Taxi ride to end all taxi rides

My regular readers will know that crazy taxi drivers and violent driving are a common staple of this blog. My ride from Prijepolje to Sarajevo may have been wildest and most rewarding yet.

So after raging until 2am, I was woken up at 5am to catch the taxi to Saravejo. It is a common route but not busy enough for buses (nor are buses really able to handle the trek, as I soon discovered), so some taxis run a set route, hence the super early time. Edo's mom gave me breakfast (good tea!) and packed me food for the journey, and I was off. It was myself and and a man along with the driver, and they both definitely spoke no English, so I was planning on snoozing the entire ride.
Nope. My beaten body and stomach combine with the narrowing winding road and the general ignoring of speed limits (and stop signs. We pasted like 5 or 6, didn't stop at a single one. They were treated as yield signs) meant that AJ was not going to sleep. While it probably wasn't as bad as Anna's trip from Poi Pet to Bangkok, it was pretty miserable for the first hour and I was very worried about losing my breakfast on the roller coaster ride. At some point we stopped for coffee, and I had my first Turkish style coffee, which is nice and strong. The coffee gave me enough to rally (note my headache/hangover didn't really show until 11am, after I arrived), and I was much more awake for the rest of the trip.
I spent the rest of the trip glued to the window. This was partially to take in the stunning views, but mostly it is because everyone needs to hold on the car so they are not flung across the car (seatbelts? Ha!). We picked up an elderly couple, who looked exactly as you would expect an elderly Balkan couple to look, and so for the rest of the ride, the 4 men held tight to their steering wheel handle*, and the lady sat in the middle with her purse on her lap and swayed back and forth.
*The handle that supposed to be used to help you get in and out of the car. What is it called?

The views were stunning. We followed several rivers pretty much the entire way, including cruising for an hour up (down?) a gorge (over the Dirna river?) in a drive that would have put the Going to the Sun road to shame. The road was constantly weaving in and out of the mountain side through really short (10-30m) tunnels. At one point the gorge got really narrow, and we popped into the mountain on the right side, emerged from the tunnel and immediately entered the mountain on the left side. I would assume that at some point we crossed the river but it was nowhere to be seen.

Saravejo was great, but I the taxi ride was the highlight of the day