Luke, around the world.

I decide not to take the 4pm train to Mostar, choosing the pre-booked bus instead. I mean, I can always meet JA and that Scandinavian guy at the station, right? But fate has intervened this time.

As I am savouring an astonishingly scenic route, some young guy who has just boarded the bus plonks right next to me and strikes up a conversation.

He is friendly, perhaps a bit too friendly, but some people are like that, so I keep responding kindly to his suave questions. We pass by a village destroyed by a massive landslide several years ago. The man paints a very bleak picture of how this catastrophe occurred. Bribery, breaking health and safety regulations, political indifference – five or so years later, some houses are still hollowed out by giant boulders. The man is quite a talker, and it doesn’t take much time to know that he works in Germany; that he used to be a busboy on cruise ships; that he has very good relations with his mom.

By the time we get off the bus in Mostar, my new friend has already promised me a trip to a great restaurant on top of a hill nearby, hell, he can even drive me to Medjugorje, which I am planning to visit the next day. Five seconds after setting foot in Mostar, he starts to burrow frantically through his pockets. After fifteen seconds or so, he makes a call to his alleged mom, and then turns to me and says that he forgot his wallet.

I am still friendly, so I ask him if I can help in any way. Before I can blink, he says the much dreaded words, I need money.

Let’s play a game, then.

Scams in the digital age are usually done online, or via phone. Few people dare to meet their potential victims face-to-face, and it’s mainly movies like Ocean’s Eleven that paint the alluring picture of a smooth-talking, charming thief that you just cannot blame for being way too good at his trade. I am quite surprised that Amir (whom I will call Scamir from now on) is gutsy enough to try to wheedle some money out of me in person. I am usually a kind low-talker, so his choice of victim might make sense, but I am also a seasoned traveler who avoided many scams in his past. Add a certain level of pettiness and my willingness to play a cat-and-mouse game (which might be a remnant of my failed career in professional poker), and you know that I will not await JA’s arrival on the train station. Instead, I will waste Scamir’s time.

How much and what for, I ask, and he responds that it’s about eighty marks. Too bad, I do not have many marks on me, just a tenner. I decide to part ways with a ten-mark note, I need to use it as bait, since I want to keep him as close as possible for a while. He doesn’t know that I know, but nothing in his story makes sense. He apparently needs money to pay for a business package that is coming to Mostar soon. The courier is fortunately passing through his home village, so his mom can also forward Scamir’s missing wallet. For some reason, she is unable to pay herself, so Scamir still needs my money. In the meantime, he calls his boss (who, what a shocking turn of events, is also unable to pay); he calls the courier, who is unwilling to come unless the shipping money is delivered through an online transaction. Red flags everywhere.

We have reached Mostar’s historic center and Scamir is giving me a walking tour, here’s a nice coffee shop, have a look at the view from the bridge, yeah, it’s stunning, but in the meantime he is going through a whole array of possibilities. What if I have euros? What if I withdraw some money at an ATM? What if he pays me back three times the amount as soon as the courier arrives with the package?

We sit down for a tea, I am willing to pay for his for the simple reason that he spent the last couple of hours walking me around and entertaining me by desperately trying to get money off me. He leaves for a few minutes and comes back with bad news – it’s not eighty marks, it’s eighty euros, which is double the initial amount. I chuckle and tell him we can go to an ATM, but whoops, lo and behold, I hit a limit on my Revolut account and I cannot top it up, so there is no money to be withdrawn. I show him the pending transaction, which I could easily authenticate on the phone, but Scamir doesn’t know it.

We eventually separate at sunset, but not before exchanging WhatsApp contacts. He works in Germany, but for some reason his phone number is from Austria. Another red flag. I thank him for a very good five-euro walking tour, and disappear.

Of course, he writes to me a few hours later, begging for some money, perhaps I can unblock my Revolut (little does he know, it was never blocked), perhaps I can use some virtual card to make a transaction on a website, and his boss (yeah, right) will immediately send the money back, plus the tenner I gave him at the very beginning. A final, desperate attempt to get more than five euros from me.

The next day, he writes again to say he has managed to pick up the package. How? He wouldn’t say, but his situation was allegedly hopeless the day before. He wants to meet, which I ignore.

Why would I even waste my afternoon on Scamir? First of all, time wasted by any scammer is time well-spent. And as soon as I saw dollar signs in his eyes, I knew it would be either me, or someone gullible, maybe an old lady, or someone’s granddad. One of my guilty pleasures before the start of the trip had been to watch how American cybersecurity experts set scamming centers (metaphorically) aflame; perhaps this was my way of saying thank you for all the good work, my little chip-in for a just and, let’s face it, pretty enjoyable cause.

After we split, I decide to have a walk among the crowds of tourists, an intuitive and healthy reaction to avoid Scamir, just in case he is lurking around some dark corner. The views are once again excellent. I see the bridge JA and the Scandinavian guy wanted to jump from. I wish I had been there with them, but I still had plenty of fun that day.

The next morning, I find a bus that, for a small fee, gets me to Medjugorje; maybe I feel like I need to repent for my petty plan to waste Scamir’s time. The real reason is different. I might have been at odds with the Church most of my life, but when your grandma and mom ask you to come visit, you cannot say no to these fine ladies. Even if no such request was made, I would still come, expecting a place unlike any other.

And my expectations were met.

I can feel an undeniable sense of purpose and determination as soon as I get off the bus. The feeling is undiminished by the fact that half of the village has one goal only, to cater for tourists coming in droves: restaurants, souvenir shops selling rosaries and many-sized Holy Mary figurines, hotels, the whole shebang. Not exactly mystical, but let me first walk away a little bit further in search of a different experience.

Medjugorje is very well-known in the Catholic world, but few Catholics know it is actually the neighbouring village Bijakovici where the first Gospa vision allegedly took place. Back in 1981, six children claimed to have seen the apparition of Holy Mary. While the Catholic Church has never officially confirmed the credibility of what the kids said, it allows pilgrimages to continue.

And the pilgrims keep coming. It’s a rather long walk to the Hill of Apparition, and a strenuous one. The rocky surface can cause quite a few sprained ankles, yet, miraculously, nobody gets injured. People of all ages, all nationalities, and all skin colours keep trudging uphill. Some sing, some are lost in mumbled prayers, but everyone’s bearing witness to faith out in the open.

Oh, to be once more a part of the community I left so long ago! But then I don’t have my apostasy written all over my face, and there’s always a backdoor for lost sheep, not that it’s very honorable to use it, but we are frail creatures after all. The Mary statue at the hilltop looks at an incredible view everyday; her eyes are calm and benevolent, her frozen figure invites even the most hardened sinner.

But this is not my Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment. To enjoy the view and to hide in plain sight among other pilgrims is a sweet escape, but eventually I have to start going downhill. Back on a deserted village road, I can hear Shallow, by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, coming from one of the shops lining the street, and just starting. On hearing the lyrics I almost break down, but something about this place stops me. It’s a very hard journey I undertook, there are easier ways to live your life in peace. But I am bound to do it, I am bound to keep pushing.

Back in Medjugorje, and still with a lot of time to spare, I visit the parish grounds. On my way, I meet two Spanish women hiding in the shade of a big bus with Polish license plates, looking for directions to their hotel. My first ever conversation in Spanish, bits and pieces of what I learned on Duolingo. Por aqui…la iglesia…a la izquierda. It’s as if I were speaking in tongues. Now informed, the two pilgrims continue along the way I have just come from.

There is a statue of Christ Risen, and a queue to wash His feet. All the fourteen Stations of the Cross are hidden in the labyrinthine garden surrounding the statue. Back in the church building, I see many confession booths, most of them are labelled with Hrvatska, for Croats. There is one in English. There is one for Poles, but there’s no priest inside.

Coming back from this tiny religious bubble into a world where Scamirs prowl the intercity buses was like being ejected from the amniotic sac, the umbilical cord cut, the first breath, the first cry. A dial indicating my lack of faith might not have moved a second, but this short trip to Medjugorje reminded me of what I always cherished in the Catholic Church – an unbreakable sense of community bound by a covenant. Kurt Vonnegut was right when he responded to a recently freed prisoner asking about what he should do after release. Join a church, as long as you do not join the one that decides to bomb abortion clinics. One that is actually filled with love for sinners? Yeah, that makes sense.

I spend the next day walking the streets of Mostar, exploring it in daylight. Basking in the sun, it looks even more splendid, probably the most beautiful city I have seen so far. There are many tourists and non-tourists in the streets; it’s Sunday, the Holy Day. There is no sign of Scamir. I wish I could talk honestly to him and smack some sense into his cheating head. Perhaps we all have our own Damascus sooner or later, and until it happens, we will falter and make mistakes. But as long as we keep moving, a chance remains.