A fleeting glimpse into Bosnian pyramids

I went to Bosnia for 1 day. Cause I had to cross the border, after staying 30 days in Serbia. I decided to visit the so called pyramid of the sun. I've heard there is a huge hill which looks like a pyramid. And there are some independent researchers who suggested that it is actually a pyramid. The speculated age is 12000 years old. I used to listen to the radio show from Coast to Coast AM called Bosnian Pyramid & New Physics. It was pretty interesting. The main guest was Semir Osmanagich which I believe proposed the idea. He was talking about some experiments they made around the place. Those experiments contribute to the claim, although not necessarily proving the hypothesis. Obviously there are a lot of resources needed to dig the hill, to see whats actually inside. But it becomes pretty difficult, as there is no scientific recognition on one side. And on the other side a tourist industry had grown around the place. The theory became popular in new age circles. There are people coming to check it, and they buy stuff. So the refutation of the hypothesis is not of a business interest anymore. There is not much support to dig it to the truth either.

I woke up in the bus, when the driver turned on the light and said something. So I was pretty sure that I arrived and left the bus. It turned out to be not Sarajevo, but a small town to the South called Pale. It was 5 a.m. There were no direct buses to Visoko, where the pyramid located. The closest bus to Sarajevo was at 6. And they go approximately every hour. But I had no Bosnian money. So I waited for some bank to open to exchange some euro.

There was a big pedestrian street at the center of the town. May be 500 meters long. A bunch of concrete and multi floor buildings around. And then few steps away I could see the private type lands with houses spread all the way to the mountains. In this very small area I stumbled upon a church, a hypermarket, lots of cafes and may be 8 different banks. Each of them opening at 8. So I got some Bosnian marks for euros. 1 euro was around 1.96 marks. Compared to Serbia, Macedonia and Albania, they actually use coins a lot because of the rate.

Interestingly enough the company Sberbank was there. Which in Russia serves as the central bank. It's like the biggest and most common in Russia. And I also found those banks in Serbia. I used to visit one in Belgrade, to pay some bill to their government. But they appeared to be so strange even compared to Russia. Workers clearly not interested in serving a big queue. Bouncing you between each other. And while you seat and wait when they decide to do something about you, nothing really happens. It's like you can sit there whole day, if you would not insist them to get your money. And after you do everything, they expect you to give them a commission for the service of processing the payment. So when I stumbled upon the bank in Bosnia I bypassed it. Just visited some other bank for exchange.

And that's going on today. When we have a brilliant technology to push the button from the phone to send some coin directly to the receiver. You can do it in a secure way, without asking any 3d party to process and check your personal data before sending it to another 3d party. Until it finally reaches someones pocket on the other end of the world. Everything in a few seconds. What we do instead? We go to the bank, spending our time and energy, arguing with other people being stuck in the same system. Everything around finances became so huge. They now want to take control of the crypto space intended to liberate us from the rotten system. You can clearly see that it is not about putting the regulations in place to protect the people. But to concentrate it in someones hands once again so they can control every transaction. That is just another way some people want to control others. A weird thing about humans. But thats another story.

Here I must put a referral link to an exchange app I use for crypto. From there you can buy some crypto for a few dollars directly from another person or whatever. Everything from the phone. They ask for a sim card number and do KYC, cause its still fairly centralised exchange, but not to any government in particular. I don't know. Never thought I would promote anything here. But it helped me few times along my travels.

I took the bus to Sarajevo. As the bus is going by the side of the mountain you can see the city in the depression between mountains. There is something unusual about it, as all those houses are nesting on the slopes. We went all the way around this beauty and ended up in the south-west outskirts of the city. Probably I left the bus too early once again. May be it actually goes to the central bus station. But everybody left the bus at Dobrinja and it stopped. So I decided to move. And it started to rain. More and more. I found a half broken umbrella on the street. Fixed it little bit. But the central station was so far, that I shortly decided to take a local bus, leaving the umbrella at the stop. New bus went somewhere else in the wrong direction. So I made a couple of stupid moves around. Got wet and tired. After all I've used a bus, a trolleybus and a tram to get to the ill-fated Central Bus Station.

So I discovered something about the transportation system in Sarajevo. The ticket costs 1.8 Bosnian marks. You can buy from the driver, so he gives you a pass. You can often see the Centrotrans branding on the bus. I think it is a big private company providing most of the transportation for the population of the city. Much like in Russia buses are owned by some private companies contracting the government. Although in Russia you can not see any brands, it looks like a no name government thing.

Before visiting Bosnia, I've read somewhere on the internet that you can get to the pyramid town by the Centrotrans bus. So I thought it's just one of the possible providers. Much like in Turkey you come to the station and there are many companies offering different rates. And there was a place in Maps.me called Centrotrans Bus Station. So I've actually got to the place by foot under the rain. It appeared to be just some technical station of the company. You can not get any bus there. Unless you pass the severe security guy sitting on the watch. But he said a definite no, so I proceeded to slosh through the puddles to the Central Bus Station.

From there I was going to get a ticket to Visoko, the pyramid town. Sometimes they give you a paper called Karta. Other times they give you a receipt with the QR code, that you can use on the drivers terminal when entering the bus. I was late for the bus. So I just came to the peron and bought a ticket directly from the driver. And finally went to the place.

When I arrived to Visoko I found with my eyes a big hill behind the city, which appears to have a shape of an isosceles triangle. The sun barely came out of clouds spreading some warmth around the place. I went towards the hill. The unusual thing was a graveyard just near the bus station. A bunch of stones in the grove barely carved and eroded with the time. It looked really ancient. I passed the bridge and went by the streets of the town. Some shops appeared selling souvenirs and different stuff made of leather. Traditional shoes. And you can notice some signs on the street appear, showing directions to tourist attractions. I just followed the Pyramid of the sun route in the hope of getting as close as possible. To see the actual digging. But it was pretty far. I stopped in some cafe to grab a coffee and asked locals about the pyramid.

One guy pointed me to the hill I was following and said that it is the pyramid. Another guy said if I want to get to the top, I would jump in a mud. Because of the weather it was not really a good idea. He showed me a picture from the top and I noticed some big stones there. He said that there used to be a village on the mountain. But then it was abandoned at some point. So I guess even if you dig the hill to get to the pyramid walls you never know what you stumble upon. May be just a bunch of old stones from the people who used to live there. And otherwise the hill looked completely like a normal hill with trees. The closer you get to it the pyramid shape becomes less prominent. The guy recommended me to visit tunnels instead. He said I can take a taxi and meet an English guide there. So the locals will probably help you to find some attraction. It feels like they are pretty happy about tourists. However I was on the budget and walking by foot. And I needed to get back to the bus station till afternoon. So I dropped the idea of walking to the pyramid under the rain.

I decided to go towards those tunnels little bit. I don't know what kind of tunnels they were, some archeological dig. But they should have been a real thing. I just found the location on the map and went there while having a couple of hours. The streets were beautiful. They reminded me of some Turkish villages. Up and down the hills. Lands becoming vaster with occasional unique houses here and there. Locals going on with their semi rural life, inspecting you like an alien.

After a while I've noticed some unusual structures down the ravine through the black trees. Some stones lined up in circles. But they were looking very new. As if they were built there last year. I went further by the road and stumbled upon a street full of crystal shops. It was very interesting. The guy at the very beginning of the street said that they want to present me something. He took a stone from under the table and gave it to me."We want to present you a piece of this beautiful land", - he said. Being polite, I took this stone. Not exactly a pure crystal. Nor just a normal one. Like a milky quartz. It was heavy. But I took it with me for a while.

At this point I think I've missed those tunnels. I have no idea how it happened, may be it was closed for a while, or I have not noticed any signs of entrance. But I found this map in the internet after my trip. You can notice an Underground Labyrinth Ravne place there. I was going from the North-East down the street where it is located on the map. I passed the crystal street, as you can see some small buildings on the picture, missed the tunnels entrance and there were 2 ways. Somewhere further straight to the Museum exhibition or left into the huge park. I honestly did not expect that much of a stuff around the place. I thought there are only a bunch of guys trying to dig the pyramid hill. But it turned out to be the whole area around the city is full of attractions.

I proceeded into the park just to look around. I believe they are still building it. And you can see different signs with photos telling you some stories about the place. Looks like volunteers come and build this park. But I don't know. Had a very few time to explore. It is a wide field. Just to go from one object to another takes time. So I went straight towards the place that I've seen through the trees from the top.

I stepped into something called Magic Forest. Small round stones around the trees painted in different colors and occasional sculptures. One stone circle at the very beginning looked like a magic ritual layout. 3 circles inside each other with occasional entrances. So I tried it. You always have 2 options to go either left or right once you enter the next inner circle. So it felt little confusing. It may be not exactly a ritual thing. But rather a beautiful constellation of stones.

That is the thing we fail to reproduce while trying to imitate old mysterious structures on earth. When we see something ancient we may ask. What was the original purpose? What was the real reason for building something monumental? We simply don't have a definite answer. No wonder there are multiple possibilities and no purpose at the same time. You can walk the park just randomly wandering around and meditate on all kinds of questions. It is a huge land. Some big stones and platforms here and there. In my quest to find something ancient and mind boggling I went little bit further into the magic forest. Until I finally found a toilet cabin. Where I could flush my liquid and relax.

For me that was the turning point. As I had not much time left. Just went back straight to the station as fast as possible to catch the bus. Shot my way through the bushes up along the steep slope of the ravine cutting a decent part of the way. Returned my crystal stone to its mother land on the way under the tree. Stepped back onto the street, and there was no need to pass any crystalline shops anymore. No tunnels today I thought. I lost my way stepping into the enchanted forest. I guess I should have followed the main road no matter what as Gandalf recommended. Then I would probably got to the ancient tunnels. But it's OK, may be another time.

From there things started to fold down quick. I went to the graveyard, took a bus to Sarajevo, took the last bus to Pale, and goodbye beautiful Bosnia. Going back to Belgrade. In conclusion, I have not really got to any of the ancient things that I've heard of, but lost myself around buses and other attractions. If you take a trip to Visoko, make sure you take the bus to the Sarajevo central station and there you can find a bus to the place going every hour or so. You'll need some time to explore. At least a full day for each attraction. So you can walk comfortably and explore the area. I'm pretty sure there are many interesting details to catch. There are also many taxis operating, but I never use it. Just walking by streets gives a feeling of the place outside of its tourist nature. For me thats the most interesting part. But there are many roads in this world to explore.