Croatian Bamboos

An old man fishing to the sound of our harmonicas.

I had mentioned that Jelena was an intense person. When we split ways she told us that it should only be about a 20-minute walk to the ferry. It turned out to be more like 10 kilometers, and we eventually just ended up embarking sweatily on one of the half dozen or so buses that passed in that direction. We arrived just in time to jump on the departing ferry, which offered amazing views of snowy mountain peaks and small villages comprised of old stone buildings. The ferry was apparently run on an honour system, as nobody asked as us for any money. Naturally, we opted for the “dishonourable” distinction, and traded our souls for a free ride.

We were off to Croatia without a map, a phone, a place to sleep, or any Croatian currency. I hadn’t been able to confirm a Couchsurfing host, but I did have a few ‘maybes’ and a list of cities along the way to Dubrovnik. We hopped on a local bus that brought us to our hitching spot, just 7 km short of the Montenegro-Croatia border. On the bus I tried to imagine what it would be like to be on a bus in India again: the horns, blaring Bollywood, cows in the road, potholes, and sight of people squatting on the side of the road for their morning business. It was snowing, and we waited a long time, but eventually a man picked us up on an unlikely stretch of highway as we were walking to a better spot. He was a poor man driving a beat up car, and wasn’t going to Croatia, but did us the favour of bringing us to Montenegrin customs.

Waiting for the bus and sharing a Snickers.

A fair warning to anyone planning to retrace our steps: do not hitchhike across the coastal border between Montenegro and Croatia. If you do, you have to climb a mountain. We walked uphill in a blizzard for about 2 km to Croatian customs. A total of maybe 2 cars passed, though neither of them wanted to pick up hitchhikers between countries (understandable). The woman we gave our passports to was really cute, and gave us our first proper interrogation: “Where are you coming from? Where are you going?” Unfortunately, I couldn’t really remember the name of the place we were going, but she must have decided we were too stupid to be dangerous, so she let us through anyways.

We waited on the other side of the border for nearly 3 hours, playing a game that I invented called “kick rock”. The game requires both brains and brawn, and involves kicking a rock with your shoe and seeing how far it will go. Once we’d cleared pretty well every kickable-sized stone from that side of the border we decided that we should probably just start walking. For ages we walked through endless forest. We were passed by more “Welcome to Croatia” signs than potential lifts. There was one young guy in a tiny old car who drove by us about 4 times, each time staring at us (thumbs high in the air) staring back at him (jaw hanging open; furrowed brow). On the fifth run he stopped for us, but since he was working in the region he was only able to drive us a short way. We walked again after being dropped off. We tried to get on a bus, but the driver was miserable and wouldn’t let us pay with Euros, American dollars, or credit card. We tried to make him feel guilty by looking really sad as he drove away.

The old town - Dubrovnik.

Now, Croatia is a beautiful place, but for some reason people do not like hitchhikers. We thumbed all day, and the closest we came to a ride was an offer from a lady to bring us to a nearby airport. Eventually we got fed up and walked into town. I took out some money (leaving my debit card in the machine - someone found it and figured it must belong to one of the two foreigners with backpacks who’d been sulking around town for the better part of the afternoon) and bought us a Snickers and some bus tickets. We made it as planned to Dubrovnik, just as the sun was setting. Unfortunately we were sort of ditched by the two guys from Couchsurfing who said they could maybe host us (further consolidating our impressions that Croatia was slightly inhospitable). For the first time in Europe we were forced to stay at a hostel. We were the only ones booked in, and they fed us for free and even gave us some beer. The owner showed us how to work the movie projector. He encouraged us to take advantage of his extensive collection of amateur footage of Russian women running around giggling in their underwear and bikinis. Instead I called home and reflected on the day: I visited my 20^th country, I hiked up a snowy mountain, I sat by the sea, I tried a new beer, I met at least a dozen new people who’s names I’ll never remember, and early in the morning - way back in Montenegro - I saw the snow-obscured outline of a 1000 year old church on a distant peak.

The next day, I woke up and changed my plane ticket. I was booked to fly home on March 24^th. Now it would be June 20^th. My intention was to eventually get a job, but I had no idea what I would do or where I would work. Before blowing the popsicle stand that is Dubrovnik, we had a quick look around. I’ll have to say that despite the people (we had now established that the majority of Croatian people are grumpy, miserable, and simply unkind), Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. We explored the old town for exactly 1 hour, so that our city bus tickets wouldn’t expire and we could still find our way to the bus terminal without having to pay again. Everybody was unpleasant: the woman at the tourist information booth, the local bus driver, the interurban bus driver, the woman who sold us water, an obese chain-smoking lady at the restaurant where we ate, the couple running a café who wouldn’t let us use their telephone (there are no public phones, and the woman actually told us that a phone call would simply not be possible - from anywhere). Of course, the occasional person was friendly, but the few times that it happened were a surprise. It’s no wonder we weren’t able to hitchhike.

A model at a bus stop.

Our bus to split took us through Bosnia. We had to present our passports upon entry and then again after leaving only about an hour later. We arrived, got off the bus, and went into a fancy bar called ‘Imperium’, which had all kinds of fancy flashing lights and futuristic fish tanks, to use the WiFi to call our Couchsurfing host Tamara. As it turns out it was February 14^th - Valentine’s Day. I have a good laugh each time I picture Ben and myself in that fancy café, surrounded by cuddling couples, with our backpacks, cappuccinos, dirty (and highly unfashionable) clothes, and messed up hair.

We moved quickly the next two days, traveling lots and staying only briefly with our hosts. In Split we stayed Valentine’s Day with a girl Tamara (who had a fascination with Finland) and her boyfriend Davor. The were very hospitable - not only did they invite us to stay with them on the most romantic day of the year, but they even made us sleep in their bed, while they slept on the couch. Between waiting for them at a supermarket and arriving at their flat I slowly came to realize that I had left my passport on the bus (thanks to Bosnian customs), which had by now surely left with both the grumpy driver and the even grumpier baggage man on board. We called the bus station as soon as we arrived back, but no answer… they appeared to be closed. We called again in the morning. My passport had been found (though it was on the other side of the country) and it would be back in town later that afternoon.

Old church in Split.

Our next stop was Zadar, which was as beautiful and grumpy as the rest of Croatia that we’d seen thus far. We arrived at the bus station, which was a hilarious building that had room for about 70 (or more) buses to park and board. It was overambitious, to say the least, as there were only 3 buses there at the time, and the city wasn’t all that big. From there we walked to the center of town, where we waited in a café with a pack of cigarettes that we had broken down and bought. If you’re planning to quit smoking, do not go to Croatia. Every man, woman, and child chain smokes in every possible public space.

Snow and Stone. It was still very cold.

Gordana (or G-dana, as I cleverly nicknamed her by replacing the ‘or’ with a hyphen), our Couchsurfing host, was an anthropology student living in a tiny flat at the historical center of Zadar. Unfortunately we didn’t get to know her very well, as she had an exam the next day and had to go off to school to study. We had met her in person for only about 10 minutes before she handed us our keys and left us in charge of her apartment… and everything in it (which included a new Macbook pro). Ben and I went to the grocery stored and then made dinner. The woman at the store laughed at us when we asked whether or not there was coconut milk. We then made about 15 people stand in line behind us while paying because we didn’t know we had to weigh and apply all of our own price stickers to our produce. I skyped with Mackenzie in Fernie while cooking. That night Ben shared the couch/bed with Gordana in the only room in the house while I slept comfortably on the floor. She left us again with her keys, which we slipped under the doormat before heading off to Rijeka.

We had only planned to stay in Rijeka for one night, but our hosts Andrej, Stella, and DiDi managed to convince us to stay for three so that we wouldn’t miss the Karnival. It was a good thing that we did, because it was here that we were able to see a completely new side of Croatia. After arriving, we found a café where we were able to call Andrej using skype. Somehow we had managed to find the fanciest café in Rijeka, which had cakes that I still think about and about 100 kinds of espresso. We then found out that we could have just sat outside, as the city provides free WiFi in the downtown area. They picked us up in their little car and drove us home to a nice Hungarian Goulash and plenty of Bamboos (red wine with coke). Afterwards we watched clips on the computer of South Park and Flight of the Conchords, Andrej and Stella’s favourite shows (respectively). It was quite clear from this that we would get along.

Ben and Andrej at the fisherman's restaurant.

They had to work the following morning, so Ben and I took the opportunity to go and explore. I wanted to buy a new guitar case, which we did, and he wanted to find a thrift store, which, surprisingly, we also managed to do. He had tried in nearly every city we’d visited in the Balkans to find a thrift store, and this was the first time he had success. I bought a sweater in the thrift shop for a couple of dollars, but the only thing Ben wanted was this horrible, purple sweater vest. The price tag on it was at least ten times greater than everything in the shop, at well over $100. When he asked the owner why it was so expensive, she replied by indicating that for Ben it would cost an additional $50, simply because it looked so bad on him.

Kids dancing in the street.

Ben had also been wanting to go to a casino, so I thought “What the hell” and we went after 30 minutes or so of playing harmonicas with legs dangling over the pier. We played digital roulette. I won $20 and Ben won $50. We celebrated over beer and fresh fish with Andrej and Stella in their favourite restaurant, which is run entirely by a group of fisherman who bring in bits of this and that at the end of each day. Later on we went for a few drinks at a rock bar. The highlight of my night was a guy dressed up as a zebra who made us drink from his hip flask. It also turns out that Rijeka is great and has a policy where drunken people get free public transport in the wee hours of the morning.

We were woken up the next morning to sounds of music coming from outside. We put on the costumes given to us by Stella’s Italian Grandmother (myself a nun, Ben a chef, and Andrej a pirate) and went off to explore the day. The first thing we saw was out friend Zebraman from the night before, who proceeded to give us more drink and even some sausage. He was preparing for a race comprised of vehicles with a theme. Each vehicle also had a crew of people driving and/or riding on top. The themes were meant to cause laughter, discomfort or outrage, and ranged from cowboys to lumberjacks to hippies to priests. Everyone was drinking heavily (especially the priests - who were making good fools of themselves) despite it being only 9 o’clock in the morning. Many of the vehicles even had kegs of beer attached to them in some way (including the hippy truck, upon which was also mounted a giant, smoldering spliff that was powered by a genuine wood stove. The mayor, a fat man in a leather jacket, waved his arm and the race was on. It started, though everyone was so drunk and/or good-naturedly waving to children that it seemed to be more of a parade than a race.

That Saturday was the “Kids Karnival”. The following day would be the adult’s Karnival. We had been lucky because they are normally separated by a week, though the kid’s day had to be moved up due to bad weather the week before. Basically what happens is that there are dozens of groups, each up to 100 or more people, all dressed up the same. Taking turns, they parade through the streets, dancing, and when adults, drinking a large amount of booze. It is absolute madness, and completely fun. Everyone else lines the streets, dressed up as well, and watches. The idea is to be as contentious as possible, and it is not uncommon to see something along the lines of a priest necking with a nun or a police officer wielding a dildo. In fact, we once had to ask someone whether they were a real cop, as the outfit was perfect, yet they had a large beer in each hand.

The second (grown-up) day was by far the crazier of the two. We ended up meeting the thrift store lady who had refused to sell Ben the purple jacket. They bought us warm wine and we then went to ride on this large machine that swings you all around in different directions and made me feel as if I would vomit for the next 2 hours. I spent those two hours sitting on a magnificent balcony of the “Italian Building”, reserved only for the local Italian community (Stella scored us entrance), queasily overlooking the festivities and eating free homemade biscotti and sausages. That night I made Indian food for a party of eight people. I used some of the hot peppers that Andrej grows to make a sauce, and it was the first spicy thing I ate since coming from India. The eight of us had to struggle to finish the tablespoon or so of the sauce.

Here are some photographs of the adult's Karnival:

Our crew. The individual with a plastic bag instead of a head was the elusive thrift store lady.

Andrej and Stella

Ben and I went out that night and ended up dancing until six in the morning. Before leaving, I’ll never forget what Stella said to me: “Can you do me a favour? Can you cut off the dreadlock [Didi] has on her butt?” I used the excuse that I was allergic to guinea pigs, and Ben did the dirty work. The next morning, before leaving in a disgruntled state, Andrej gave us a great rundown of the wars in various parts of the Balkans following the breakup of former Yugoslavia. It really put a good deal of what we had seen in perspective, and was really interesting to hear about it from someone who had spent their life living in the region. We left and Andrej accepted stickers of Hanuman and Ganesha. He gave me some of is special hot peppers for the road.

On our way to the bus station we stopped off to say goodbye to the thrift store lady, and to see if she would give Ben the purple jacket. Despite having become friends, she again refused, saying that it was not his style and that he looked way too ugly in it. When it came to paying for the bus, we were in a bit of a dilemma because the bus was 150 kuna and we only had 20 remaining. I didn’t really want to use the atm again for only enough notes to get our tickets. Ben, however, had a plan: “You wait here, and I’ll be back in 10 minutes with 150 kuna”. I was a bit nervous because we only had about 20 minutes before the bus left, but in the end it didn’t take him long to come back empty handed, having lost the rest of our money at the casino. Fortunately for us, my bank account was a more reliable source of cash than gambling, and we were able to buy our tickets just in time to get on the bus and head to Trieste, Italy.

I thought of home as the bus drove out of the station and through the banners and confetti still out from the day before. I knew that despite all that we’d been through, for me the story of coming home and seeing everyone I love and miss would be the best of them all.