Inland to Mostar by bus

The few people around us on the bus slept through most of our early morning ride to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I wasn't sure how they could. Heading north out of Dubrovnik, the road quickly zig-zagged up the steep coastal ridge until we were high up over the Adriatic Sea. From our point of view on the inland side of the bus, there was nothing between us and the distant Croatian islands but the clouds and the birds.

A narrow strip of Bosnian land cuts through Croatia to the coast there, so we crossed the border three times that morning before entering Bosnia and Herzegovina for good. The third time he was 

tapped awake on the bus by a border guard, the man across from me muttered under his breath in English, "Jesus, pick a country!"

Once our bus turned inland toward Mostar, the 

landscape changed dramatically. It was a rainy morning, so the silvery sage covered hills all around reminded me of the arid high-plains of Wyoming at its greenest.