Goodbye Croatia

Ok, so my last blog ended by arriving in Dubrovnik. Well, because I was a little over excited about Dubrovnik, I began my Europe blogging with Dubrovnik. Soooo…scroll way down to the bottom of my blog to see how great Dubrovnik really was. My Dubrovnik blog ended with “We clubbed it up, Croatian-style in Dubrovnik and capped off, what was my favorite stop on our trip.” So let’s pick up there…

2:31am – Cotter and Yours Truly on the dance floor with by Ash and Ola – our two Polish friends we had met earlier – ok, rewind about 2 1/2 hours.

12:13am – “Do you have a light?”

The three of us looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, “sorry”, we said. As Ola leaned over to light Ash’s cigarette, Benny piped up, “Hey, they had a light, why did they ask us?” Cotter, myself, Ola and Ash all fixed our eyes on Benny. Nobody said a word. Cotter and I made eye contact, we gave each other that half-head-turn-eyes raised-partial smirk “idiot” look. Despite Benny’s calling them out on trying to flirt with us, they were cool about it. Definitely one of the classic moments on our trip.

Ok, so 2:31 – back to the dance floor. “Cotter!” I yelled over the thumping remixes of 90’s rock. “Dude, we gotta roll” We did the old back-away, point to the watch, give the painful “we gotta go” look to the girls…they kissed us on the cheek. “Dude!” I yelled again. “Where’s Benny?”

We combed the club in search of our Benny. Fortunately we happened to run into him near the door. The boys didn’t want to leave…but I knew that we needed to have the car back to Split by noon the next day, and I knew I’d be driving and we figured we could seep until about 5:45…you don’t have to be a mathematician to realize that the next day was going to be brutal.

5:45am – back to the same old drill. Cotter and Benny take turns being passed out in the back and keeping me from being passed out in the front. We retraced our path back up the coastline – absolutely gorgeous coastline. It was Saturday so the beaches were packed. We gawked at the glorious islands in the distance and whipped around mountain switchbacks. For me in the Peugeot, the mountain driving was bliss. For Benny the equation was as follows: too much Ozujsko (Aaaz-Jew-Sko) + 3 hours of sleep + back seat of car + morning sun + mountain switchbacks + my driving = Puke.

Not a great day for Benny.

After about 5 hours in the car, we rolled up to the airport in Split. We returned our car to Eurocar and hopped on a bus headed for the port of Split. Getting off the bus, we were greeted by mobs of people hoping to rent us a Sobe for the night. We turned down about 15 people and headed over to get our ferry tickets.

For 54 Euros, we got our tickets the Italy. We would board the ferry at 8pm, it would push off at 9pm and it would arrive in Italy the next morning at 7am. Perfect. We covered our lodging for the night and our transportation back to Italy.

Having secured our tickets, we headed out to explore Split. My two Croatian advisors (Danny & Amy) had told me “Split is a hole” and “Split from Split”, respectively. However, as the largest coastal city and port in Croatia, we had to go to Split to 1) drop off the car, and 2) catch the ferry.

Being pretty tore up from the drive and from the night before, we wandered through the street vendors in the oppressive Split head looking for, well, I’m not sure what we were looking for. Cotter was looking for a Croatia soccer jersey which he ultimately decided that he would never actually wear…so he didn’t buy it. I was hot, sweating, tired and looking for nothing and Benny, well, he felt like crap.

We finally decided that we’d go find a place to get out of the sun, sip some espresso and just chill. We sat, read, sweated, read, sweated some more, talked about how hot it was, discussed finding a beach, sweated some more, realized there was no beach, talked about jumping in the water where the ships came in, actually went and looked at the water where the ships came, thought better about jumping in the water where the ships came in, continued to sweat.

At five o’clock, we were hungry again. We decided that we would try to spend all of our Kuna before we left Croatia, so we wandered down an alleyway, looked a few menus, and finally decided on a place. It was early, so we were the first at dinner. We looked at the menu and ordered the beef. Not really knowing what it was and, after the waiter walked away, I realized that he never asked me how I wanted it cooked. To my delight the “beef” turned out to be a filet and it was cooked, well, like a filet should be cooked – just enough not to keep you up at night (medium-rare with the emphasis on the “rare”).

The bill came and we added up all of our Kuna. Just short. We topped our bill off with a few Euros and a couple George Washingtons and we were on our way.

Traveling through security, we had our passports stamped and we boarded the ship. In contrast to our earlier speedier boat, this was a massive ship with lots of people. We pushed off at 9pm…played some cards, talked to our British friends for a while, had some wine that we picked up before boarding, and staked out our deck space where we’d sleep for the night.

Being exhausted from our ridiculous day, we put our ear plugs in and put our bags on the deck. If you’re looking for the antithesis of light pollution, the middle of the Adriatic Sea is it. We saw billions of stars. It was a scene, for me at least, rivaled only by laying in the meadow in the Yosemite Valley in the middle of the night. Truly inspiring. To top it off, the sweltering heat we’d endured that day subsided out at sea and we were treated with a cool night’s breeze. Sleeping, on the deck, at sea, with a cool breeze, under a sky full of stars, it was a blissful way to end our in the land of the Croats. Goodbye Croatia.

9 Hours to Dubrovnik

Leaving Plitvice, we headed back through the serene valley that we had passed through on our way. The road snaked back and forth around the house-less, development-less country side. I would compare this Croatian valley visually to what you might find in the central coast area just north of Santa Barbara. We saw very few cars and very few people – just gorgeous unblemished countryside.

There were, however, the lucky few who lived there. Most of which kept their houses in immaculate condition, adorned with flowers and landscaping. One of which was the lady who sold us goat cheese and plum brandy. We first noticed these “stands” on the side of the road on the way to Senj. At first we didn’t know what they were, but then realized that they were locals who would make their own cheese, oils and brandy and set up a road-side shop in their from lawns. About an hour after leaving Plitvice, I whipped off to the side of the road to look at the stand of items for sale. Benny, already passed out in the back seat, lifted his head – “are we in Dubrovnik?”. No, buddy, still got about 6 hours to go. The truth is we didn’t know how far we really had to go. It became a joke – the question: “How long will it take us to get to Croatia?” Answer: “5-6 hours”, one guys said. “10-12 hours” another person said. “5-10 hours" Another said. We really had no idea how long it would take us to get there. Anyway – back to the roadside stand.

In front of me was an assortment of cheeses, oils, brandies and other spirits that I figured I had no business even asking what they were. I asked if I could try the different cheeses – she had goat cheese, “smoked” and “not smoked” – she said in her best English. I tried them both. She also had cow cheese, “smoked” and “not smoked” – I tried them both. After deciding on the “not smoked” goat cheese and the plumb brandy (“Sljivovica”), I asked, “how much”? “40 Kuna for the Sljivovica and 80 for the cheese…120 Kuna”. I thought about it for a second…doing the math…let’s see, carry the one…yada yada (which is how most mental math conversions went while we were in Europe)…ok, so that’s like $22. “Ok”, I said. We drove away, stoked about our purchase…I figured, walk into Ralphs and buy a bottle of brandy and a giant wheel of goat cheese and you’re gonna spend at least $30, right? The reality is that just by the sheer fact that I didn’t negotiate with her at all, I probably could have gotten it for less – but I didn’t care. Happy to contribute to the Croatian economy, we got back in our Peugeot and blasted for Dubrovnik.

We were happy to find the Tollway – part of Croatia’s new infrastructure. The sign was posted a 130 km/hr max. One guy we had met in Pula told us we could go “the limit plus 10%”. We did the math – ok, that’s 143 km/hr. I pegged it on 150 and just cruised.

After cruising at 150 km/hr for a few hours, we had a good feeling we’d get to Dubrovnik that night. After driving 400 or 500 kilometers, the Tollway ended. The plan is to extend the Tollway all the way to Dubrovnik, maybe next trip it’ll be finished, but for now, they’re still blasting through the southern hills of Croatia.

We were a little disappointed at first, but after about a half hour of canyon switchbacks, we were treated to what I call – “Big Sur meets Barbados”. We got on to what is equivalent to their Highway 1 along the coast. The windy coastline road had sweeping views of the amazingly blue Adriatic Sea under which the giant cliffs sank below. For the next few hours, we drove south – weaving in and out of slower traffic – at one point, we almost had a head-on collision, which was fairly sobering. The driving in Croatia, although not quite paralleling what I witnessed in Tijuana, was still quite reckless.

As we passed through beach town after beach town – we realized two things, 1) once again, Croatian women are beautiful, and 2) Croatians love 90’s rock remixes. We had the windows down, the radio cranked as loud as our Peugeot would play, and we were jammin’ to songs we hadn’t heard for years. I think our favorite was when “I don’t want to Rock, DJ” came on. We jammed for a while…when the song was over, the DJ came on the radio and said in what sounded to us like his best Count Dracula voice, “I don’t want to rock DJ”. We laughed about that the rest of the trip. Ok, so I guess you had to be there.

After driving a while longer Cotter had to pee. I kept looking for a spot to pull off the road where he could pee in the bushes, but, hey - this isn't Reno, you can't just piss wherever you want. Finally, we whipped around a corner and the sign said “Briste”. “Briste!” I said. “That’s where Daniel and Iva live.” Just then I saw a turn off and pulled off. We parked the car, got out and looked around. We were in a total beach town. Picture Laguna, or Malibu. A small beach city framed by giant hills behind and the ocean in front. “Now what?” I said. “They didn’t really want us to stop.” Cotter said. “Well, let’s at least go find a pisser.” I added. I don’t think we were really about to knock on anyone’s door, but we were stoked to actually be in Briste. We followed a little windy road down to the beach and approached the largest structure in town, which was the beach hotel. We walked towards the hotel and Cotter said, “Hey, there’s Daniel”. “Shut up, dude, you’re stupid”, I kindly said. “No seriously!” Sure enough, Daniel and Iva were on the hotel balcony having a beer.

Shocked and still feeling a little weird about running into the same people 3 times in Croatia – we joined them for a beer. Side note: One interesting thing about Croatia is that they have a Zero Tolerance law about drinking and driving. .000001% alcohol in your blood will get you arrested. With that in mind, I abstained. We hung out with Daniel and Iva for a while, traded emails and a few laughs, and then hit the road.

A few hours (and 10 minutes in Bosnia) later, we finally made it Dubrovnik at about 10 pm. We stopped and knocked on the doors of a few Sobes with no luck. We parked the car and started walking. We probably only walked about 100 yards and we looked up at a sign “VIP Backpacker’s hostel”. Done. We were beat. Our stay in Dubrovnik had just begun.

Plitvice

We woke up in Senj the next morning at about 6 AM. It was a little painful, I’m gonna be honest, but we had an aggressive plan for the day: Drive to Plitvice (Pleet-veet-chay), walk the National Park, and drive all the way to Dubrovnik in the southern tip of Croatia. And in order to beat the heat and the crowds (Think Yosemite in August) and make it all the way to Dubrovnik, we needed to head out early.

The drill was the usual, I drive, and Ben and Seth take turns being passed out in the back and doing their best to keep me from being passed out in the front. We put a few liters of petrol in our ride and hit the road. We followed mountain switchbacks in the dense morning fog most of the way from coastal Senj to Plitvice National Park, which is hidden in the central valley’s hills.

We probably passed through 50 small country towns on our way to Plitvice – most of them consisted of well kept stone houses, a few markets, flowers, and roadside merchants selling their homemade cheese, oils, and brandy.

I’m not sure what about us screamed “tourist” louder – our giant “Europe” backpacks, our ever-present cameras, or my “Hrvatska” t-shirt that I wore so proudly…which would be equivalent to a Japanese tourist walking around Yosemite taking pictures of everything, talking in Japanese and wearing a gaudy “America” t-shirt. Ok, so we stood out a little.

About 1 hour into our drive, we finally found coffee. We walked into a very local café in a small Croatian farming town and asked (in English, of course) for 3 espressos. I tried not to make eye contact, but across the bar, which I could barely see through the plume of early morning cigarette smoke, all eyes were on us. It was as if someone just walked into a cowboy bar in West Texas and ordered a diet sprite and a salad.

Escaping unscathed with our caffeine, we hit the road again, bound for Plitvice. We passed through more small towns and gorgeous countryside that I couldn’t help but think how California developers would be salivating over. The terrain got increasingly rugged until we finally arrived at Plitvice.

My two Croatia advisors – Danny Parker and my climbing friend Amy – had both dubbed Plitvice a “can’t miss”. We arrived at the park, walked into the welcome center and ordered more espresso and some pastries.

We started our journey. Taking a long bus type of car with a bunch of connected cars, they shuttled us to the top of the falls. Plitvice is essentially several miles of lakes that cascade down through a series of waterfalls and rivers. The water is an unbelievable blue color that is so striking, it’s hard to believe that it’s real and it’s equally hard to believe that fish actually live in the water. After reaching the top, we begin about a 5 mile walk on a mix of elevated boardwalk and trails, following the lakes and cascades all the way to the bottom.

The next few hours, there’s not a lot to say. I don’t know how to say it…words can’t capture it. Pictures can’t even capture it. Cotter said it was the most beautiful place he’d ever been. I said it was in my top 5, although I balked when challenged to provide a more beautiful place. I just said “I like rocks” – which I do…but as water goes – I’ve never seen anything like it.

We spent the next few hours walking, taking pictures, and just simply in awe…awe of the beauty of the country…but more importantly awe of its Creator. I can’t be in a place like that without it being a spiritual experience – Plitvice is place you just have to see to believe.

More than satisfied with the 90 Kuna entrance fee ($16), we ate cheeseburgers from the local concession stand and hit the road – bound for Dubrovnik. We had a long drive ahead of us, but we were determined to get to Dubrovnik, or maybe Briste, or maybe…the side of the road.

The Senj Detour

After a glorious night sleep and a shower that sort of worked, the lady’s husband came to meet us at our pre-arranged time…9AM. We handed him the key, thanked him, and give him a 5 Euro tip – since we had such a great night (and we felt a little bad about knocking 40% off of his original price).

We headed our for what became our typical breakfast: 1) double espresso macchiato, 2) a year’s worth of second-hand smoke (Croatian’s like their smoke), and 3) off to a market to find pastries and yogurt. I did everything in my power to find “active cultures” everyday…and I found the yogurt in Europe to be quite different from the States. It’s much more liquid than ours…no spoon required – just drink it…and it’s good. Ah! Give me Euro-yogurt!

We walked around the market for a while and then decided to begin our search for a car. After Budget, Avis, and the local guy “Hector” who needless to say, didn’t do one-way rentals – we were still car-less. “There are no cars for rent in Pula” – all sold out. Zut alors. After much walking, Eurocar said they had one car – at the airport. Our driver picked us up and took us to the airport. As we made our way to the Eurocar booth, Seth spotted our friends Daniel and Iva – we did see them again, just not where we thought. Long story short, Daniel and Iva had reserved a car but due to a mix-up, they were unable to rent it. Forced to wait for the bus, we suddenly had a car available to us. I felt a little bad about stealing their car…but I justified it because someone else would have rented it anyway…or something like that. At any rate, we laughed with them about running into them again, once again, and, half-jokingly we said “see you in Briste”.

We hopped into our Peugeot and started driving. We didn’t know where we were going…our next stop was Plitvice – the National Park that was a “can’t miss” from my Croatian advisors Danny Parker and my climbing friend Amy, both of whom had spent a fair amount of time in Croatia. As we cruised down the highway, we were impressed with the highways – all of the infrastructure in Croatia seemed to be very solid. There was construction everywhere … roads… bridges… tunnels. The roads were new, nice and clean. Everything was clean in Croatia (in stark contrast to Italy). We made our way through a billion tunnels (Croatians don’t go around their mountains, they blast through them).

The terrain was rolling shrub-covered hills. We drove and drove, stopping at roadside pit-stops for shots of espresso – which usually set us back about 5 Kunas. We were nearing Plitvice, but it was getting late. Wanting to 1) have a nice place to stay for the night – since it was the 4^th of July, and 2) have the full Plitvice experience, we pulled out the map and decided to head to a coastal town called Senj.

We had passed a large hillside with sweeping views of the Adriatic, which was going to be our bed for the night – but we had heard (and seen) that a huge storm was coming in…so we decided to find a Sobe for the night. We stopped at, what effectively was a Sobe broker and asked the girl if any rooms were available. After a short phone call she said “take a left at the gas station and it’s the second house on the left…ask for Maria”. Fair enough, we thought.

We made our way up the hill…found what we figured was the place and knocked on the door. “Hello” she said. Maria was probably in her late 40’s – she lived in a small but nice house with gorgeous views of the Adriatic. “Call me Momma Maria” she said. Maria had extensive burns all over her body. Burn scars on her face, scars on her legs and arms…one of her ears was half gone. It was hard not to look. I couldn’t help but wonder if something had happened to her during the war. It appeared that she lived alone in this house by the sea.

We gave her 42 Euros and she showed us to our quarters. It was the standard – one double bed and one single. Also standard was a balcony with views of the Adriatic Sea and one of the many islands off the coast of Croatia. We were treated with one of the most amazing sunsets I’ve ever seen…it was downright ridiculous.

We considered our night on the balcony at Momma Maria’s to be one of our favorite nights of the whole trip. Two bottles of Vino, Bread and Cheese, and toasting to America on her birthday in Senj, it was pretty remarkable. We talked, wrote, read what we wrote, laughed at each other for what we wrote, and probably made a little too much noise. A glorious night in Senj and another glorious night in Croatia.

Welcome to Croatia

We boarded the ship for a three hour tour (pun intended, ok…sorry, that was really bad). It’ll get better, I promise. We arrived in Pula, Croatia at about 8:30, right as the sun was setting. There was this euphoria (I know I’ve used that word in every blog, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it) all around us as we walked off the ship.

For me, I think the euphoria stemmed from the fact that I had wanted to come to Croatia for so long – and I was finally there. Also, we felt like we were exploring…we were in a small Croatian city, we didn’t know if anyone would speak English, we didn’t know where we would sleep, where we would eat, we didn’t know anything – we (well, in our minds at least) were true adventurers. We fancied ourselves up there with Columbus, Sir Edmond Hillary and Brad Washburn.

Quite a few people have asked me “Why Croatia?” For me, it’s an easy answer. I remember reading an article about 3 years ago about Croatia – I think it was in Outside Magazine. The article detailed how the country had taken huge strides to recover since the war ended in the early 90’s. I remember being enamored with the article, the passion of the people, the beauty of the country, a country returning to its feet after communism. From that point on, I gobbled up every article I could find on Croatia. I read “Balkan Ghosts” by Robert Kaplan which is a fascinating (and sobering) book. When Ben and I finally decided that we were going to Europe, I said, “I want to go to Croatia and Switzerland…besides that, I don’t care”. The culmination of all of that helped to contribute to my well-documented euphoria.

Exiting the ship, we asked a couple to take a picture of us – as we talked to them we found out they were Canadian, from Ottawa. Daniel, born in Canada and Iva – originally from Bosnia but grew up in a small town in southern Croatia and moved to Canada in her teens. We talked for a while when they, seemingly out of duty and a little nervous about the proposition, invited us to stay at their house. “We don’t have a cell…how will we find you?” Iva said, “When you get to Briste, just ask any of the locals…tell them my last name and they’ll point you to our house”. Ben, Seth and I all looked at each other at the same time. “Ok, sure” we all thought. We figured we’d never see them again.

Walking off the dock toward the city, we were immediately greeted with the other Roman Coliseum – and far better preserved than the Coliseum in Rome. The sun was setting over the Adriatic, providing a perfect setting to snap some pictures of the Coliseum. We ran across the street, gawked at the massive ancient structure, snapped some pictures in true tourist fashion. Then the sun set. “Now what?” We all looked at each other.

We had found a campsite in our Croatia book that was about ½ hour walk from the dock – but first, we headed into the city to get some Kuna. Quiz: A Kuna is: 1) A small furry animal that lives in rotting tree stumps and is prepared as a Croatian delicacy, 2) Croatian slang for “woman”, or 3) the local currency.

If you answered 3, give yourself 25 points. 1 Kuna = $.18 (although by the time anyone reads this, the Dollar will probably be worth less than the Peso). A really nice girl sitting in an odd looking booth (for what reason we still don’t know) directed us to a cool little promenade where all of the locals were hanging out. We found cafes, pizza shops, fish restaurants, Roman ruins and tons of local people.

As we were walked to find a place to eat, a lady approached as and asked (in very good English) if we need a place to stay. She was probably in her late 30’s, her husband also – both very athletic looking. Her son, probably 11, was dressed in his Adidas basketball gear. We were planning to camp, but before the guys could say no I said “we’ll take a look”. I figured, what could it hurt? I get some looks from Ben and Seth for that one. After walking to the other end of the promenade she turned into an apartment right on the strip. At first, I felt a little nervous about the building – but when I reminded myself that there was an 11 year old boy with us, my fears subsided.

We walked up four flights of old marble stairs that leaned so badly one way that we had to hold on to the railing not to fall. The room was sweltering hot, probably hadn’t been opened in several days. “50 Euros”, she said. I could tell she was a little unsure of herself. We told her thanks, but we’re going to camp.

About an hour later as we gobbled down pizza, I told the guys that I thought there was room in the lady’s price. “If we don’t stay there, no one will stay there” I remember saying. Just then the lady and her husband came walking by – “30 Euros”, I blurted our as they walked by. Her husband turned up his nose at us, thinking to himself “cheap, rich Americans”…they walked away. Shocked, I said sorry guys – I had really thought 30 Euros would do it. About 5 minutes later (and I could tell after a fairly intense discussion) the lady came back and said it’s a deal.

As we sat and finished our pizza – it really hit us – the beauty of Croatian women. As people walked up and down the promenade, we just kept looking at each and saying, “this is a joke”.

The next part of our evening was so bizarre, I don’t even know how to describe it. We were turning the key to go into our apartment and we heard this chanting and marching coming down the street. The next thing I knew, we were surrounded with people carrying candles and two fellas who were dressed up in their best “death” costumes. The candle-bearers, death-men, and hordes of people passed…we snapped some pictures and then followed the lady up to our rooms. Apparently this was part of an Israeli drama that was going on…we looked at our watch: 11PM – I asked Seth, “what day is it?” “Tuesday”, he said. Who puts on a drama at 11PM on a random Tuesday in July? We looked at each other blankly. Fair enough, I thought.

We put our stuff in the apartment and the lady said – “oh, there’s a balcony”. The lady then led us through the green scary door with the big key, up the broken scary stairs with no lights and cob webs (I thought the odds were 50/50 we would never exit the green scary door). We walked out onto an old stone balcony that overlooked the drama in the courtyard below. We were stoked to find such a cool authentic place to stay for the night. As one of the tallest buildings in the small city, I imagined this stone and brick balcony as sniper’s nest 15 years ago during the war. We watched the drama from our crow’s nest.

We smoked cigars and pipes, looked at the stars, talked for an hour or so on the balcony. We were pretty much in shock about what had transpired. Fat and happy and excited about Croatia, we retreated to our crow’s nest for the night – next stop, Plitvice.