Croatia June 2006

2006-06-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

On the 13th, Tatianna and her mum send me off with food on top of supplies I bought for myself, as well as various items from their store, like Bach flower remedies, a hematite bracelet and more food. It has been like being with family. I catch the train to Brussels, walk to the bus station and at 8pm catch the overnight bus to Zagreb. There is a change at 10am to another bus in Munich where we drive past a huge round building which looks like a giant white tyre. Its one of the stadiums for the World Cup, which reminds me that for the first time in the 20 yreas I have been watching the World Cup, I am not going to have to get up at 1am and stay up til 8 and then go to work. I am going to be where it is being played, another dream come true.

I sleep most of the way from Munich to Zagreb, waking occasionally to see the mountains of Austria and the smaller ranges of Slovenia which we drive through to get to Croatia. When I take my shoes off I feel something bite me and see a bite mark like mosquito and think nothing more of it. I catch a tram to the hostel I am staying at and arrive at 9pm, 35 hours after leaving Tatiannas place in Belgium to head to Zagreb. The first game of the World Cup I am to watch (Croatia-Brazil - significant because they are in Australias group) is just about to start and I am watching it in Croatia, fantastic, I am dreaming). As I go to sleep that night I look up Bourgas, the town in Romania I bought the cheap flight on the internet to. Its not in the Romania section. I look it up in the index. Its in Bulgaria. Oh well, guess Im going to Bulgaria after Croatia. At leaast I dont need a visa so I can leave Zagreb earlier.

When I wake the next morning, the 14th, I notice lots of mosquito-like bites on my feet hands and forehead and decide to put on Rid before I go to sleep next time. Spend the
day walking around Zagreb which has a grimy European feel about it, like a small Paris with no pollution controls. Buy a ticket to Dubrovnik the next day, Call Qantas and change Becks flight to meet me and Jett in Miami rather than in San Francisco. Get to see her a few weeks earlier and she gets to come to Dineyworld. Very Excited. When I get back to the hostel I see that dozens and dozens of bites have come up, they cant be from mozzies overnight as they keep coming up. Will go to chemist in the morning for a lotion. Wake many times through the night itching.

The next morning many of the bites have come up as blood blisters or are weeping a clear liquid and now cover my whole body. Not good. I go to a chemist, which is closed and then to a medical centre, which is also closed. I am told it is a public holiday and that I will haveto go to the hospital. I go back to the hostel and am starting to feel a bit weak and nauseous. The lady owner (Vera) sees Im in pretty bad state and offers to drive me to the hospital. They refer me to a dermatologist at another hospital that Vera drives me to. Dr says it is an alergic reaction to an insect bite, gives me 2 shots - 1 as a sedative to stop me itching, shaking and feeling sick and the other an antibiotic. She also prescribes pills and lotions that I have to take and put on every day for 10 days. I go back to hostel and even though I have already checked out and am catching a bus to Dubrovnik that night, Vera organises a private room for me to sleep off the sedative and rest which I do for a few hours and on waking already feel much better. I still itch all over but know I am going to be getting better. Have trouble sleeping that night on the bus to Dubrovnik due to the bites and the constant stopping to let people on and off. I spend the night thinking about how at ease most of the travellers I meet are - how easily they connect, the self confidence the seem to act and interact with. I recognise that my confidence sits in activities I do on my own (snowboarding, finding my way around unfamiliar environments), not so well in those requiring interactivity (meeting new people, making small talk). Humans seem a strange animal to me much of the time. How do people get that people confidence? Is it a result of upbringing? Of environment? Beck has it, connects with people so easily. How do you be carefree AND have peace of mind? Dont know. How do you get it if it hasnt come naturally as a result of those things?

At Dubrovnik, as there will be throughout Eastern Europe, there are people at the bus and train station offering rooms in their homes. I look at a few and agree on one run by Joseph and Sonia for the 3 nights I will be there. They come from a village out of Dubrovnik and are very friendly and share their mussels (from his village) and wine (from hers) with me for lunch. The apartment is a 25 minute walk to the centre of town, a walk I will do many times each way over the next 3 days. The old town within the high stone walls is a miniature version of Rhodes - ocean on 3 sides, marble and stone streets, age old buildings converted to restaurants. Outside the walls its resorts and beachchairs all the way up and down the coast. Have a look here - http://images.google.com/images?q=dubrovnik&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images Over the next 3 days I walk the town and the coast, swimming in the ocean most days, especially at the base of the old city walls which gives a unique view from the water looking up at the walls and towers, watch lots of soccer, loosen up and meet lots of tourists and locals and be one of those easy going, carefree people I was talking about earlier. I like it. That first night there was a concert in one of the churches. I go and see that its out of my price range, but right next door is a photography exhibition having its opening night, invitation only, which I decide to crash. The food and wine is fantastic, the photos not so. Croatian ice cream rivals Italy for flavour - incredible. I have it at least once a day. On the last day, I notice that, even though I am taking the tablets and putting on the creams prescribed to me, and that even though the bites are going down, they are not going away, are still itchy, and that new ones are still coming up. Decide to go to the Dubrovnik hospital. Go on Sunday but no specialists. Go back the next morning, but specialist doesnt come in til 12. Come back at 12, she turns up at 3. Has a look at me and says no, you dont have an alergic reaction, you actually have a microscopic parasite living in your body, and the bits are a reaction to its eggs. GREEAAATTTT!!!!. Am prescribed different pills and creams.

On the 20th I catch the bus to Split in the morning and buy a ticket on a ferry to Vis, one of and the smallest island off the coast of Croatia. There is a stop halfway and I strike up a conversation with someone from another bus heaing the other way. I go back to the bus and see its a different bus. My bus isnt there. Its gone. THEY LEFT ME BEHIND!!!!!!! I cant believe it. I get themanager of the restaurant to call the bus company who calls the driver and yep, they left without checking if everyone was on board. Its the passenegers responsibility to keep an eye on the bus they say. My bag is on the bus!! Between being furious and frightened, I ask the manager to call the bus company again and organise for my bag to be left at the station. I ask when the next bus will be - 3 hours. It will arrive after the ferry I am meant to catch to Vis leaves. I sit and wait, catch the next bus which I have to pay for again, arrive, get my bag which they charge me storage for (oh, by the way, Croatia is the only country in Europe where, even though you have bought a ticket, it doesnt include luggage, you pay extra for every bag you bring on the bus) and go to the ferry terminal, explain the situation and they change my ticket for the next day. I go back to the bus station and get a room(which turns out to be my own apartment) for the night from one of the touts. Split - http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=split+croatia - is the most original city within its old walls in that none of the buildings have been able to be torn down or changed since the hundreds of years since it was built and is quite small - it can be explored in an afternoon and still have time for a meal and a movie.

The next morning I catch the ferry to Vis, a pleasant few hours off the coast sailing between all the other larger islands. Vis is the furthest from the mainlan and the smallest which is what its appeal was to me. I am not interested in the Ibiza type party crowd which seems to be everywhere you go in Europe. Vis reminds of Simi off the coast of Rhodes - a small fishing village that has cottoned onto tourism in a small way. An elderly woman that reminds me of my grandmother approaches me as I get off the ferry offering a room but hesitates when she sees I am alone, as a single person would pay less than a couple. When she sees that noone is getting off the boat after me she offers me the room ans we agree on a price. She struggles up thestairways and winding lanes on the hill above the town to the cute cottage surrounded by flowers and a patio overlooking the harbour. My room is large and has its own bathroom and a ktichen downstairs I can use, views of the garden and hills. Lovely. I head back into the village and start to follow the coast. After a while the path fizzles out and I make my way through rocky countrysie, brambles, grape vines, stone walls and cliffs that look like a giants hand has turned them on their side to a secluded rocky beach around few bays from the village surrounded by the houses of the few fishing families who live there. I doubt they have seen many tourists here and that is what I love about it. I go for a swim to bathe the dozens of scratches from climbing through the brambles to get to the water and see a huge - like 3 storey high - concrete cave dug into the cliffside, the base going deep into the water, like a submarine entry. I find out later that it was one of the places the resistance hid during the war. Interesting. Thats how the 2 days on Vis go, sitting in the village and on the patio, practcing my Spanish from the Teach Yourself book in preparation for my return to Spain, doing yoga, watching lots of soccer and swimming, A lovely time. The only scary moment came when Croatia and Australia drew and Croatia neededto win and Australia draw to get through the next round. With each Cratian surge, the 200 locals in the village bar would scream and yell and go mad with each goal and complete silence whenever Australia went forward and especially when they scored and me, sitting there very, very, very quiet.

On the third day I catch a bus the 15km to the other side of the island where the only other town is (Komiza), known for its fish cannery. I walk past the tourist office and follow the coast, through the cannery, past 1, 2, 3 beaches and there, like it had been transported from an island in the south of Thailand, or a beach in Goa, is a funky bar, a DJ playing cool tunes on a great sound system, with comfy lounges, benches, tables strewn around the bay. Am I hallucinating - this modern beach bar on an obscure secluded bay of a tiny town at the unpopular end of a small island far off the coast of Croatia. I walk up to the bar, start to chat with the owner and DJ (theyve never had an Australian there, its quite a novelty) and before long we are all good friends, drinking and chatting, swimming, sitting in the sun eating and reading, just perfect relaxing. I meet Ildiko, a woman originally from Transylvania on the border of Romania and Hungary, and her son Gage wh now live in Santa Monica near LA in the USA and her brother Sandor who lives in Budapest and we spend the day all playing together until they go in the evening. The owners (Tomas and Marcella) and DJ Push tell me every Friday and Saturday night they have a party there. It is Thursday. I dont want to leave. I catch the bus back to Vis town, check out of my room the next morning (OK I lied to the grandmother I was staying with, said I was catching the ferry off the island - didnt think she would be there looking for someone else to take my room - and she sprung me getting on the bus to the town on the other side of the island - felt so guilty). I get to the bar at midday and ont leave until 4 the next morning, swim, chat, eat and drink all day, play music, drink and dance all night. I remeber lying on a beach chair at 1am, drink in hand, music in the background, watching shooting stars in the sky until by anything for hundreds of km. Heavenly. Wish Beck was here. At 4 I reluctntly leave to catch bus back to Vis town to make the 5.30am ferry to Split so I can get to the airport to catch my plane to Budapest where I will have a 15 hour layover until my flight to Bourgas in Bulgara (NOT Romania). Fortunately I have arranged for Louis, Diane Sloanes dad to meet me at the airport. He is originally from there and came back after a few successful decades in Australia. Croatia started off with parasites and hospitals and ended with generous friends, shooting stars and beach bars. I could not have imagined a better way to spend my last day and night in Croatia that with these wonderful people in this amazing place.

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