We finally found summer in Croatia! We spent the first few days relaxing by the ocean in a small town called Bajnice, marveling at being hot again (it was about 36C) and jumping into the spectacularly clear water at the front of our hostel to cool off. We also ventured into Split for a day of sightseeing, but were soon keen to be back in the water. Then we were given an offer we couldn’t refuse. The hostel is new and the owner Nikola is FULL of ideas. One of them is to set up a trip to his father’s old house in the middle of the countryside, quite near to the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He’d run it once before a year ago and this was his second attempt. We left a few hours later than planned as we first had to disassemble 6 of the hostel beds and pack them into the trailer along with the dishwasher, our lunch and a wine bottle big enough for me to get in! There were 6 of us going, which meant 2 cars. Nikola with his and Sonja (his niece) driving us, but for some reason not in her car. She was having difficulty with the car from the getgo and before we had got 5km the car gave up completely and we had our first adventure – pushing the car to the nearest turn off! Some theatrics later (not quite sure how jumping on the car bonnet was supposed to help) we were off this time in her car. The drive along the Croatian coast was spectacular to say the least, looking like all the tourist brochures you’ve ever seen. Lush green hills rolling down to crystal clear turquoise ocean with the occasional town with white walls and red roods completing the colour palette. Then Nikola spotted some backpackers who were trying to hitch to Mostar (in Bosnia and Herzegovina). He offered to let them join us going to the National Park and getting to the border sometime that night, but they did not have enough time so we drove them only 2km to a better hitching spot.
Our first official stop was a National Park. This was a beautiful spot and the views from the top of the mountain were amazing. But, we were starting to get hungry. We made it to the top about 6pm, and hadn’t eaten since 10am. The sandwiches, you may remember, were put in the trailer which we’d left at the bottom of the road. It was a very narrow winding road and trying to pass was at times exciting. One spot in particular where there was no barrier we had to drive right to the edge of the cliff to let the other car pass. From Sonja’s car we had watched Nikola drive right up to the edge without a millimeter to spare. But we had to get there too. All four of us jumped out of the car not wanting to risk that Nikola would not be able to pull it off twice in a row (Sonja was not even going to try) and proceeded to take pictures of what was happening instead!
We made it to the old stone house about 8pm. It was a charming house and the whole community came to be part of dinner. Not many people live there now as they had moved down the valley to the village. But we were joined by the ‘old lady’ (a next door neighbour who was 99 years old), the ‘cowboy’ (Nikola’s brother, Anti) and the ‘indian’ (another neighbour). There was also Sonja’s sister and her boyfriend who had come up from Split. The old lady and the cowboy were in charge of cooking dinner, all with food from Anti’s ranch. First up was the bread. A fire was built on the stones and once it had burned itself out to coals and heated the stones it was moved aside, fig leaves were put down and the bread placed on top of them. A lid was put over it and hot coals placed on top of it. The result was some of the best bread I’ve ever tasted, particularly dipped in the home made olive oil and garlic. Yum!! We were all consuming copious amounts of Anti’s home made wine which came in three bottles. The largest was good, the middle size was better and the smallest (the bottle was a pumpkin!) was ‘very special’ and much higher in alcohol content. And we can’t forget the homemade spirit of somekind which was incredibly potent, plus the shots of raki that we’d been given by an old man in the National Park that we bought some honey off. It was a great night with conversations in Croatian, German and English all happening simultaneously.
The next day when we finally stirred we explored a bit more before we headed off to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a beer. It was the most laid back border crossing ever as Nikola explained what we were doing and so our passports were not even looked at in either direction on the Croatian side and only a quick glance as we entered Bosnia and Herzegovina. Afterwards we swam in the blue lake before heading back to Split for a well deserved sleep.
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