Croatia and the Adriatic

Only about fifteen years ago, Croatia was in the center of a bloody war and tumultuous controversy as the republics of the former Yugoslavia fought for their independence. I can recall terms such as “ethnic cleansing”, and the tangle between Bosnia and the Serbs and Croats, from my high school world history courses, and remember fearing that the US and many civilians were losing their lives in yet another war. And though anyone you speak with there can recall the battles in detail, and tell you of land mines that still lie in the off beaten areas in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro, Croatia has since retiled the red rooftops that had been bombed, and repaved many of the streets that suffered from the attacks. While many bullet holes and bombed out walls can still be seen, the beauty of Croatia and the Dalmation Coast shine through. Today Croatia remains a beautiful, picturesque, modern and fairly affluent country with gorgeous beaches, pristine lakes and rivers, green mountaintops and tons of quaint little islands dotting the coastline. During the hot summer months, celebrities and vacationers from around the world, flock to this Riviera-like coastline and turn the old cities of Dubrovnik and Split and the quiet uninhabited islands into a hotspot for adventure and tourism. During November, however, these cities and each of the islands go into hibernation. Arriving into the port city of Dubrovnik, I had no solid plans for what I’d so in Croatia. Especially with only two days in between the past few ports, and work to do on the ship, its been hard to research and plan anything. Nobody really knew much about Croatia, so it seemed the majority of us left it until the last minute to figure things out. I spent the first day in the old city of Dubrovnik, climbing the city walls which were built hundreds of years ago to protect the city from enemy fire. Today it frames the beautiful old city and provides a gorgeous backdrop for photos, and a place for Semester at Sea students to jump from cliffs into the sea (it also provided some last photos of the voyage for at least one student who was unfortunately injured badly enough that she is now being transported from a Croatian hospital to one in the Austria). Mom, aren’t you glad I didn’t jump? After spending one day and evening in Dubrovnik it became clear that I would need to explore other parts of Croatia. Dubrovnik is a beautiful city, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed my time there very much. But, five days in just that one town, crawling with SAS students (I think we quadrupled the population with our arrival to this port) might have become boring rather quickly. So, when a small group of students invited me on a “yachting excursion” to go “island hopping” for a few days around Croatia, I decided I hadn’t had enough sailing (being on a ship traveling around the globe), and I bought in. And although this yacht turned out to be a sailboat and the excursion felt a little more like camping than “island hopping”, I was really glad I went. Besides, our skipper was a local, so although it wasn’t complete immersion into Croatian culture, at least we got a chance to get to know him and even practice a little of the native language. With two ladies and five guys, you can probably imagine the type of trip that it was. No hot water in the shower, a toilet we had to manually pump ourselves, and a kitchen the size of an airplane lavatory (wait, those are probably larger), it was tight quarters. I’ve learned a couple things about myself on this trip that I wasn’t sure about before. One, I’m not a backpacker (found that one out in Japan when I erroneously thought I could climb Mt. Fuji with a backpack not much bigger than a school pack and clothing I purchased from Old Navy rather than REI), and two, I’m not much of a camper. I like warm showers and clean clothing way too much. Ok, perhaps life on the ship had spoiled me too much (did I mention that my cabin steward cleans my room everyday and that for $5 a bag I can have my laundry done for me?) But, I am not much of a prissy girl either, and I can hold my own without showering for a couple of days. Besides we were on an adventure! We spent most of the first day sailing in the calm and peaceful Adriatic Sea. I even jumped in for a swim for a while which was really nice, even in November. The water was clean and beautiful, and it felt great to finally be back in the water. We had loaded up our small refrigerator with food and drinks and arrived at one of the small islands that evening, where we decided to cook up some spaghetti and teach our captain a few good old fashioned American card games. It reminded me a little of trips to the cabin with my parents back when I was a kid (mostly because we always had spaghetti and there wasn’t much more to do at night than play card games), and also a little like trips to the mountains with my friends back home (probably because there was a lot of beer involved). At any rate, we had a blast. It was also a lot of fun getting to know these other six people a little better. The next morning we got up early and hiked around this totally deserted island. It was beautiful, and also a little strange to be the only people there. It felt a little like Survivor. The views were amazing, and it was so peaceful. Back on the boat, we headed off to another island, where we found another beautiful old castle, and I had the bright idea that we’d find a hotel with a hot tub and invite ourselves in. Ha! Not only would we find no hot tubs, we’d find not one open hotel, restaurant, café, scuba diving shop, etc. These islands completely shut down in the winter. If we’d wanted to stay off the boat, we’d have had to rent a room in someone’s home (which also could have been cool), or we’d have had to really camp out on the beach. I was glad we had our boat; it was freezing at night! We were pretty lucky, though. The weather was great during the day, and we were able to enjoy these islands all to ourselves. By the third day, I was feeling great about the adventure, but needing a long hot shower, so it was great to get back to the ship. That evening we went back to the old city (pretty much where everything is happening), and caught the new movie, Borat, which was hilarious, and stumbled over SAS’ers on every block. I didn’t get to try a lot of Croatian cuisine (had some seafood the first night that was pretty good, heard the pizza was great), and I didn’t meet as many people in this port as I have in the others (Croatian people, though friendly, certainly didn’t go out of their way to welcome us the way they has in other countries), and I didn’t spend much if any time shopping (everything was either closed or I didn’t figure anyone would want me to bring them back tacky shot glasses, overpriced t-shirts or key chains that said Dubrovnik on them). But, I did get to have a nice relaxing time in a beautiful country, and enjoy a little down time before coming back to the ship and immediately going straight to work. Something else that happened for me in this port was that I began to really miss home. A few days, even a week ago, I wasn’t ready to go back home. I wanted the adventure to continue. I suppose a piece of me still does. It is exciting to always have a new port to look forward to. But, it also gets sad sometimes to keep leaving a place and sometimes people behind. But it really hit me in this port how much I miss my family and friends, and to some degree my life back home. No, I don’t want the journey to end, and I don’t think it ever will. I just look forward to having my real life back for awhile, until the next journey, which I hope I’ll have the fortune to make. Of course, Spain is up next, and that country holds a very special place in my heart. So, I am very much looking forward to continuing my adventure there before crossing the Atlantic and returning to the U.S.