is equally doable and exhausting. Taxis won't come up to get you - even if you call one say, 15 times. We ended up walking down from Dragan's to within a mile of Kosevo Stadium in Sarajevo before finding a taxi. According to my Stepz app, that put the total hike at about 10.5 miles.

The total loop from Dragan's takes about 3-4 hours - or 5 if you're me and stop to take 1,000,000 photos. Starting from a mile or so below Dragan's and walking back as close to Sarajevo as we did took about 9 hours in total (including a leisurely, late lunch). There is a fair amount of elevation gain on this hike - particularly if you start from below Dragan's. All three of us in my group were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got home. I'd rate the hike as moderate to challenging, depending on where you start. If you start up at Dragan's, it might be on the lower end of moderate.

Shockingly, I wasn't sore the next day. But really - the world might be ending!

thoughts on trails and love, naturally

Hiking to Skakavac Waterfall yesterday - at 98 meters the tallest in Bosnia and the second tallest in Europe - I had this moment on the trek out of the forest when I really wanted to quit. The trail had been gradually inclining for a while, and the slow but steady elevation gain was taking a toll on me. The hike to the waterfall included a mile straight uphill on a mountain road, then two hours or two and a half to reach the waterfall itself. I'd hit that fatigued point when things - climbs - that were relatively easy a few hours ago felt overwhelmingly difficult. Ryan and Ana - my partners in crime and coworkers - were waiting 25 yards ahead of me. I called out to them to go ahead. I'd catch up after catching my breath and hydrating.

I stood in the center of the three-foot wide trail, trees lining my path, moss covered fallen logs in the woods to my right, and a jagged rock face to my left. The sun shone bright and hot above, but the wooded trail provided shade. Rays of sunshine caught on the leaves and limbs and danced on the earthen path. A slow breeze shuffled through the forest every few minutes. I took it all in, trying to mentally get back in the game, and I found myself thinking of Zander.

Two of my favorite memories with Zan are on trails. I half-laughed out loud as that thought occurred to me. His relationship with hiking is lukewarm, at best. But forests and mountains have played a central role in our story, the path (so to pun) of our relationship. The first of these memories is climbing Cotopaxi in Ecuador to the base camp. I spent all morning - and the night before - consumed with nervous anticipation. I couldn't wait for that challenge, the view, the experience, the photos, the story - but I was terrified of the altitude. And then we were there, drinking that pretty gross tasting tea that may or may not have been legal in our country, keeping our fingers crossed that local folklore of the tea's power to rapidly adjust the body to extreme altitudes was true. Believing in it all. And then after all that waiting and preparing, the bus stopped, and we hopped out, spotting the base camp high above us, and we started walking.

Within minutes most of our group had passed us, and my steps were only slowing. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and every step felt like running up a few dozen stairs, at least. Zan paused when I paused. He told me we could go back, but I so didn't want to. We had a goal. So he encouraged me. One step or two steps at a time was just fine. It started to snow, then really snow. In hindsight it's romantic, that image of us creeping six inches or a foot at a time through a snow storm on the tallest volcano in Ecuador. And that's how we walked - in slow motion - to the base camp. Zan got me there. And we made it up there together.

The other memory is our now legendary (to us) ridge hike in the Andes - on that same trip, just days after the volcano. Our guesthouse owner found the hike when we was 8 years old, and so we thought it would be a perfect hike to introduce us to the region. We turned left at the cows and right at the hollowed out tree and went straight into the field where sheep graze on the towering hillside pastures. We followed a hand-drawn map - one of which hangs in our living room now. That map said we'd come out onto a ridge, but we didn't expect the foot-wide, death-taunting-us-from-either-side ledge on which we actually found ourselves.

Zan was terrified, for good reason, and I was high on adrenaline. We talked about going back the way we came, but that felt just as precarious as going forward. I said let me go ahead, a few feet at a time, to test the path, to find sure footing, to figure out some safe points to rest. And Zan trusted me - despite his total and complete fear of heights, he said okay. When I called back with updates and encouragements, he trusted me and stepped where I stepped.

A half mile later, we nearly collapsed on a wide, flat plateau, the sheer cliffs quickly becoming a memory. The view blew us away, peaks for as far as the eye could see, the sky seemingly just beyond our fingertips. We made it across. And we did it together.

I can only hope our shared life is always like the memories of those hikes in Ecuador. There will be moments - big and small, some seemingly beatable and others that feel insurmountable - when one or both of us will feel as though we can't breathe or that we're stuck, unable to move forward and incapable of going back. I hope we allow ourselves time to breathe, unconcerned of who's passing us by, careless if we're the last to reach the next place. I hope we sink into those moments, giving ourselves a few moments of rest, time to take deep breaths deep enough to quiet the fear and calm the uncertainty. I hope that we're always there for each other, trusting and knowing that something stunning, something unexpectedly wonderful is ahead - that it's worth the fight to get to the other side. Together.

Standing on that trail near Skakavac, I finally started hiking again, taking it one or two steps at a time. 

yellow fortress + being at home living abroad

Smoke wafts out of the cevapi restaurant a block away. It streams across the narrow street before getting lost in the trees that frame the Bascarsija mosque. If I were just a few feet closer, I'd be able to smell the grilling sausages. Sitting at a cafe, enjoying the social culture around coffee and tea, I feel at ease. I'm slipping easily into living here. Living somewhere new, where the language eludes me, and the customs challenge and highlight my own - it's fulfilling to me. It's satisfying - immensely satisfying - to find my way around somewhere foreign, to spend twice as long as normal in a grocery store to figure out what's what and take in all the new and different culinary possibilities, to feel my heart beat faster with every new sight I see. It's like living abroad keeps my mind constantly engaged - it keeps me sharper, asks me to learn constantly. I'm never bored, and that's so much of the appeal for me. I'm always challenged. There's always something new to do and somewhere new to see. It makes me acutely aware of living in the moment each day. I feel more present when I live abroad, and that presence is intentional without having to work at it.

This time, living abroad feels easier than it did in Japan. The learning curve is flatter. Maybe it's that it's Europe, though Sarajevo feels like somewhere much further away. (And then again, what do I know about Europe?!) Maybe it's that there's some English, although my experience has been that English here is just slightly more common than it was in Japan. I think it's more likely about experience. I'm older now. I've done this before, and doing it again is like seeing a close friend after years apart. I'm picking up right where I left off.

I wandered up to the Yellow Fortress, an old fortification that once defended the town of of Vratnik, part of Sarajevo's Old Town now. The nickname comes from the slightly yellow color of the rocks used to construct it. It's one of the most popular viewing points in the city. It's so popular that there's even a small cafe up there. It was closed the day I hiked up, but I still shook my head and smiled - Bosnians can't live without coffee, even for a short hike. It's an especially crowded place during Ramadan. There's a canon fired at sunset every night to tell all the practicing Muslims that it's time to break the fast. I hear that people bring feasts and enjoy their picnics with the sun setting over the city. It's sounds pretty great to me.

The day I went, the Fortress wasn't crowded at all. There was a newly married couple taking wedding photos, and I watched in awe, thinking how priceless those images will be one day. I fell in love with this city a little bit more sitting up there, my feet dangling near the edge, snapping photo after photo and pledging that the next time I go, it'll be with a bottle of wine, a pen, and my journal.

bašcaršija and thoughts on my first week in sarajevo

In the short six days that I've been in Sarajevo, I've taken it slow. My body is still adjusting to the time zone difference. I'm exhausted during the day and wired at night. I don't remember being jet lagged for long in Japan. It's another of life's small reminders that 29 isn't at all like 24. I had a three-day weekend for Memorial Day, and a coworker suggested I catch a quick flight to Belgrade - one of his favorite cities in the Balkans. Twenty-four year old me jumped on the idea, sketching out a quick 3-day itinerary and pricing it all out. Twenty-nine year old me then turned to a blank page in my notebook and jotted out ideas and things to see and do for a long weekend right here in Sarajevo.

There's not nearly as much English here as I expected. I told my coworkers how surprised I was at that. Their response: "they're all fooling you. If they're under 40, they speak English." That's a little bit how this city is - vibrant and warm and chock full of character - but also an insider's club. There's a sense of a shared experience - war still so close that the words betrayal and family and friendship mean something different, something profound. That gives Sarajevo a feeling of being on the outside for a visitor. But it seems like an exclusive club that's not closed permanently. It's one that I plan to earn my way into.

Sarajevo's old town, known as Bascarsija, is host to the city's most beloved sights. For my first few visits, I simply wandered and pointed my camera at what caught my eye.

a visit to the abandoned bobsled track in sarajevo

Since being mugged in Ecuador, I find that I'm more wary of strangers and more cautious of where I explore - at home and when I travel, especially when I'm alone. I felt that still fresh and unexpected pang of apprehension walking to and on the abandoned 1984 Olympic bobsled and luge track. It's tucked up on Mount Trebevic, in the hills right above Sarajevo. Within a few minutes of walking, my nerves felt unfounded as I watched a couple hold the hands of their young daughter on the trail just in front of me. Though that hint of caution and fear mostly dissipated, the bobsled track itself left me feeling uneasy and acutely aware of where I was and the history on which I walked.

The winding, curving piece of architecture once united people in a common goal of bringing home medals for Bosnia, a multi-ethnic country with a common identity, even if a tenuous one. Less than a decade after those Winter Olympics, Serb shooters used the same site as a tactical vantage point - a sniper range - holding the people of Sarajevo hostage in their homes and basements for nearly four years during the Siege of Sarajevo. As a tourist, my mind was blown. I couldn't have imagined having the experience of walking up and down an Olympic bobsled track. The cement track - once sparkling in its icy glory - is now dressed in layers of graffiti that range from careless blobs of color to inspired statements. It's a photographer's playground, as well, and I found myself inspired by the stories and sentiments behind those messages on the track walls - even though I couldn't understand most of them. As a human, I felt uncomfortable being there, and I didn't expect that. It felt voyeuristic to tourist a site where sniper rifles aimed and fired at civilians in the city below. To appropriate a cultural symbol of pride and a common identity to propagate a war of nationalistic aggression seems beyond anything just - even when stretched to include warfare. It was an unnerving experience - and the track's history is complicated and unjust.

The abandoned bobsled track is mired in the tragedies of war - but also in the promise of peace and unity. I hope that better legacy is what lives on.