The Green Interior – Day 2

Day 2 of 7

Into the Rakitnica

No lunch stop, no tarmac, no problem. David from Monaco pays the first round.

Lukomir in the morning is something you don’t plan for. You wake up and the village is still asleep. Stone houses, silence, a dog somewhere. Michel, who I’d figured for a fast rider and not much else, is outside with his camera before breakfast, crouched in front of one of the small houses and the mosque, shooting with the focus of someone who’s forgotten there are motorcycles involved in this trip. I walk past him twice. He is so deep in his minds that he doesn’t notice.

Breakfast, after witch Raha – our host, handles small handmade sandwiches into everyone’s hands as we load the bikes. No lunch stop today. She knows the road we’re taking. She’s seen people come back from it before.

My brother joins us at Blatačko lake, which sits above the Rakitnica canyon like it doesn’t know what’s below it. We stop at the viewpoint there. The whole of Visočica spreads out in front of us, the canyon cutting deep and dark through it, and somewhere at the bottom is the Rakitnica river. We’re going down there.

“The descent into the canyon is the kind of riding that stops conversation. Engines braking hard down the drop, dust rising off the line in front, the “provalija” (cliff edge), close enough on one side that nobody looks.“

Note for riders!!!
The Rakitnica descent is genuinely demanding — loose surface, steep gradient, sustained concentration. Single-cylinder bikes handle it well. Larger, heavier machines need careful line choice and honest throttle control. Not the place to find out what your limits are for the first time.

Enjoy the RIDE!

Halfway down, David from Monaco goes over. He’s fine. Bike is fine. He stands up, dusts himself off, and looks at the group with the expression of a man who already knows what’s coming. He does. The tally grows.

We reach the bridge at the bottom. The Rakitnica is glacier-cold. you can drink straight from it, and several people do. We eat Raha’s sandwiches in the shade under the bridge. I’m eating last night’s leftover pita. The group watches me with the specific expression of people who made a tactical error somewhere and have only now realised it. Sandwiches are fine. Pita is better. They know this.

The climb out is the other side of the canyon wall – serpentine switchbacks, demanding terrain, the kind of uphill that tests your clutch hand and your patience in equal measure. And then, without warning, the surface changes. The rock and dust give way to grass and mud. We’ve crossed the invisible line – Bosnia behind us, Herzegovina ahead. The character of the land shifts with it: softer, rounder, greener. And there, across the canyon on the far ridge, is Lukomir. We can see where we slept last night from here. The group stops and looks back at it for a while.

Day two photo book

We reach the mountain hut by late afternoon. I find out that everyone makes their own bed here — sheets folded at the foot, military style, house rules. The group takes this in stride. There’s something clarifying about it: you make your own bed, you pull your own weight, nobody slept here before you and left anything behind. By the time the two rounds of beer are poured — David’s rounds, bought without argument — the beds are made and nobody is thinking about them anymore.

I’m still the only one who hasn’t gone down.

I mention this to no one.

Day 3 we push further into Herzegovina. The terrain flattens a little. The roads get longer. Someone will find a way to fall on flat ground — they always do.