So Croatia is also known for many many many many islands off its Dalmatian coast, the most famous of which is Hvar.
Cerulean.
Stari Grad (Old City) on Hvar is the most ancient Greek settlement in the Adriatic, or something like that.
It was perfect day for the beach/a suntan/sunstroke.
I lol-ed at this -- so North Korean! So Tito.
So only Deivid, Daniel and I decided to explore the town. This is part of my criticism against most gwai-lohs: they go somewhere far and exotic and all they want to do it sit in the sun and tan.
Ridiculous. But different indifference curves lah.
Hvar's soil is very fertile, and I bought lotsa fruit there for lunch. Ish.
Grapes watermelon nectarines apricots plums mmmmm somehow all these fruits taste better in the Mediterranean (not even US matches up).
Old church.
So the Stari Grad fields were made a
UNESCO Heritage Site the
same time Penang and Malacca were! So I was quite excited to visit.
But actually the fields were damn boring.
So we climbed a hill. Again.
Hahahhahahaha. Actually we were looking for a Roman olive press ruin, but there were no clear directions to it. So I botched up as leader and we instead walked in the damn hot sun up the hill. And again I exceeded my average of 10 km per touristy day.
And to cut our journey short, we climbed a cliff/wall thingy -- a man-made structure of piled stones. Mountain climbing in Croatia. Shirtless.
The cliff was at least fifty meters, and the walls were about two to three meters each. We went up, through ditches, thorns, bushes, fucking tree branches that block your way and swing back when pushed away, mud, and dangerously loose stones.
Daniel was the man. He did it in sandals.
And we freaking triumphed.
Yeaaaaaaaaah.
And on the peak of the hill was this cathedral. With a nunnery next to it.
It was here where we ate the rest of Daniel's grapes and I peed and we stole water from the pipe because we were covered in sweat and damn thirsty.
But quite fun lah adventure.
:)
So we were in danger of missing our ferry back to Split and we were kinda sorta rushing back to Stari Grad. Damn far okay we walked for at least an hour and a half, if not more, to the cathedral.
So we were pseudo-joking about hitch-hiking and getting killed in Croatia.
But then we actually put out our thumbs every time a car passed us.
Then almost all the cars ignored us (probably because we were shirtless).
And suddenly this car stopped for us. :)
Twas a local Hvarian and he gave us a ride back to Stari Grad, where he was picking up his wife or something.
Note the smiles of relief and surprise on our faces.
But that was not the end of our physical adventure, although we thought so ourselves. The port of Stari Grad was quite a while away from Stari Grad town, so we had to walk back. When we came from the port to the town we took the highway; now we decided to be a little more adventurous.
So we went the coastal way because it was more scenic.
Then the road gave way to rocks and nothing else but rocks.
And naturally we decided to do it the rocky way, keeping with the theme of the day.
Which was quite a fun decision, but this rock crossing was harder than the previous rock climbing.
Because the rocks were jagged and quite sharp at many a point. And thus quite threatening.
:)
But teamwork pulled us through baby.
Physically exhausting but spiritually fulfilling.
Wanderlust.
Oh there were also a number of people sunbathing nude.
Which is relatively more common in Croatia and Europe.
And we arrived at the port a few minutes earlier than departure time. ;)
So Croatians are damn nice and friendly one! This guy is Goran and he owns a cafe right by the port at Split.
So at first I asked him whether he knew of cheap and good internet cafes -- and at first he pointed towards the cafes next door, and I responded that they were
tako skupo/damn freaking
expensive (30 kuna = 6 USD per hour!!) :(
Then guess what man he told me to come in to his cafe and brought out his laptop for me to use. Wow. Then I asked him if I could use it for a looooong time because I was going to burn photos onto a DVD because all my thumbdrives were full and he said yes. Whoaness. Free computer and free internet wey!
So I ordered a slice of cake from him because he was so nice. And then he came to chat and belanja-ed me a glass of coke.
And when I said hello to him when I came back from Hvar (the previous narrative happened the day before) he gave me free ice-cream.
Hohoho the richness of humanity!
And this ice-cream is gelato, which is, comparatively, one of the cheapest foods in the Balkans. (And ironically one of the most expensive in Malaysia i.e. KLCC.) Which I had almost every day in Bosnia because it was cheap and yummmmmmmmmmmy.
:)
My favourite flavour was
ljesnjak (hazelnut). Orgasmic. Really.
And all my journeys are incomplete without sky scenes so here goes.
