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Visoko — The Bosnian Pyramid! — August 2006
I'd read about the Bosnian pyramid when it was first discovered, way before I'd ever planned on actually going to Bosnia, so I forgot about it entirely. Then when we were in Sarajevo, I saw a pamphlet about it and got super excited, like, holy shit, that's not that far from here! And Alexis had his car! So Alex and Tami and I hit the road to go find the pyramid, about thirty kilometers northwest of Sarajevo.
The pyramid is way out in the Bosnian countryside, but the locals have already set up snack stands and souvenir stands, and they're charging money to park on their property. I say good for them! Here Alexis makes the secret sign of our secret pyramid cult while swalling a popsicle whole. Tami displays our favorite snack in Bosnia: pretzel sticks with peanut butter in them, inexpicably called "Pardon," which is funny in both English and French.
The pyramid currently looks like a mountain, for the most part (I mean, everybody around there just thought it was a mountain, these last few millenia). They've begun to excavate certain parts of it, and there are these zigzag pathways winding up to the various points of interest. On our way up here, a lady heard us speaking English and asked us where we were from, and we said the US, and she tol us in her thick Bosnian accent, we're from the US too! Turns out she and her husband are both Bosnian but met while working in casinos in Las Vegas, where they still live.
Alexis really likes doing that.
Scarab beetle! This really is a pyramid! I should maybe mention here, a lot of scientists are really skeptical about this mountain being a pyramid, and I kinda am too. They're definitely unearthing some manmade structures under all the dirt on the mountainside, but the guy who's in charge of the project is pretty wacky, and I could see this whole thing turning out to be bullshit. Like, it's definitely a fascinating and mysterious archeological site on what's either a regular old mountain or possibly a manmade, hollow pyramid. I look forward to hearing more about this in the next few years! They plan to expose the whole pyramid, and the guy in charge has identified something like four more mountains in the area that are totally also pyramids. We'll see!
Hooboy, Alexis. I really miss that guy.
Some sort of something. One kind of annoying thing about this whole attraction is that they don't really explain anything, possibly because they don't have any answers about anything yet.
Exposed steps of the pyramid. Whatever this thing really is, it's really mindblowing to see those obviously manmade tiles on the floor there and know that they were hiding under a few meters of dirt for the last few thousand years.
Souvenir stands.
Pyramid t-shirts, pyramid hats, pyramid plaques, pyramid clocks, little wooden pyramid paperweights, and a pot of roasted corn (not for sale!).
Right at the base of the pyramid, next to where we parked, this heavily-damaged house stands vacant and wide open for anybody to wander through. Every one of those dots is a bullet hole. That's a lot of bullets. It's kind of scary and sad to see this house that hasn't been renovated and wonder if there's no one left from this family to renovate it.
There's the pyramid as we drive away. Imagine what the people who live in those houses out front think about this bizarre discovery, and all the people coming from all over the world to their village! Imagine what this part of the Bosnian countryside will look like if the thing really is a pyramid and they manage to expose the whole thing! Wow. The next day, we did some more driving around in the mountains with Lada's mom, to visit the last virgin forest in Europe...
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