Wow! After 5 weeks of stability and normalcy, I went away for 12 days of adventure and surprises. I guess I kind of went for a vacation ... in the middle of my vacation...
After finishing WWOOFing and saying my goodbyes, I went to stay one night with my "cousin" in Amsterdam before my flight to the Balkans. It was about 7pm when I first got my hands on the guidebooks she was lending me. I only mention this part to illustrate how little I had researched and prepared for this trip.
Anyway, arriving in Zagreb, I met an American lady who had been on the flight with me. She was actually continuing on to Macedonia where she's been living for over a decade with her husband and four kids, but since her layover was eight hours (I learned later it turned into 12 hours when her flight was delayed) she decided to visit Zagreb for a little bit. We ended up spending the entire afternoon together talking about life, kids, travel, etc. while walking around Zagreb. It was a really nice experience and it really put me in a good mood for the start of my trip. After she had gone back to the airport, I ended up talking for another couple hours with an Italian who runs marathons (even though he had a heart attack from one before) and an older (around 70 years old) Quebecois man who really inspired me with his openness and sense of adventure, which I've found to be pretty rare for that age. Essentially, I spent my entire first day in Croatia talking to other travellers and not experiencing Zagreb at all except for the cold (worse than Holland!).
And the next day, I left Zagreb for my first tourist destination : Plitvice Jezera National Park (Zagreb was very cold, but the real reason I left was to not be there on Sunday when everything is supposed to be closed). A couple hours towards the coast from Zagreb, Plitvice is a series of lakes connected by waterfalls created by travertine. It's a pretty unique phenomenon that is more scientific than I want to get into, but suffice it to say that walls of travertine are slowly developed instead of eroded which ensures the series of waterfalls. I was lucky to be there on a nice sunny day where I could enjoy the many colours of the surrounding forest and take quite a few pictures. I decided to try staying in private accomodation in a nearby village. This means that I walked into the village and knocked on a door that had a sign out front and asked for a room. It ended up being fairly expensive and the experience was quite a bit less than I expected. I had thought that staying in someone's house would probably mean that I would talk with them a bit, but I hardly ever saw them. I heard echoes of this same disappointment from other travellers later during my trip, but I also wonder if there is a certain "tourist fatigue" that happens to locals by October, because I was rarely impressed by the service on my trip.
The next day, I continued on to Zadar on the Dalmatian coast - where it was a lot warmer, but I was still wearing a coat most of the time. I was staying at a Youth Hostel that was quite a bit farther from town than I had thought (I decided to walk...). But, I did manage to see a sphinx in someone's front lawn along the way, which is exactly what I was expecting from Zadar... The main attraction in Zadar (for me at least) was the Sea Organ (an "organ" played by the pressure differential created by the rising and falling waves), which created a nice, relaxing atmosphere in which to take a nap next to the Adriatic Sea. Another neat attraction is the Salutation to the Sun, which uses small solar panels to charge up all day and exhibit a light show from beneath your feet at night. I was mostly touring around by myself, but I was sharing a room with a Dutch guy, Ruud, who had quit his job 6 months ago and left on a motorbike to explore Europe. He was a great guy, fun to talk to, and we were fortunate enough to meet up again in Split a couple days later.
First, I decided to go hiking in Paklenica National Park nearby. I met a nice German couple who had the same idea as me and we ended up hiking together (which I'm sure my mother will be comforted to hear). The entrance to the park (which is actually where the cowboys and indians movies, Winnetou, from Germany was filmed) is quite spectacular with two almost vertical rock faces on either side. In fact, there were a lot of rock climbers (Steven, take note!), but we continued on in hopes of finding a peak with a good viewpoint. We failed in that, but still enjoyed the hike along a riverbed. The real adventure was actually trying to get back to Zadar by bus. We knew we hadn't missed the last one, but we didn't know when the next one should come. We ended up asking four different people and getting four different answers. Finally, the fifth person agreed with one of the first four, so we knew we had an hour to wait. The bus stop is placed conveniently close to a beach, so we chatted a bit while watching the sunset.
The next day, I went on to Split, the second biggest city in Croatia. My arrival wasn't actually very fun, because the hostel I had picked out from the Lonely Planet doesn't really exist anymore and the only other option was a party hostel. I ended up finding some internet quickly to see what Hostelworld recommends and then went there. I actually really lucked out too. It was an apartment converted into a hostel so it was quite small, easy to meet people and comfortable. It rained almost the entire afternoon and evening, so I stayed inside catching up on the internet. I finally succumbed to hunger and ventured out into the rain to find a place to eat with a Quebecoise who was staying in my hostel. I left early the next day to Brac Island where I was to stay at the only hostel on the island that was just about to close. When I found the "Funky Donkey Hostel", there was nobody there, so I just sat on the terrace and had a snack. While I was sitting there, an American girl comes into the hostel, looks at me and says "I'm looking for a room for tonight." My answer : "Me too!" Shortly after that the owner came back and we got settled in (we each had a room with 6 beds all to ourselves). We went with the two guys running the hostel to visit a nearby old lady who makes her own wine, proseco and hard liquor. It was a fairly unique experience to stand in this big shed filled with vats of alcohol trying to communicate with the old lady even though we don't speak Croatian.
Early the next morning, I got up and took the quad (or ATV) I had rented the previous day and went exploring the island. I quadded past a lot of olive orchards up to the highest point in the Adriatic Sea (Vidova Gora, 778m) and then down a gravel/dirt/rock road switchbacking to the southern side of the island and the beach of Bol where I went for a little dip. It was quite nice to have that autonomy on an island where the buses don't run very often.
After that little adventure, I headed back to Split and visited Diocletian's palace (an old Roman palace that now has bars, markets, restaurants, hotels, etc.) including the creepy basement. I also ended up going out with Ruud, the Quebecoise and an Irish girl. We were having trouble finding a bar that wasn't too touristy until we found a small hole in the wall (maybe 20 people could squish in there if they really tried) with the name graffitied on the wall above the door. We met an old Dalmatian (a man, not a dog, who insisted he was not Croatian) who spoke only a tiny bit of English, a little French and some German. So really, only the Irish girl was left out since Ruud speaks German, but we had a good time joking around with him. We also met two young Fins (17 and 18) from the island of Aland where they speak only Swedish. At the second bar we went to, the 17-year-old paid for all our drinks, which gives you an idea of the wealth of their island.
I left early the next day to visit the town of Makarska before heading on to Dubrovnik. I had intended to go to Makarska for some really great hiking, but the weather wasn't cooperating and I didn't really feel that energetic after going to bed pretty late the previous night. Instead, I walked around two little parks that jut out, protecting the harbour and then caught a bus to Dubrovnik. I wasn't actually sure of this before, but I passed through a small section of Bosnia (with the passport check and everything) on my way south. It was no problem going down, though a couple days later when I was on a night bus to Zagreb, one border guard decided to see where else I'd been, and saw Holland. I'm pretty sure he was looking for pot, because after I opened my bag and removed a couple items (at which point he couldn't smell anything except dirty laundry), he said it was fine and left.
I arrived in Dubrovnik around 6pm and walked quickly to my hostel (which also turned out to be quite far away) to check in and meet my friend Quentin and one of his friends from Norway (though he's originally French). They were couchsurfing and I ended up trying some Hungarian liquor with an Argentinian, a Spaniard, a Belgian, a French and a Croatian before going out to a club that night. It was quite an interesting group and the night was quite fun, though the music was quite old and a little different from what I'm used to at home or what I've experienced elsewhere in Europe. I met up with some other friends (Kevin - Canadian, and his friend Georg - Norwegian) the next day and we decided to climb the hill overlooking Dubrovnik before meeting up with Quentin again. The four of us just relaxed, went to a beach to swim, had a bite to eat before splitting up again. I spent the next day with Kevin and Georg and we took it easy, relaxing in the sun, climbing up to the top of a fort on a nearby island, trying to pet the peacocks that had overrun the island, etc. It was really nice to see some familiar faces, especially since I didn't really meet anyone in my hostel.
My last day in Dubrovnik I had to myself. I learned that there was an Australian guy checked into my room that had spent the last two days in hospital and was hoping someone from the hostel could bring him his stuff. After hiking quite a ways, I finally found the hospital and delivered his bag. He looked absolutely fine, but had had some worrying symptoms and decided to get it checked out. He wasn't very impressed by the Croatian doctors (who could apparently never agree on what was wrong) so he was relieved his insurance company was trying to fly him home.
I liked trying to help out since his situation is exactly one of my biggest fears when I travel. Back at the hostel, they gifted me a big bottle of Croatian liquor (apparently similar to whiskey) as a thank you.
I spent my last day wandering around the city walls, avoiding the rain in a restaurant (where I learned my waiter had worked on a container ship for 8 years and travelled all around the world!), exploring the nearby bluffs and watching the waves crash against the rocks and eating ice-cream (something I seem to do a lot of on vacation). I then caught the long and uncomfortable nightbus back to Zagreb.
I got into my hostel in Zagreb at 7:30am; I'm pretty sure I was the first one to check in that day! I slept for a couple hours during which I was joined by a Dutchman who had spent the night on a train and a Mexican who was also very tired. Finally, I got out and visited the Mestrovic Atelier - a gallery of the famous Croatian sculptor's works. He does a lot of religious and classical sculpture, which I usually don't find that interesting, but there was one Pieta where Mary's face had such an amazingly expressive face that really impressed me. I also stopped in at the Museum of Naive Art - mostly because I thought it was a funny name and was curious to learn what it was. To my surprise, it's a real type of art that is painting on glass. Some of it was really quite interesting and they're always very colourful. I had no more plans for the day, but as I was walking back towards the centre, I happened to look through and open door and see a sign saying "The Museum of Broken Relationships", which I also became quite curious about. It was an exhibition of random objects sent in from people along with their stories of how their relationship ended due to long-distance, death, infidelity, murder, etc. It was sometimes quite funny, but mostly sad and interesting. I didn't do too much else the rest of the day except try some of the roasted chestnuts being sold on every street corner (and recommended by the lady I had met my first day in Croatia) and then go to bed. I woke up at 5:15am to get to my flight back to Amsterdam.
I will be living in Amsterdam for the next month as I housesit for my "cousin" and take care of her cats. I hope to find some work, meet lots of Dutch people, keep learning Dutch, and organize my last month in Europe (probably a trip to Spain, but we'll see). I'll probably try to update this blog in the middle of November.
Cheers,
Chad
No comments:
Post a Comment