Life, lemons, lemonade...
Updated: 3 days ago
Speaking of unexpected not so positive experiences…
The first week in Croatia already challenged me to keep my cool and adapt.
I arrived in Zadar on a Tuesday a couple of days prior to the start of the Full Moon Festival, the reason I’d decided to go to Zadar at that time.
A culinary event which sees fishermen and food producers from the area and surrounding islands set up their stalls to delight and nourish tastebuds. Alongside some entertainment and street food stalls, starting Thursday night with local bands leading up to the main event on the Saturday night with Cubismo playing, a croatian band that plays salsa and latin jazz. (their name deriving from Dizzy Gillespie’s piece and the genre they play).
As I had been craving sun and sea, the first day was a beach day, of course!
After the craving was satisfied, Thursday morning saw me doing the walking tour of the old town. I always try to start my stay in a city with a walking tour so I can get a local feel for the place - and to get those handy recommendations for spots to visit and local foodie hidden gems!
I followed the walking tour with a visit to the market to pick up fresh fruit and veg for lunch. Another thing I love doing early on in a new country is visiting local markets and also supermarkets to get a feel for the food and find my new favourite food over which to obsess for the whole of my stay!
The rest of Thursday was spent knuckling down putting the finishing touches to the final group project for my coding certification before the presentation in the evening - which was actually my night given the time difference.
After a veeeery long day, and night, on Thursday, I slept in on Friday and headed to the beach with a picnic for a late lunch to unwind. My body must have taken that literally because not long after arriving I felt sick, and had to quickly find a discreet bush (I’ll spare you details). After I regained some strength and was able to move again, I mustered the energy to walk back the less than 10 minutes to the hostel; and spent the next 24 hrs between the bed and the toilet.
Thankfully, Rozana was the gentlest soul looking after me and her hostel - Sky Hostel - was the best place I could have been ill at.
Friday was a wipeout. Saturday I decided to rest during the day so I could at least make it out to the last night of the Full Moon Festival so I could enjoy some of the whole reason I was there! Listening to my body and resting paid off (as did the taxis I took there and back as I didn’t have enough energy for the hour-long return walk to the old town). I was able to finally catch my first proper sunset at the Sea Organ, as it had been cloudy on Wednesday, the only day I had been able to go into the town - though the sky had given us a spectacular colour show anyway.
I walked the length of the promenade appreciating the stalls, though much to my dismay I was not able to enjoy the street food stalls. Instead, I bought some local honey - more like super honey really with healing and preventative properties (antibiotics, circulation) thanks to a blend of propolis, marine honey and 7 other types of honey (flower, meadows, trees, lavender). A spoon a day to begin the day has kept the doctor away for the last 2 months at least!
The next day I was due to move on to Split, a 2-3:30 hrs bus journey away, depending on which bus line you take. I considered staying one more night in Zadar to better recover but it was full, and I had already paid for my next hostel in Split - which actually was a student dorm where I would have a room to myself - so I decided to instead make the most of Rozana’s gracious late checkout at midday, and rather than catch the midday bus (which was the 3:30hr journey anyway), I opted for the 2hr bus at 3pm, due to arrive in Split at 5pm. Turns out, the universe had other plans…
50 minutes away from Split, the bus made an unexpected stop due to a tyre problem (which I was glad it did as the smell was quite worrying).
That was not much of an issue though as there was another bus from the same company coming by in 15 minutes so we could carry on… except, the hold luggage door got jammed, so only jammy people travelling without luggage got to get on that bus. The rest of us had to stay put until they were able to open the door, and call us a taxi to take us to the city.
It ended up being a 6hrs journey in total, arriving in Split at 9pm. A loooong day on top of what had already been 2 long days.
Getting a 24 hrs bug and a bus breakdown all within 5 days of the start of the trip taught me immediately that this was going to have to be “adapt or suffer”.
Pivoting, riding it out, embracing the unexpected and finding small things to delight on became my default mode from there on.
During the bus breakdown, I met Tanja, a wonderful Croatian woman with whom we passed the time chatting all things Croatia. Tanja patiently answered aaalll my questions and taught me quite a bit of useful Croatian phrases. We managed to catch an amazing sunset at the road side, and luckily I had some snacks on me and plenty of water ( when don’t I?!) so I managed to avoid getting hangry!!
These experiences prepared me well for my first day in Split where I needed to run errands outside the city centre for which I needed to catch bus. I turned up to the bus stop a good 10-15 minutes earlier than it said on Google maps - Split bus times & routes are all on Google maps which is super handy - and actually pretty accurate… on the main.
Though on this occasion, 3 buses in a row didn’t turn up at the announced times so what should have been a 30 minutes journey turned into a 3 hour trek, that culminated in me arriving at the shop and it being closed!! It turns out it was a national holiday!!
So lesson identified, second pearl of wisdom - check important holiday days to avoid being disappointed!
Anyway, life, lemons, lemonade and all that - I made the most of the unfortunate series of events and headed to the nearest beach to melt away my frustrations - and it was beautiful!!
Shortly after arriving at Trstenik beach, I got woken up from my siesta by a familiar (and loud) “che boludo” from a group of Argentinians passing by. Funny that I’ve never been far from my roots during my time in Croatia.
Speaking of roots…
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