I just got back from a weekend in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and I am officially in love. Our hostel was actually in a little town called Zaton Mali about 10km north of Dubrovnik proper, but even that was wonderful because it was super quiet, you could see the stars at night, and the beaches weren't crowded. But the old town of Dubrovnik was really spectacular. It's this old coastal medieval fortress, essentially, complete with turrets and a moat. Obviously the town has grown out from the original city walls since the 15th century, but the walls and old city are so incredibly well preserved. For $5, we walked around the top of the wall and got incredible views of the sunset over the Adriatic on top of the orange roofs. I was in absolute awe.
The bus ride from Sarajevo is a mere $50 (round trip) and only takes 6 hours. In theory. In our case, it was more like 12 from start to finish. Somewhere past the first border crossing (whoever decided how the former Yugoslavia was going to be chopped up seriously failed), the bus that Kim and I were on came to a standstill. For as far as we could see, traffic was stopped, to the point where people had turned their cars off, were walking their dogs and popping open beers sitting on their trunks. It seemed as if we were going to be there for a while. Every half hour or so, the bus would move ahead 100 feet as people ahead of us got annoyed with waiting and turned around. But traffic certainly wasn't moving. Our bus driver eventually got word that there was a fatal car accident about 2km ahead, and since there are no shoulders on the roads in the Balkans, and their 'highways' are only two lanes wide, our bus wasn't going anywhere until everything had been cleared. Kim and I stayed on the bus for the first hour or so, but then decided it was a waste and got off to check out the really beautiful sunset:
While out and about, we started chatting with a family from Montenegro and girl from Atlanta who was on the bus with us. It was really quite pleasant. Then we see our bus start to pull away. No biggie - it never moves very far. We can just walk a little further to catch up with it. Only this time, it doesn't stop after 100 feet. It keeps going. I start to have a panic attack. My passport was on that bus. My phone was on that bus. I have no cash on me. I'm somewhere in Croatia on the side of a highway with no way to contact anyone. Holy shit. The bus keeps going. It turns a corner. I can no longer see it. So I start sprinting. Pretty sure the last time I ran that aggressively was during the state track meet in 8th grade, but it was either that or go into a panic attack on the side of the road. I had sprinted about a quarter of a mile, when I hear someone calling my name, coming up quickly behind me. I turn around and see Kim and Jeannine (girl from Atlanta) waving to me from the backseat of the Montenegrin family's car. They pull up beside me, the mom opens up the front passenger side door and tells me to jump in - on her lap. Whatever. It's better than running. The bus eventually stopped about 3/4 of a mile from where it had started, still stuck in traffic. We thanked the Montenegrin family profusely, hopped out of their car, and scrambled back onto the bus to much applause from all the Brits and Americans on it. Needless to say, from that point on, Kim and I did not leave the bus.
Eventually the traffic cleared (3 hours later) and we got into Dubrovnik around midnight. We had left Sarajevo at 2:30. The shuttle from our hostel was supposed to pick us up at 9:00. Obviously we had no way of contacting them, so we just hoped that they'd come around at some point to try and find us. Wrong. It got to be 12:15 and we realized we'd better find a Plan B. Jeannine didn't have a hostel reserved, so she tagged along with Kim, myself and a Canadian named Dan who had been on our bus and had reservations at the same hostel we did. We went to find a city bus. I asked the bus driver if he knew where 'Hostel Dubrovnik Sunset' was, since none of us had written down the address or had any idea where the stupid thing was. The driver repeated 'Hostel?' and I said 'Yes, Hostel Dubrovnik Sunset, do you know it?' He nodded 'Hostel, yes.' Ok. So we pay the 1.5 kuna to take the bus. He drops us off a mile down the road. Definitely not right, since I knew the hostel was at least 7km outside of town. Turns out he had just dropped us off at the nearest hostel, and if I hadn't been exhausted, I probably would've picked up on that sooner. Luckily, at this random hostel, we could use wifi, find an address for our hostel, and catch a cab to Zaton Mali. By the time we got to bed, it was 3am. Woof.
It's ok though...because this was the view from our balcony:
The weather was perfect all weekend and I got back a bit of my tan so I no longer feel transparent. We explored the island in Dubrovnik harbor and had some delicious seafood. It was really nice being next to a huge body of water again (my apologies to Colorado...) I picked up a pink coral necklace for myself, since Dubrovnik is known for their coral jewelry. Upon telling Dad about it, he replied 'oh lovely, so you're contributing to the depletion of the coral reefs.' Way to be a downer about it.
And, to be honest, by the end of the weekend, I was very ready to get back to Sarajevo. I knew that once I had my first excursion, Sarajevo would feel much more like home, because that's how it went in Switzerland. Don't get me wrong, I would've stayed in Dubrovnik in a heartbeat, but the room was far too small for the 7 people it had in it on Friday night, and the bathroom was not cleaned once while we were there, and the towels were the size of large napkins. I felt a bit dirty by the time we got back last night. So I reveled in my nice hot shower and my huge bed and relative privacy in my 3-person room. Then when I woke up this morning covered in bug bites again, I remembered why I wanted to leave in the first place.
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