Bosnia is a small country – roughly the size of West Virginia – but mostly mountainous and with a single short highway

Crossing it takes time and our way of doing so was hitchhiking

After Srebrenica, our destination was Banja Luka, capital of Bosnia’s predominantly Serb Republika Srpska region. To get there we had to cross the country, primarily traveling throughout the predominantly Bosniak (Muslim) Federation region

The towns in the Federation felt less Eastern European than the ones in the Republika Srpska: Mosques play the call to prayer, outdoor markets are crowded with vendors, many women wear head coverings. People often greet you with the Islamic “asallam-u-aleikum” (Peace be upon you)

Our first day on the road took us deep through the forest, past mountaintop villages that typically consisted of a few buildings around a mosque. We ended up stranded in a near-silent town, waiting next to a trickling river for a car to pass. After an hour, a forest ranger on his way home from work picked us up and drove us on a dirt path over a mountain. At one point, the road entered a cave that had been blasted into a cliff and now functioned as a tunnel

Throughout the day, we had no English-speaking drivers and ended up in a motel on Bosnia’s lone highway

We started the next day hitchhiking by the highway’s on-ramp. Our first driver, an older woman in a headscarf, drove us 15 minutes down the highway and left us on the next on-ramp. After a few minutes waiting there, a young man named Dino pulled over. Blasting music and puffing on a vape, he spoke perfect English and offered us a ride

Dino used to be a dancer in London but post-Brexit visa complications led him to move back to Bosnia. He now worked as a tour guide at “Bosnia’s pyramids”

Since 2005, a Texas-based Bosnian-American businessman has claimed that mountains in Bosnia are actually the world’s largest pyramids. The claims are based on the shape of the mountains and various historical and archaeological evidence, including tunnels near the site, the site’s importance in Bosnian history, and artifacts discovered there

Local authorities have supported his claims and funded his research, turning it into an off-the-beaten-path tourist destination

Professional archaeologists say the pyramid claims are absurd. Among various critics, the European Association of Archaeologists has called them a "cruel hoax." Regardless, the “pyramids” attract tourists, and Dino worked as a guide at this place

When I told Dino that we were in Bosnia to learn about the country’s history and politics, he laughed

“You are in a complicated place. You could live your whole life here and still not understand it”

When I commented on how amazing it is that Bosnia is stable, given the political and ethnic divides, he cut me off: “It’s not stable. War could break out at any minute”

“It’s like Israel and Gaza. North or South Korea,” he continued. ”I just say all the time, ‘Thank God that we are in Europe. If we were in Africa or an island…” he trailed off, then added, “War could go off here at any time”

Before he dropped us off, we told Dino we were headed to Banja Luka to learn about Milorad Dodik, the president – many say dictator – of the Republika Srpska

“He is the worst thing to happen to our country,” Dino said. In the coming days, we’d try to find out if that was indeed true