
THE JUMP
BY MAX HUDGINS
Standing on the ledge of a bridge over the Neretva River, I wondered how I had found myself here. I wasn’t even supposed to be in Mostar today. I had missed my stop in Trebinje thanks to a long night out and an early bus ride and settled on spending a few more days in Mostar.
I was on my way north through the Balkans and had shared a bus with some friends I had met. Since I didn’t have an internet connection or a place to stay, I asked if I could follow them to their hostel. Once settled in, we got lunch and explored the city’s old town. While eating, we saw a crowd form along Stari Most and a man in a Speedo make the 79-foot drop from the hump of the bridge into the cold Neretva. Then and there, I decided I would only leave this town once I made that jump.



The Ottomans originally built the Stari Most (or Old Bridge) in the 16th century. It quickly became a tradition for boys, usually around 16, to make the nearly 80-foot drop into the cold Neretva River. This skill takes a lot of training. If the boy backed out, it is said that the rest of his life would be a complete failure.
During the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Croat and Serb forces attempted to erase the Bosnian culture through ethnic cleansing and genocides at sites such as Srebrenica. In November 1933, Bosnian-Croat forces destroyed the Stari Most because of its strategic and cultural importance. After the war, the city rebuilt the bridge. However, many scars from the war still plague the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are no different.

With parts of my lunch still in hand, I went through the corridors of Mostar’s old town until I finally reached the bridge and saw a sign that read “Divers Club Mostari”. I figured that might be the spot and made my way to talk to one of the divers, a bald twenty-something whom I identified by his Speedo.
I asked him if I could jump off the bridge sometime today. He took a fry from my $3 kebab and fed it to a nearby pigeon before asking me about my experience cliff jumping. I told him I had jumped from maybe 30 feet before and was ok with heights (that second part was a lie; it’s a crippling fear of mine), and after a quick interview, he told me to come back at 4:00 in a swimsuit and that I would have to train before making the jump.

I began going down to the river; after an afternoon nap, I felt sluggish. However, as I looked up at the bridge, the thought of making the plunge in just a few minutes woke me up. I got down to the river, and my trainer, a Bosnian guy named Rambo, told me to jump into the water to get used to it, as even in July, the water is freezing cold. I got up on the first ramp, maybe 15 feet above the water, and made my first jump. “No good,” Rambo told me. He gave me some feedback and said, “Go one more time.”
I climbed up to the higher ledge, this one 30 feet tall, took a deep breath, and stepped off. “Very good!” I heard Rambo say as I climbed up onto the riverbank. “Listen my friend,” Rambo began to tell me. “We once have American paratrooper jump off bridge, he land wrong, feet open, and his testicle shoot up into his stomach,” he said pointing to his abdomen. “He have to go to hospital. But listen you do one, two more from this height you will be fine to jump bridge.” “Word,” I thought. “Thanks for telling me right before I’m about to head up there.”



I had made my last practice jump and was ready—or at the very least semi-qualified—to make my way up to the bridge to take the leap. I stepped over the railing, held on to it for dear life, and gave a thumbs-up that I was ready. For a brief couple of seconds, I had considered backing out. But as every tourist around me whipped out their phone to record, and Rambo telling me to jump, I counted backwards from three and stepped off the ledge.
I remember stepping off, looking at the river, and making damn sure my feet were closed to keep everything in its place. It lasted a lot shorter than I thought it would, and when I hit the river, a sense of relief and the water washed over me. I swam up towards the surface and out toward the bank of the river, high fives all around. As I tried to walk back up to the Divers Club to write my name in the logbook, there was nothing I could do to stop my legs from shaking.
MAX HUDGINS is an American traveller, scuba diver, and writer. He was born in Washington, DC, but grew up in the Republic of Panama since he was four years old. He has travelled extensively throughout Latin America and Eastern Europe and his favourite country to visit is Albania. You can find him on Instagram @m.hudg or via email at maxhudgins02@gmail.com.