Dancers in the Dark

I’ve had a bit of an issue with my internet – normally my monthly internet racun (with a ‘ch’ on the ‘c’) is about 180 kuna - when I returned from Hvar, the latest racun was tucked under my door – I should have left it there, it was 1650 kuna! Something is wrong - I have faxed a query form to the internet folk, but what will they care – I have had my laptop scanned for virus’ and am happy to report a clean bill of health. I suspect that the mobile stick is not disconnecting when I ask it to – a stick with a mind of its own.

So, I want to mention the children, or more particularly the attitude to children here. Apart from the fact that they are gorgeous looking and beautifully dressed, they are an important part of the community. They are greeted first in a group situation; they are up late in cafes and promenading with the best of them. And when I mentioned this to my friend in Hvar, I was greeted with a blank look. Hmmm, the look told me that she had absolutely no frame of reference for where I was coming from. Which is the ‘seen and not heard’ attitude that is prevalent in NZ society. I recall children having to sit quietly while the adults greeted each other, and being told not to interrupt. This must be a hangover from the Protestant background – what do you think?? (Conversely, we kick our children out of the nest as early as we can, where young adults don’t ever really leave the nest unless the move towns or countries).

What I am seeing here is the delight that adults take in engaging the children. I myself loved to have my children in bed by 6.30, 7.00 so that adults could have time (actually, so I could have time) – the children here rest with the adults in the late afternoon and then are very much part of the evening out in the cooler air. And after yesterday, with a high of 34, there is no question about which part of day you should be out in. Yesterday was the first day that I have switched my air-con on – I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Too hot to venture out, even the sea temperature is beyond cooling.

The evening promenade last night was a special treat. I had been told that there was a concert on in the town square, starting at 9.30. Now, there’s a point of difference in itself – which family concert in NZ would start at 9.30? Children would all be in bed, tvs would be on and the cup of tea would be poured….

Lado is the top cultural performance group in Croatia, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be there. The costumes were exquisite – the dances included examples from the islands of Krk, Hvar, Brac and some from Zagreb and Dubrovnik. Each different in costume, music and movement. Some were waltz like, others Greek like, but all were magical. I haven’t seen any Croatian dancing before so had no preconceptions – some of the music I knew from a CD I have from Istria – discordant pipes, with the main dancer calling the dance steps. I was transfixed. I tried to take a few photos, but concentrating on that meant that I couldn’t concentrate on the dancing.

The one photo that I couldn’t get was of a little girl who was so excited, so enchanted, that she just couldn’t stand still. She was standing in the dark dancing by herself with the most incredible look on her face, all the while not taking her eyes from the stage – I guess I know what she wants to be when she grows up. The little girls on the edge of the stage kept inching closer and closer, to be moved back by a friendly policeman, to inch closer and closer. No-one cared. And there were no grizzling children, and no growling parents. Who would have thought.

And so from here – tomorrow I take a bus to Drvenik, then a bus to Bogomolije, a village on the island of Hvar. I won’t have my laptop with me – I will have my birthday while I am there, so please, a loud rendition of happy birthday on Saturday! I will be back in Makarska on Saturday afternoon with plenty of stories and photos – the place we are staying is in the wild-erness (which is slightly different from the wilderness, but is so cute that I can’t bring myself to correct it), has snakes but no power or shower. I hope there is plenty of shade, the forecast is for heat, heat and then more heat. Ciao!

Town Hvar on the Island of Hvar

Oh what a lovely weekend! It feels as though I have been away for a week, not just overnight. It’s funny because I have always thought that it was such a mission to get to Hvar, but it is only a ferry ride of one hour 15 minutes – easy. And the ferry is airconditioned to boot. I took the early bus from Makarska, was in Split by 9.30 (coffee) and on the ferry by 11.30 and off again in Hvar just before one.

I want to paint a picture for you – The island of Hvar is the sunniest of the islands, getting an average of 2724 hours of sunshine each year and is the heart of the lavender production in Croatia (for lavender oil and the fragrant flowers). The town of Hvar is so beautiful that it now attracts the super yacht super beautiful super rich crowd, including the exclusive French Cruise ship that was anchored outside the town today. They people who disembark from these boats have three suitcases to our one, and someone in a uniform to carry said bags…

The crowds are completely different from Dubrovnik, Makarska and even Split. I didn’t spot any walking tour groups, but did hear a lot of English being spoken – young Americans, Brits and most of Australia was there . (Question to the group – why do the young Australians travel in such large groups? – they are very visible, especially after alcohol).

The town is elegant with soft hues. It is silk to cotton and champagne to chardonnay. It is subtle and understated. Does that help the picture?

Anyway, there we were, four of us – Marina, Suzana, Maja and I. Maja is an official translator, and the law requires a wedding which involves someone who isn’t a native Croatian speaker to have a translator present to repeat everything so there is no chance of a disgruntled person coming back after the wedding and saying that they ‘didn’t really understand what was required of them and, please could they just get out of the marriage contract.’ She had two weddings to translate on Saturday.

We dumped our bags at the apartment we were renting and raced to the nearest beach – even right here in the centre the water is gin blue and clean.

Hvar is a small contained town that doesn’t have even have street names. It dates back to the Illryian Tribes who fought with the Greeks in 4th century, but most of the architecture is 13th century with a mixture of Gothic and Venetian flavor. There are a couple of electric cart things to deliver goods, a couple of taxis, but apart from that, the town is closed to traffic leaving the centre with a tranquil medieval air.

Later in the evening when the swallows were swooping through the air, we sat and ate enormous pizzas in one of the sought after cafes and then joined the promenade. The town square (Trg Sveti Stjepana) is paved with marble and is a bit of a challenge for those gorgeous high shoes that the gorgeous young things with gorgeous long legs were wearing, but they weren’t to be put off.

After a few hours we positioned ourselves in a new jazz bar and drank mohjitos, crowd watching, and then wandered a bit more through the quiet streets that rise from the town square. At the very top of these streets are the ramparts which formed part of the original walled town. You can see it in the photos. Check out the thickness of the walls.

The church at the end of the square had the most incredible doors – the carvings on them were interesting, as were the inscriptions.

It was after midnight before we went to bed but the rest of the town (particularly the ones outside our window), waited until much later.

Coffee and pastries in the morning, and then onto a taxi ferry to one of the many islands which surround Hvar – we chose the closest one Jerolimu. Stunningly simple, stunning clear water (are you tired of me saying that?) beautiful smooth pebbles. And then reclined in a bar called Amo for cocktails before we returned to catch the ferry….

Oh, and one of the things that has struck me again and again in Croatia, and was really apparent in Hvar was the Children Thing. Let’s talk about that tomorrow.

Luxuries

One of the luxuries in my life at the moment (and there are a few) is the luxury to be spontaneous.

I feel a bit like a piece of flotsam that has been washed up and can choose to be whatever I want, and to do whatever I want to do. If someone says ‘stop and have a coffee with me’, I can, and do, and often end up having two or three in a morning as I bump into people I know. It’s the choosing game. I can choose to have a coffee because I am not rushing, not short for time, not obligated to anything.

This isn’t to say that I am doing much differently (if you take out the work aspect – oh ok, that’s a big aspect, but work with me here) – I now choose to get up and go to rowing, I choose to run on the other days, and choose to not exercise on Fridays. I choose to study some afternoons, and right now I have chosen to mop my apartment out and defrost the fridge (although I see the logic that should have me do the fridge first and not the floor).

So is it just a matter of approach when we are busy and stressed? I’m doing the same things but the attitude is different (and the weather is better).

Yesterday I chose to walk to the konzum at the top of the road – about 20 minutes walking – but foolishly chose to do so at 1 o’clock when the temperature was 32 degrees. I won’t choose to do that again – by the time I got back I had nearly expired. Fortunately I met a friend on the road and we sat in an airconditioned café and talked about the different tourist hike tours he has coming up – I volunteered to be his assistant if he was short of staff.

My life in Auckland had become very structured, and very over-organized (my own fault) and it is an absolute luxury to be living as I am in this 6 month window. Some mornings I have a loose idea of what the day will bring – I run or row, then so often bump into someone and have a coffee, and next thing I know I am off on an adventure somewhere. I get home in the evening having had a day full of things that I wasn’t expecting. I guess the other factor is that I am open to any suggestions, and look at each thing as an opportunity for an adventure. My father’s wisdom. I have traded my lovely home for a sparten apartment and a suitcase of clothes - and have a hatful of adventures in return.

So, on that note, I’m off to the island of Hvar to stay in the town of Hvar this weekend with a friend – bus from here to Split in the morning, and then a ferry to Hvar, and back again for Sunday night. I will be missing in action for a few days, but you will be with me in spirit!

Far from the Madding Crowd

A moment of silence please.

My jandal broke today, my newish havaianas! Worse than that, they broke when I was about three kilometers away on a gravel road. Not content with running to Kvavica, I have taken to walking there to lie in the sun and have a swim.

It was a long walk back with one jandal on, one off. (I carried the offending jandal so that it was obvious to the less creative thinkers why I had only one on – gotta give those guys a hand.)

The main beach here in Makarska is so incredibly crowded¸ impossible now (not just difficult) to find a spot to put your towel unless you have been down there at 7 in the morning to lie your towel out, securing it with stones – when I mentioned it to someone last night, they said that the season doesn’t peak until 15 July. It’s going to get worse!

So, I walk, past the main beach, past the next one, and the next one (crowd’s thinning slightly) along the gravel track, past the next beach, and through the forest to a little beach that has the same basic few people each day. I realized today that one of reasons that I like this beach is that the stones are not sharp to lie on, they are real pebbles. Guess this is because the sea has had its chance to work away at the stones on the beach, rubbing them smooth, because this isn’t one of the beaches that has the stones removed each year. And the thing that goes along with that process, or rather doesn’t, is that the stones that you lie on on this beach are not dusty like the other beaches closer to the town. I’m sure that this all sounds completely foreign to New Zealanders with sand on their beaches (you should be so lucky) but pebbles are the thing here, and the rounder the better.

It looks as though there are seals lounging on the rocks, brown round seals, but it is people determined to get as brown as can be¸ dedicated to the cause by getting as much sun as possible, and all day if possible.

I managed to get a few photos today as I hobbled back with my one jandal. I was looking in the stalls to see if I could find a replacement but having mocked bright yellow, orange or pink crocs, the selection was limited. They were out of playing cards though… well, I’m not surprised, nearly every group was playing cards. Seriously. Have you not ever thought as you lay on the beach, covered in lotion, ‘gosh, game of cards would be good.’ For me, that would come just after 'and how about a bit of hot sweet corn on the cob' but there you go.

I did notice that the bungy tower must have been having its inaugural leap because there was quite a crowd standing around watching and clapping. It didn’t look like a lot of fun to me, guy was upside down for ages! I always have a picture in my mind of eyeballs bouncing out on springs.

There are two places where you can have a massage on the beach now – both offering the same menu and prices. Check out how many different things you can be massaged with, and not even in the privacy of your own home. It’s all above board, the tent is wide open to the world. My thought was, when you have had your chocolate massage… what then?

And just to complete the pictures today, there are a couple of photos that I love but haven’t managed to wend into the story yet.

The first is the groblje, the cemetery, on a cloudy day where the grobi nearly meld into the texture of the mountain behind.

And these ones are photos of the caper plant. I was intrigued, although I don’t know what I imagined a caper plant to look like. The flowers are beautiful too. The thing about it is that you can’t easily pull them out and root them, or take a cutting or a seed and live happily ever after with your caper plant, they have a will of their own and sprout indiscriminately – this photo is taken in an abandoned house in the main street in Drvenik, but there was also one growing out of the stage at the open air cinema, casual as anything.

And speaking of the cinema, bit of a write up in the Kronika today about the play we went to last Friday, but more particularly about the fact that there were ‘1000 people without a WC’. Goodness, it didn’t occur to me. Don’t look too closely at the enlargement photo, just not nice.

Drvenik seems to have it sorted for those who want to lie their towels out first thing in the morning...

Lastly, check out this spot for doing bombs! As I watched someone jumped and let up a huge splash! It was only one jump so it can't have been Frosty Man and the BMX Kid - and if you have no idea what I am talking about, google Frosty Man and the BMX Kid- but the word on the street was that it was a New Zealand guy. Odlicno! (with a 'ch' on the 'c').

Of Mice and Crocs

It started raining in the early hours of the morning and then continued heavily until about 9. No Rowing *sigh*. You could feel it in the air yesterday – maybe that’s what brought the mouse in.

My apartment has been sectioned off from the rest of the house by a line a shoes blocking any potential egress under the door by a mouse on a mission. This mouse had better know its place and stay in my apartment, it’s definitely not welcome next door!

Immediately the rain slowed to a drizzle I set off on my own personal mission. Into the hardware store and asked for two miso lovke – two mouse traps (with a ‘sh’ on the ‘s’). They come with a guarantee! One has been set with cheese (beautiful pag, hope this mouse is a connoisseur) and the other with pesto. Bit of variety for a fussy mouse. I thought the pesto would work in the absence of peanut butter – there is some logic there because pesto has parmesan cheese in it. Will let you know what its preference is, although I wonder if it has already made a run for it, back out the terasa door.

I told you that I was growing basil - I have had two harvests and made two batches of pesto, keeping myself and my neighbour in stock. I made an extra jarful yesterday and gave it to the neighbours upstairs because they gave me the most beautiful bottle of merlot from their developing vineyard in Bosnia. It was divine and we told him so. He gets my pesto in return although she had no idea what it was or what to do with it.

The other animal (other than my rodent friend) that is huge here is crocs. Yes indeedy, everyone is wearing crocs in all shades of the rainbow. Especially if you have a partner, then you have matching crocs, or accessorize them with your bikini. (I know, I had a pair, I wore them to rowing, and more recently wore them only for the garden and mowing the lawns – forgive me).

I’ve spent the business end of today tweaking the Biokovo Active Holiday website http://www.biokovo.net/ - check it out before the charmingly sweet version disappears and is replaced by my version, especially the bit that says ‘About Us’ . The company paid someone a fair wage to translate their website into English – I’m happy to tweak it for nothing because… well, because I can. I’m fluent in English, it’s my only selling point!

So, yoga at my new gym again tonight – bit further to walk up the road (eyes averted, head down because I Am In Public In My Running Gear). Actually, out running yesterday I was amazed at the number of runners that were pounding the track with me – those out of towners, just can’t relax and be still!

Double Damn and a Fairy Tale

Damn and double dipped damn!

I mentioned that we were going to do a night climb on Biokovo on Sunday, leaving the riva at 1 am to climb to Vosac – (‘sh’ on the ‘s’) – there I was setting my alarm to haul my crazy self out of bed to meet that appointment, scrogan packed, water packed, banana for breakfast, boots at the ready, even two headlamps just in case… and down came the rain. This in itself is not normal because it doesn’t really rain much here, so the night tramp was cancelled – otkazao je – the second time in three weeks!

And then, I was offered a job last week - get this – working as a hostess on a luxury yacht for 6 Russian and Slovenian people, cruising the Adriatic for 5 days – what a dream job…. And then on Sunday morning the tour company emailed to apologise and say that the clients had cancelled – again with the otkazali su!

Never mind, the sun is shining again, the water is gorgeous again and there are plenty of things to do.

The Tourist Picture is changing slightly though – the Germans have moved on (it’s now full price, they are Low Season Price People it would seem) and there are more French and English voices to be heard. There was an English family on the small beach that I was on popodne (this afternoon) and I think they presumed (well that’s the only explanation for it, unless they are just stupid) that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Silly really. They would possibly (probably) be embarrassed if they knew that I understood what they were saying. All of it. It kept me amused for quite a while.

So, an update on the fate of Antonija – it says in the paper today that the police and the Gorska Sluzba staff are now searching the river for the seventh day, but suspect that they have been given false information by the guy held in the cells, and in the mean time they are holding him in Bosnia rather than returning him to Croatia in case they end up having nothing to charge him with. It’s the cat and mouse game.

Speaking of which, I just saw a mouse run across the floor in my apartment! Branka warned me about leaving the doors to the terasa open, but how can they be kept shut all the time? The apartment is small, I have been in all of the corners with the broom, but cannot find it! Ohhh, I will have to buy a trap tomorrow, and there is no peanut butter here to bait it with! Peanut butter is my old Reliabile Mt Eden Mouse bait. Poor Branka, she is hiding in her house.

And a wee fairy tale for you. Once upon a time there was a young man who, being enterprising, and creative decided that he would take advantage of the important wealthy people visiting his coastal homeland, and after thinking long and hard and out of the square decided not to sell kukuruz (hot sweet corn) on the beach – instead, he would sell fresh fruit salad. In a plastic cup. With a fork. With a serviette. And a smile. He ventured out on the first morning, full of hope and small change…. But the nasty people who sold the kukuruz objected to the free thinking ‘out of the square’ person, and with a little not so subtle bullying, the boy packed up his free thinking enterprise, admonished himself for Daring to Think Outside of the Square and waited for a small part in the kukuruz racket. And only the man who owned the kukuruz racket lived happily ever after. Well actually, not even him because there was another man above him etc etc. Please note that this story bears no actual relevance to any particular life or situation, the people in the story are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or situations is coincidental. Ok?

That’s all for now – need to go and hunt that mouse before I go to sleep..

White Oleanders

I didn’t tell you that I found a Book Angel.

The kind lady who works with Drago (the Banisher) told me recently that she used to own a book store here in Makarska and that she has thousands of books in storage, some of them in English. A Book Angel!

So for the last two days I have been ensconced in an elegant book called White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Read it if you can find it, it is captivating. It deals with a destructive relationship between a mother and a daughter – the mother finds herself incarcerated for murder and the daughter finds herself trailing from one foster home to another, living a different sort of life sentence. Central to the story is the oleander which her mother gathers and boils down to kill the man who has spurned her – ‘boiled down, distilled it, like her hatred’- It is so poisonous that ‘you just have to roast a marshmallow on a twig and you were dead’. It’s not a soppy tale with a happy ending, and it has the most gorgeous turns of phrase. Elegant if you will.

Anyway, to give you a lovely visual, this stark rocky Adriatic coast is softened with thousands of oleander bushes. Pinks, crimsons and whites, everywhere. In the book the narrator says that oleanders ‘could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and still put out thousands of waxy blooms’. And this must be true because there is a limit to the things that will grow uncoaxed on the coast here. The flowers are perfect, and as a teenager I used to tuck one behind my ear when I was going out in the summer.

Oooh, but in this week’s Makarska Kronika, I see that there is a lobby against the oleander. Let me just sit with my dictionary for a few minutes and read about the pros and the cons of this - I’ll get back to you soon.

Ok, it’s all to do with Sve Petar, you know, the promontory with the light house on it down by the rowing club.

About a month ago there was a lot of ‘machinery’ going on over there, which then suddenly stopped. Reading the paper at the time, it seemed that the local authorities had decided to install a chemical toilet on Sve Petar ‘for the tourists’ but that some ‘eco’ people had put their hands and their arguments up and halted the work. The toilet plans have been flushed as it were, and now there is just the leveled track. Now there is concern that the dust will be a problem ‘for the tourists’ which has brought on a new flush of arguments - what to plant to try and fix the mess. The local forestry office guy says that they have oleander seedlings that could be planted in the mean time (you knew we would get there eventually) but the ‘ecos’ have put their hands up and said no, ‘poisonous, not indigenous.’ They have correctly pointed out that the area is a bit of an ‘eco/history’ disaster, and they want to see the disaster reigned in.

Walking around the area this morning, there are a couple of things that need to be said, viz, that the area smells of … faeces, and perhaps we need toileting lessons ‘for the tourists’ (you can see why the issue of a toilet was raised) and perhaps, if they manage to carry their picnic things to the beach, they could carry the containers home again – after all, they are lighter at the end of the day (the empty containers I mean). There are piles of rubbish everywhere. (This area is only 5 minutes from the main street, not at the end of the world).

The problem is that the tourist is the holy grail and anything will be tolerated to ensure that the tourists are happy, including bad behavior. The selling point of this area is the cisto & bistro (clean and clear) water and beaches. Not sorting this issue may threaten that reputation.
In the article, the ‘eco’ folk have raised the issue of the new bar that has been given a permit to operate from a flattened space (same bulldozer) near the lighthouse, which they see as a disaster – firstly this is an area of historical significance, and secondly, a bar only heightens the need for a toilet.

They mentioned again their dislike (ecologically and historically) of the concrete (beton) areas on the rocks which allow further spaces for sun chairs and umbrellas to be rented out. (You need a permit to run your business from these areas, and permits put money in the local authority coffers).

So at the moment the dusty path remains as it is until there is a resolution.

One local guy is waging his own private planting campaign, trying to regenerate the native plants on the area. He is so cute – 93 years old and quietly spoken, he is up there most days watering and planting. He stops to chat when we are at rowing in the mornings - he just may have it sorted before the bureaucratic arguments are sated!

(PS -if you are reading this, could you do me a favour and add yourself as a follower or let me know - I would love to know who else I am 'talking' to!)