Croatia - Ship Supper

I have been hankering for a ship dinner for a few days. We’ve walked past it twice now and it looked like fun.
There’s a ship that docks in the harbour each night. It’s a restaurant ship. I first saw it two nights ago and was very taken with it but I though it was just a once off tour ship that had stopped. I stared at it wistfully and then walked on. Last night I saw it again as we walked to get ourselves some take away cevapcici (a kind of sausage almost like boerewors – very tasty.) I stared after it longingly but N wasn’t biting and he scurried past it as fast as he could, clearly fixating on cevapcici.
When it was still there on our way back home I couldn’t take it any longer and I informed N that the next night I would be eating there. That he didn’t have to come with me, but I wanted a ship supper. N looked worried and said that it looked like it was full of smokers and very noisy. I said that he had all of the next day to debate whether or not he could handle it, but I was going to have dinner there come hell or high water.

The next day dawned rainy and oh look – I’m getting a cold. I spent much of the day sleeping off the nasty lurgy and wondering if I had been just a bit excitable about my high water protestations. N informed me grandly that he would grace my dinner ith his presence if he was allowed to bring his ear plugs and if I waved the smoke away from him the entire evening with something like a magazine. I only just managed to quash the fantasy where I throw him overboard. Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time dinner time swung by. I dragged myself off my sick bed. N dragged himself away from his computer looking like the doom of nations was nipping at his heels. Halfway down the street (what a pretty sunset – see picture below) he set about bemoaning the fact that he had forgotten his ear plugs. Thank heavens. The idea of dining with a non-responsive person complete with orange sponge sticking out of his ears was just about too much for me.

The sights we have to endure here in Makarska:


The ship restaurant thingy was funky. It’s a boat that seems to do tours during the day and then at night it docks and becomes a fish buffet restaurant.

The funky ship:


Tables on the deck:


The fish is cooked at the back end of the ship (the stern) by a man who looks just like a pirate. The man is not stern, the ship is. Has. Has one. A stern, that is. N was very excited. Not by the stern, but by the cook's pirate headgear. I told him it was just to keep hair out of our food but N was having none of that pesky realism and declared that clearly the ship had a pirate theme. Whatever – anything to distract him from the earplugs. The whole place was slightly rough and ready, which, I must say, was part of its charm. N played it safe (he is not exactly a reckless diner) with something that looked and tasted like crumbed hake. I branched out and had a half portion of the calamari (but these were whole crumbed squids, not the sanitized little rings) and a half portion of the mackerel. I really liked the mackerel. It was an entire fish, about a foot long. When the lady drenched it with olive oil I had inner conniptions but as it turns out I needn’t have. The whole thing was delicious.

Dinner:


The view from our table:


The kitchen (galley - HARRRR!) at the back of the ship:


Once I had finished my meal (and it was a goodly helping of food.) I had a moment of terrible regret. The regret was incited by the sight of a gigantic plate of mussels being carried past. They looked truly delicious. I managed not to sink a fang into the mussel bearer. I wish I could have tried the mussels too but I think there was scope for me to gain an instant 10 kg if I’d been allowed to indulge my every whim on that ship. When we were finished our food and I was finishing my wine N began to get restless for ice cream and so we headed off.

N had his usual two scoops of dulce latte - caramel stuff. I had a scoop of lime and one of a creamy vanilla. Both were delicious. After gobbling them up on a bollard at the harbour, I endured the waddle home. I’m super tired and somewhat less than 100% well. I’m hoping to get a decent night’s sleep because tomorrow we leave Makarska to go to Omis and hunt down some climbing. I’m not sure how the injured foot (feet) and fluey body will cope with any sort of physical exercise – I guess we will see tomorrow.

Croatia - Ups and Downs

An eventful few days have passed since my last post. We finally had enough of the campsite. Enough of walking to the other end of the world every time we needed to pee or brush our teeth or shower. Enough of the trailer trashy folk that were unerringly attracted to our tent. Enough of having nowhere to work comfortably (the novelty of the pine stumps wore thin quite quickly.) Enough of the trash that blew into our campsite the whole time (what is wrong with people that they come to a pretty place to enjoy it and then leave their rubbish strewn about?) And enough of the disgusting smokers that were EVERYWHERE. It seemed as if every second group of people smoked. And they lit up constantly, without giving a damn about anyone else downwind. I’ve said it before. I reiterate. It is offensive to sit in a campsite and be smoked out by anything other than someone’s braai gone wrong. So we left quite huffily. Nasty spot.

Before we left, we took a day trip to the island of Hvar. With hindsight, we should have stayed longer instead of making a day of it. I don’t think we did the island justice. We just saw the harbour, one side of the town of Hvar, the countryside from the bus to Starigrad and the mall next to the ferry point outside Starigrad. We missed seeing the Franciscan monastery and a whole stretch of quaint streets in Hvar town. I did get to see the inside of the Hvar fortress, which N missed out on. He stayed outside and sulked – I mean worked on his laptop – due to the fact that we were in the throes of a disagreement at the time, about whether or not it is ok to secretly stash the butter in your partner's backpack without telling them, leading to melty butter all over the place. And then eating up almost all of the butter, leaving said disgruntled partner with plain bread for lunch.

The Town of Hvar:


The Town of Hvar Seen From The Fortress:


The fortress was interesting. The prison cells were definitely the top attraction for me. I am intrigued by prisons and dungeons and the like. Is this normal? I seem to have a morbid fascination with the terrible things that people do to each other and I spend a lot of time wondering whether or not we’ve actually improved with the advent of “civilization.” I tried to imagine being shut up in one of the stone cells, wondering what my captors would do to me – which of those horrific implements they would use on me to extract my confession. (Has anyone else noticed the unnerving similarity between a rack of medieval torture instruments and the tray of tools that lies next to your dentist? Freaks me out no end.)

Prison Cell:


Your Dentist Wishes:


The other highlight of my day was the notice on the ferry, outlining the emergency procedures. One is instructed to dress warmly and (not my emphasis) "DON'T FORGET drugs if you take them." I must say I thoroughly agree with this sentiment, it sounds very sensible. I am sure that enduring a sinking ferry would be a whole lot more pleasant if one had a gigantic joint clutched in one's paw. Titanic could have been a comedy instead of a tragedy if Kate and Leo had just lightened up a little and lit up. God knows I certainly needed a joint halfway through that movie.

Our Ferry. Better on Drugs:



After a pleasant day on the island, we returned to the mainland. The ferry trip back took much longer than the one there and by the time we got back to the campsite we were tired and looking forward to a lovely chilled evening. We snuggled up to watch an old movie on N’s laptop. Halfway through the movie a tribe of disgusting Spanish men pulled up in their camper van and pitched their tents loudly and noisily about half a metre away from ours. Despite the tracts of empty space all around, they decided that they needed to be RIGHT on top of us. They yelled, they shouted. They stole our pine stump chairs. They cooked supper less than 2 metres from our tent entrance, to the accompaniment of loud inane conversation and attempts to pick up every woman that walked past. They smoked. They left their spent lighters, their cigarette butts and their spilled pasta all over the floor right next to our tent. They kept bumping our tent. It was horrible. And they kept it up until way after 1am. Inconsiderate prats. So much for our cozy, relaxed evening. So much for our night of decent sleep before checking out.

The next morning I dashed out of bed before 8 (super early for a European life style, I’ll have you know) and set about making as much noise as I possibly could by way of revenge. To my absolute fury, my plans backfired. The rude, inconsiderate Spanish slobs rocketed out of bed, packed up with record speed and left. Clearly they needed to be somewhere else in a hurry. Bugger. I should have let them sleep and be late. I was only mildly consoled when one of their crates broke in the packing rush and spilled their food all over the road. Hopefully it was my bad vibes that made it happen.

N and I packed at a slightly more leisurely pace and then undertook the bus journey from Stobrec to Makarska. After the requisite travelling disagreements and moments of mild tension bordering on homicidal urges, we found ourselves on the outskirts of Omis (say “Omish”) sitting next to a concrete blockhouse of a bus stop and wondering whether the bus to Makarska stopped there or not. N proceeded to declare that we were in deep trouble because there was no ways the bus stopped there, and we must immediately shoulder our packs and walk to another bus station. There was, however, not a snow flake’s chance that I was doing that. I was equally sure that the bus would arrive but had no idea how long we would have to wait. Trying to argue with N in full flow, though, is hopeless and so I blew up my cool new plastic cushion and sat lumpishly on it, refusing to move. Eventually the bus arrived and we had our ride to Makarska. My ride was none too comfortable because the long legged creature in front of me had reclined his chair until I could almost inspect his nasal cavities. I couldn’t figure out how to recline my own chair and refused to ask anyone for fear of looking stupid.

Makarska - One Decidedly Cute Town:



At Makarska we were attacked by the usual tribe of Sobe Grannies. Sobe meaning “rooms” in Croatian. The Grannies tout their sobe every time a tourist bus hits the station. (Same thing at ferry terminals.) The Sobe Grannies are intensely annoying. You can’t make it two steps without one popping up and touting. The fact that you have just refused the last seven Grannies is irrelevant. Each one is sure that she and her rooms are irresistible. We fended off swarms of the old creatures. I refused the same one twice. I left N unsupervised for two minutes and she moved swiftly to accost him behind my back. What the little munchkin lacked in height (she was about four foot high, due largely to the hunch) she made up for in enthusiasm. By the time I turned around she had N cornered and was stabbing vigorously at the map and jabbering wildly in Croatian. N was looking totally nonplussed. I moved to join them. We engaged the munchkin in conversation. The pack scented blood. A horde of Grannies rushed over and began to try and poach us. Our munchkin was incensed. We were backed into a corner with Croatian, German and Italian flying at us. Just no English. Prices were yelled in Euros and Kuna. It was Babel revisited. It was mayhem. It was chaos. I was seized with an insane desire to laugh. I’ve never been cornered by a pack of lunatic grannies before. Our munchkin eventually won the day and dragged us off down the road babbling incomprehensibly. We followed her avowing sternly that we were “just going to look.” My tiny, four foot high, aged, hunched munchkin tried to relieve me of my day pack but good grief - how could I possibly contemplate letting her carry it? It’s close on as big as she is.

To cut a long story short, we are now staying in her sobe. For a slightly higher price than the Stobrec travesty of a campsite (thirty rands a day to be exact) we have procured a large room with a comfy double bed and clean sheets, a balcony, a (shared) bathroom and kitchen facilities. We are content.

Makarska Harbour:


And Makarska is a delightful town. I thoroughly recommend a visit if you ever have the opportunity. It has a pebble beach (most of them are pebbled in Croatia) and it has pine trees for shade. On the beach! So you have a choice of sun or shade on the beach, which is a great treat for a Ginger. The water is relatively warm. I can swim for ages, which is unusual for me. There are no waves. I have developed the habit of going for a long swim every morning, paddling up and down the coast in an attempt to exercise the ankle a bit. Ok, maybe you can’t call a habit of two days a habit, but I intend to make it a habit.

Beach Complete With Pine Forest:


Me On Pine Beach (suitably blurry and tiny so that you can't see me in my bikini - hahaha):


Boat In Makarska Harbour:



The only negative part of Makarska so far is that I have managed to disable my other foot. Yesterday N and I went for a long walk along the coast line to hunt for some climbing spots. At the end of the path we found the most perfect beach in the whole world.

The Perfect Beach:


So Perfect That It Warrants Numerous Photographs:


The last people had just left and dusk was falling. It was a stuning setting. We leaped into the water with delight. We frolicked. It was wonderful.

The Wonderful Waters:


It was wonderful right up until I kicked a sea urchin. They say that if there are sea urchins around you should be happy because it means that the water is really clean. Urchins (belying the name) only hang out in pristine surroundings. Well I was not happy to discover the urchins. Give me a bit of filth over a toe full of urchin spikes any day. I’ll wash. I can shower. Dirt is underrated.

Who Knew Such Tranquil Waters Harboured Such Evil:


Deceptively Stunning In Order To Lure You In And Bite You:


Needless to say, I could not remove any of the spines by the light of my cell phone torch. I had to put my shoes and socks on and trudge home, trying not to walk on the second biggest toe on my left foot. My injured right ankle also complained all the way home, since it now had to do the lion’s share of the work. The walk took an hour. By the time we got back to the sobe both of my feet were sore to buggery. N did not earn himself any brownie points when he enquired, halfway through that long, slow, miserable trip, “So are you walking so very slowly because of your ankle or because of the sea urchin?” If I had been able to manage a turn of speed I might have caught up to him and smacked him with a pine cone. I spent the rest of the night Googling how to treat sea urchin injuries; poking about my toe with a needle and digging out fine black spines. I’m sure there I still a fragment in there somewhere and I have a red streak up the toe. Dodgy! I will be watching it closely. I am glad, however, that I was not forced to do this doctoring in a tent. The rest of the night was similarly disgusting, as the only food I had was a tin of tuna. I tried to open it but the stupid opener did not work. (This is what happens when you buy a cheap cheap opener.) I had to admit failure and eat some muesli for supper at 22:30. And of course, for its last trick of the evening, the Universe had turned the milk sour. I had to pinch my nose closedand gobble it up really quickly. Levels of self pity peaked at an all time record high somewhere about 23:00 last night. They have stabilized somewhat today, but are not quite back to optimal levels. Watch this space….

Croatia - Hakuna Matata

Hehe. Yesterday we experienced a karmic moment.
We got up when the sun hit the bottom of the tent and started to heat it up. We stumbled outside to greet the day and commenced puttering about the tent, tweaking things here and there. We were sitting on our pine log chairs and I felt the usual morning need to go for a pee. (The bathroom here is so far away that it’s too much of a mission to go during the night. Once you’re in the tent that’s it until morning.) I was just starting to get up from my pine stump when N, seeing what was about to happen, beat me to it by leaping up faster than I could and dashing off to the bathroom. We can’t go at the same time because we prefer not to leave the tent unattended with our computers and camera in it. Most put out, I had to settle back onto my pine stump to wait for his return. He left with me asking to him pleeeeeeze hurry, since I needed to go quite badly. Did he chivalrously offer to allow me to go first? Hell no! He gapped it, glorifying in the fact that he had been quicker than me. Humph. That’s what happens when a full bladder slows me down in the morning.

But the universe is funny. He had hardly been gone 5 minutes when our neighbour, a pretty brunette with an atrocious Aussie accent and a set of E cup breasts, took her top off. She changed her shirt outside the tent, and none too quickly either, with her rather impressive E’s on display for all to see, in their white lacy bra. No sooner had she put on another top than our neighbour on the other side (a French brunette) came out of the tent to eat breakfast. Clad only in her undies. since you ask, they were a pair of pink hotpants and a particularly sexy pink bra that revealed a good deal of cleavage.

When N came back he was unimpressed to hear about the display of boobs that he had missed. He was even less impressed when I reminded him that if he had let me go to the bathroom first he would have been the one to have witnessed it, and retired to his computer muttering grumpily about how I should have taken photos. Hehe – a fine example of Karma….

In a not-so-fine example of Karma, someone’s dog has pooped about 3 metres from our tent. Most unfine of all, the dog had clearly eaten something that disagreed with it, since the poop is not in a nice, neat pile that would allow it to be flicked out of the way. Oh no, it’s not solid…
N and I are both decidedly irritated about this. Damned dog owners that don’t clean up after their animals. It’s not the dog that’s the problem; it’s the dog’s people. They are definitely on the cull shortlist.

What with the incessant smokers and the new dog poo, this campsite is wearing a little thin. We will be departing on Monday. We would go tomorrow, but busses etc don’t run as frequently on Sundays. We’re trying to decide on a course of action for Monday. Given half a chance, N would have me off climbing. I keep having to wave my fat ankle at him and remind him that this foot is going nowhere vertical. The foot is, however, getting better. I can at least see that there is an ankle bone hiding in there underneath that puffy lump. And thanks to Doctor Helen for all the good advice. :-)
We might potentially take a ferry out to one of the islands just off Split. The one we like most (Vis) is a couple of hours journey though, so we're toying with the idea of spending a night or two on the island. Haven’t made up our minds yet, will keep you posted!

Croatia - Just Chilling

We have moved on from the more luxurious lodgings where we actually had beds and a kitchen at our disposal, and are now in a campsite called Camping Stobrec (the c with a thingy on top of it and pronounced ch) just outside Split.

The floor where the tents are is gravel (this is common in Europe – South African camp sites are waaaaaay nicer) but the place is full of shady pine trees and so we escape most of the heat. A pleasant change from Mallorca. 
There is sea is on both sides of the campsite but once again not a patch on SA. Clearly we need to travel further afield to find the fabled Croatian “piece of heaven” beaches. The water is flat - not a wave to be seen. And it’s shallow. You have to walk quite a way out before you can actually swim. Great for grannies and the disabled but not super exciting for the young and adventurous. Right now, though, I fall into the granny/disabled category and so it works for me. The trip from my strops to the water’s edge (ooh, a good metre and a half) had me hobbling and wincing and squeaking as the pebbles rolled underneath my unsteady foot. And those pebbles are HOT! Every bit as hot as the sand on a South African beach in the midday sun. (Reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes where C&H hit the beach. After nagging all the way there "Are we theeeeere yet....?" they fly onto the beach and hot-foot it over the burning sand to the water shrieking “Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!” They hit the water and shriek “Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold” The last panel is a tight lipped Dad driving the family back home and saying “I cannot believe we drove an hour and a half for that.”)

We’ve been here a few days now. How many exactly I can’t tell you offhand, since I have lost count. How cool is that??? You know you’re having a good time when you have lost track of the days so thoroughly that you don’t know what the date is or the day of the week. Two days ago I just lay about the entire day and read. That is something I have not had much chance to do yet and it was lovely. Yesterday I lay around and fiddled on the internet, looking up stuff about Thailand and Bali and so on (next stage of trip – woo hoo!) I am drinking wine right now and listening to peaceful, relaxing music on my computer headphones. Sitting on the ground next to the tent in the shade of the pine trees in the late afternoon sun/shadow dapples, cushioned by my sleeping roll mat, with my computer in front of me on a pine tree stump. Mmmmm. I am feeling super duper chilled out. I have plaited the fringe part of my hair into a plait that that is very useful for fiddling with when bored. I am considering incorporating a feather or a flower or a bead or something into the plait. I am feeling the need to move slightly to the left on the hippy scale, so as to make the most of this delightfully harmonious vibe that I am currently experiencing. I’m all for getting into the swing of things, aren't I? Right now I am picturing the look of alarm on my mother’s face as she reads this and envisions me disembarking the plane with pink dreadlocks or something. Don’t worry mom, I’ll try and keep it small scale.

Me in my office. Note essentials - comfy mat to sit on, headphones and bottle of wine. Also, bread and chocolate spread.

There are squirrels about this spot. Oh but they are super cute! The pine trees grow so closely that they can scamper about in the sky, from tree to tree, without ever needing to come down to earth. They are a chocolate brown colour with white vests and they run down the pine trees head first, stopping amazingly with their little heads pointed at the ground, completely vertically upside down. They run about in the pine tree foliage way up in the sky, both enchanting me and infuriating me with their constant movement and their refusal to pose for a photo for even a fleeting second. 

A rare excursion to earth:

A bit blurry, but just to show you the gravity defying squirrels.

In an interesting contrast to the sky squirrels, the campsite floor is full of small birds that look like mossies. They take dust baths and hop about all, looking for food that campers have dropped. 

Scavenger bird:

All in all, it’s very nice here. Pity about the people. Most of them are ok, fairly quiet and self contained, but there is always a minority that insists on irritating the rest. I have been contemplating the merits of a small, population thinning cull. I would start with the pesky group of French early-20-somethings. Despite the fact that there are double the amount of crockery washing sinks as laundry ones, they insist on washing their plates in the laundry sinks, leaving oil and food all over so that the next people who want to wash clothes (me) have to scrub the sinks before they can scrub their clothes. The second group that might find itself on the wrong end of the cull is the smokers. My word but a lot of people smoke in this country! Although, I am not sure if more people smoke or if the smoking in public laws here are just not as strict as those in Italy. Either way, it is somewhat disconcerting to be watching squirrels and birds frolic, basking in the sun dapples and reveling in the breeze while inhaling the delicate wafts of red wine, pine trees and …. cigarette smoke. 

Passing thought – I wish I had a hammock. That would be perfect!

To close with, some pictures of Split that I couldn't post in the previous blog due to internet constraints.

Church Tower:

A view of the skyline from one of the squares in the old town:

Tower near Diocletian's palace:

Another gorgeous view of the old town:

  

Croatia Achieved

We’ve been in Croatia now for a day and so far it has definitely been worth all the hassle it took to get here. We had endless problems in South Africa to get the visas. Red tape billows about the Croatian visa process like the cloud on Table Mountain, but unlike the cloud, it’s not even a little bit charming. The Croatians are also burdened with the most unpleasant receptionist creature that I have ever the misfortune to encounter in an embassy. She was rude, brusque and nasty to every person I watched her deal with. She was utterly unhelpful to me and to everyone else I saw her interact with. I was just working up to telling her that if all Croatians were like her then she could take her visa and stick it somewhere and we would find somewhere else to go, when I heard her talking Afrikaans and realized that she was actually South African and not Croatian. Eek! Fortunately I ended up getting past the sour creature and I ended up dealing with a lovely Croatian lady.

So anyway, here we are in Split, depsite the best efforts of that troll from the embassy. It is gorgeous. The old town has narrow, windy, charming streets and they are cleaner than the streets we encountered in Italy. It’s also not quite as expensive as Italy, which is a great pleasure to my pressured pocket. Yesterday we took a shuttle bus from the airport and then walked a short distance from the bus stop to our new accommodation – Apartments Nikolla. This is a small, family run establishment very near to the old town. It has a friendly, welcoming atmosphere and it has a kitchen at our disposal. Oh joy of joy!!!!!!!! I dashed out and bought real vegetables to make stir-fry. Well the ankle does not let me dash anywhere, but I walked out very slowly and bought real vegetables and some chicken breast fillets. I had my first proper home cooked meal since 18 May! It was great. I think I may have been on the brink of scurvy. I found myself positively salivating over the marrows of all vegetables. So much so that I have bought more marrows for dinner tonight.

Dinner tonight will be fish and marrows and red onions. But the coolest thing is that I bought the fish from a real fish market. Woo hoo! Split is a coastal town, and every morning there is a genuine fish market in the old town. I saw it on the map yesterday and developed an insane desire to buy a fish and cook it as part of my genuine Croatian experience. So today I wandered to the market and bought two fish. I don’t know what kind of fish I bought – Croatian is not like Italian or Spanish where you can at least take a flying guess at what a word means. It’s unintelligible to me. Anyway, I bought two fish that looked like they wanted to come home and be dinner. Of course, they were whole fish, and I was faced with the realization that I had to gut and clean these fish before we could eat them. But this did not fill me with dismay; I was actually quite keen to do it. It seemed to me that gutting and filleting a fish somehow needed to be part of the whole experience. I had no idea how to even start the process, since I have never done it before. So, ever resourceful, I logged onto the internet and googled “how to clean a fish.”

Cleaning a fish is more complicated than it sounds. I found a myriad of articles on how to clean a fish and each one said something slightly different. Eventually I lost patience and skulked off to the kitchen with the idea that I need to cut it from gills to somewhere near the rear, scoop out the muck and then just hack about generally until I magically had boneless, fleshy, fishy fillets. Easy peasy! The only thing that all of the articles were in agreement about was that I need a devastatingly sharp knife if I want my fillets to be fillets and not shredded tuna. No sharp knives here, they have been blunted by many tourists. I snuck into the kitchen quietly to try and prepare my fish without an audience. I didn't want any veteran fish filleters catching sight of what I was doing and falling over laughing and pointing... As per my internet instructions, I started off by slicing the fish from somewhere near the gills to somewhere near the vent/anal fins. I then got to scoop out all of the entrails and bits and bobs, which was not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it was easy and not even remotely icky. That was the easy bit. From there I wasn’t sure how to cut the fillets but as I gamely prepared to attack the fish with my hacking device, a very nice Australian man came into the kitchen. He exclaimed in excitement about how cool it was that I had gone off to the market and bought fish. When I confessed that I was about to butcher them with no previous training, he showed me how to hack off the heads and then cut out the fillets. He first procured a razor sharp knife from our landlady. It seems that a razor sharp knife really is the one and only golden rule of fish preparation. He did the first one and then left me to do the rest, which I duly did, filled to the brim with a great sense of satisfaction.

It was around this stage of the proceedings that N arrived somewhat warily in the kitchen, looking like a deer that might take flight if it saw any raw meat. (He is more than a little squeamish.) Despite my exuberance, I managed to resist the urge to fling a fish head at him and shriek “Catch!” At the fish market he had made it absolutely clear that he would not be involved in the preparation. He said he said he didn’t mind cooking them, but he totally refused to do any slicing and dicing of raw fish. Ha! I am not about to relinquish the cooking of these fish! There is something extremely satisfying about preparing your own food from scratch and I want to see the whole thing through. (Well, it is satisfying to prepare your own food from scratch when you have the time to do it. It’s another story when you have worked a 10 hour day and squeezed in a run and would still like to shower and prepare for the next day. Then I say bring on convenience food.)

So now the fish are filleted and the veggies are sliced. I am eagerly awaiting supper time. I am well chuffed that I have learned a new skill and am experiencing new things. I feel as if I should be a farmer or something earthy. (Funny how learning how to gut and fillet a fish has given me the same feelings I got when I used to grow my own herbs!) And, most of all, I am thrilled by the fact that it has been more than a day since I last had to consume a tin of tuna or a slice of pizza! Today has been a good day.

Ps - we have discovered an internet freebie thing but we only have limited bandwidth at our disposal. I shall attempt to buy a top-up package later today or sometime soon. Until I get this right, this will be a no photo blog.

Poor Me!!!!!!!!

Oh dear, oh dear. I should not have tempted fate. Now have a real lowlight to share.

We spent the last three days in the Dolomites. It’s a bit of a mission to get there, since the roads are small and windy and the busses and trains are slow. It is, however, well worth the effort. We had booked ourselves into the Lagazuoi refugi for the first two nights but missed out on the first night due to train issues. Basically, we missed our stop. When I noticed that we had just chuffed right out of the station we were supposed to change at, we made a mad scramble to be ready for the next stop. We had our packs at the ready and waited at the carriage doors so that we could get out and retrace our footsteps. The train stopped and we opened the doors. Only they refused to open. We wrestled and tugged to no avail. The train chuffed off again. By this stage we were highly agitated. We migrated up another carriage and managed to alight at the next station, only to find we had a half hour wait for the opposite train. We ate a somewhat grumpy lunch of bread and ham and eventually managed to train back to the original missed station. We lost an hour. Another train trip and a bus journey later, we found ourselves at Cortina. It’s a pretty town – very Swiss. Wooden chalets with geraniums in window boxes, mountain slopes studded with pine trees and ski runs and ski lifts and massive rock faces as far as the eye can see. That is not an exaggeration, the mountains are all around and you can’t see through them. Cortina hosted the Winter Olympics a number of years ago. It even has a ski jump. At the bus station we discovered that while we were in time to catch the last bus to Passa Falzarego, we were too late to catch the last cable car up to the refugi. And there was no ways we were about to hike up a mountain in the drizzle, with nigh on 50kg of luggage between us. So we found ourselves a campsite and pitched our tent. The next day we left most of our stuff in the tent and then set off for Passa Falzarego carrying minimal burdens. The bus trip was quick and the cable car ride was great. We whizzed up the mountain. The view from the Lagazuoi refugi is spectacular. Mountains and mountains and mountains. It’s a good thing that the view is spectacular, because so are the prices. It cost me 43 Euros for one night in a dormitory (shared with seven others, one of whom was a terrible snorer) and supper and breakfast. Plus some gluhwein and wine and I hit the 50 Euro mark. Close on R600 for the night’s lodging. AND!!!!! I was incensed to discover that the showers were pay showers. Sod it, I thought, I will just remain grubby and smelly. Let them wash their sheets extra!

Fortified by a helping of apple strudel (late brekkies) I set forth with N to challenge the Tomaselli via ferrata. This one is much harder than either of the previous two I had done – graded 5 with a seriousness of C.

Via Ferrata Tomaselli - up that massive looking mountain behind N:

At first it was cold. I wore my down jacket. Patches of dirty (old) snow lay about and there was no sun. Just clouds and mist. We got to the start of the route and set off in the mist. The route was a bit slippery due to the recent rains, but it wasn’t unmanageable. In fact it was a lot of fun. 

Me having fun:

Me having loads of fun:

N rounding a corner:

It was a lot of fun right up to the halfway mark, when the rain started to come down. It poured down. The route became a water chute. A slippery, glassy water chute. And the rain was so cold. My hands started to freeze. Although this sounds unpleasant, I think it was a blessing, because it meant that they were so cold that I couldn’t feel how sore they were. Slippery rock, freezing fingers, imminent hypothermia, sodden to the skin, not a dry patch on me anywhere. Unhappy in the extreme, I was. And there was not a damned thing to do except carry on. We were past the escape route section and there was not a sausage of a chance that I was down-climbing that route. No way. Up was scary enough. Down would have been wicked injury potential. So on I soldiered, teeth chattering and sphincter tightly clenched. You can only imagine how thrilled I was to reach the summit which, thank the gods, we did. As we unclipped our final clip the rain stopped. Giving the Universe the finger, we commenced the descent. The descent was also slippery but thankfully it was a much shorter section of cable. Once we reached the end of the descent cable the sun came out in earnest and shone prettily for us, showing us the glorious landscape we had climbed through in driving rain. We ate lunch (bread and a Mars Bar) and then walked the long path back to the refugi in the sun, with patches of snow all about. Strange indeed for a South African gal. Even though the sun was weak, I still managed to get a healthy dose of sunburn. We didn’t think to bring the sunscreen when we set off in the middle of a cloud. 

On returning to the refugi I celebrated with a glass of steaming gluhwein. By that stage the rain was back and it was bitingly cold again. It was a delicious feeling to look out at the clouds and the rain and the mist swirling about the mountains while supping on my gluhwein. Definitely worth the hefty price tag. The next morning we eschewed the cable car despite the rain and headed off to descend via the next via ferrata . This isn’t quite as hard core as it sounds, because this one is really just a walk in a tunnel. No need for any via ferrata gear, just a torch. These tunnels are the WW1 tunnels that the Italians occupied. The Austrians occupied another set of tunnels a short distance away and they spent the years of the Great War (as it is called in the region) shooting at each other and trying to mine underneath each others’ tunnels and dynamite each other into oblivion. It is hard to imagine just how unpleasant life must have been for those soldiers, living underneath rock with winter temperatures reaching to minus 25. It’s a very special experience to do this walk. And we were lucky we set off so early and in the rain because it meant we had the place entirely to ourselves. N and I actually lost each other somewhere near the beginning and did the walk largely on our own. A couple of times I turned off my torch and stood in the pitch black and the silence, imagining what it must have felt like to be there so many years ago in the icy cold and the damp, with a group of people hell bent on killing you just around the corner. 

Hut/cave where the Italian soldiers slept:

N pretending to be an Austrian officer outside his hut:

Italian Tunnels:

The tunnels end halfway down the mountain and the rest of the way is a large, well worn track that you can descend pretty quickly. We passed droves of people walking up to do the tunnels from the bottom up and I was once again glad that we started our day so early. I don’t think the tunnels would have been nearly so atmospheric filled with torches and chatter and laughter. 

Me entering a section of the Italian tunnels armed with trusty headtorch, down jacket and Climb Like A Girl buff:

Filled with the sheer delight of the day, the splendour of the mountains and the heady intoxication of overcoming physical challenges in yesterday’s epic battle with the elements, I bolted down a section of the path to get a picture of the descending cable car. The road (because that is what it was by this stage of the descent) was wide, dusty and gravel/rock strewn. My heady intoxication and delight vanished in a puff of road dust as my ankle turned over and I ploughed two deep furrows into the road with my knees. And two smaller ones with my hands. As I fell, I could feel my ankle giving way with an extremely undelightful sear of pain. N caught up with me and asked “Are you alright?”
No. I was not. The knees of my climbing pants were gone, ripped to bit by the rocks, as were my knees. Blood speckled the remaining bits of the pants. My hands were ok, just bruised, but my ankle was nasty. It’s a very nasty sprain, probably better described as a low grade torn ligament. I mean ligaments. I did more than one.

Me looking and feeling truly pathetic:

As I type this, with my poor ankle elevated on some blankets, the outside ankle bone looks like someone has put half a tennis ball in there. The inside ankle bone is not as bad as the outer one, but it still looks fat and puffy and horrible. Even the tendon that runs down the front of my shin bone has swollen up. And the bruising is starting quietly. In a couple of days I will be a real sight. The climbing pants have been retired. As it was they were developing a need to be patched on the butt and I figured that after the fall, there was more hole than pants. And I don’t think I will be needing climbing pants for a while….

My poor deformed ankle:

I haven’t gone to the doctor yet. I’ll see if I need to in a day or so. I’ve now had so much experience with torn ligaments that I don’t think there’s much that the doctors will be able to tell me that I am not already doing. I can still walk, as long I don’t do any sideways or stabilizing movements. I’ve thrown out some stuff to lighten my pack. N is now carrying the quickdraws as well as the rope and tent. I can manage the lighter pack if I walk very slowly and carefully and not too far. In a very depressive moment yesterday I found myself pondering that this might be the end of my Europe trip. Hopefully that will not prove to be the case. I am self medicating with anti-inflammatories (the same ones that were prescribed to me for my last little accident) and trying to keep the poor ankle elevated. At last an excuse to be able to put my feet on the furniture! I am bandaging it for support it and fending off N’s desperate pleas to be allowed to sticky tape it instead of bandaging. He finally got to spray me with merthiolate and is now pestering me fairly consistently “Don’t you think you need more merthiolate on your knees? You know – they need to be disinfected…” He just likes to spray the red stuff on me. I look like a ten year old with skinned knees.

My poor skinned knees:

We had to travel to Venice today. Fortunately this involved minimal walking. I don’t think I will be seeing quite as much of the city as I had hoped, though. That’s the end of the saga for the moment. Wish me well and hope that I won’t be seeing you prematurely back in SA.

I look like I have elephantitis:

North Italy - Lowlights

Ah yes. The lowlights. There have definitely been a few, although fewer than the highlights.

EasyJet Flight From Mallorca – EasyJet is topping the list of my least favourite budget air carriers. We were due to fly from Mallorca at 2pm, which would have left us a fairly tight schedule to travel from Milan to Lake Como, but not a ridiculous one. EasyJet, in their infinite wisdom, decided to change this departure time until more like 4pm. We received email notification that they were doing so and they were oh so, so, so sorry! But nothing they could do, blah blah. Oh yes – in order to compensate us they would grant us either a) a free transfer to another flight or b) a credit file. Credit file option? Utterly useless to those of us stuck on an island and needing to fly off the island sometime soon. A transfer? Great! We’ll have one of those please. We’d like to transfer our flight to be a day or two earlier (i.e. a flight that left at 2pm) so that we are able to make our way to Como without the likelihood of getting stranded without transport during the night. But sneaky EasyJet! The “transfer” is free i.e. you don’t pay a transfer fee. But they still wanted to charge us 55 pounds each for the difference between what the flights cost! We bought our tickets almost half a year ago, when they were very cheap. Now the flights are expensive. So we had to just stick with the originall flight, only now we were departing Malloca at 4pm, leaving us with an extremely tight transport schedule. On arriving at Palma airport we were informed that the flight had been further delayed, due to problems at Milan airport earlier in the day. Of course, the signs all said our flight was delayed but EasyJet was making panicky announcements about how anyone flying on our flight must proceed IMMEDIATELY to the late check in desk as they were running out of time! So we raced like maniacs through the check in process, hurtled through the airport and screeched to a halt at our boarding gate, just in time to find… nothing. We sat and waited for about an hour before some EasyJet employees appeared, full of the joys of their job. Everyone made a wild dash for the boarding gate. EasyJet’s chaotic boarding process leaves much to be desired. You all scrum for space, while an EasyJet employee shrills at the seething mass of frantic flyers before her “People!!!!!! People!!!!! I am NOT going to start the boarding until you all step back and allow the “SB” status flyers to the front.” Needless to say, every person in the seething mass knows that if they display weakness they will be swallowed up by the rest of the seething mass and likely be trampled to death. So they all continue to elbow and jockey and seethe. The shrill lady sulks and shrills ineffectually and drib by drab, the SB people board. Then the SA people fight their way to the front and then the A people, until just the B’s are left. At this stage, things get dangerous. You’re likely to collect a cracked rib or a chipped tooth as the snarling B flyers try to force their way to the front of the mass of other B flyers. Um, no people – you cannot push straight through me. I am solid flesh and bone and I AM IN FRONT OF YOU! I came very close to snapping. A couple of people do not know how close they came to getting a black eye. One more poke in the back and things might have gotten ugly.
We boarded the flight eventually, despite EasyJet’s best efforts to keep us in Palma. We then sat around for what seemed like another age. I don’t know what the crisis was, but they really messed us around. We were supposed to depart at 16:40 and land at 18:20 (give or take a minute.) When we got to the airport we were informed that our flight was delayed until 15:50. But we only took off after 19:00. We left Palma airport after we were due to have landed in another country! EasyJet was absolutely useless when it came to explanations and updates. We were all just left wondering what the hell was going on and when we were going to leave. When we did eventually take off, the captain apologized and made disclaimers about how it wasn’t their fault. Pah.

The airport bus between terminals took about 15 minutes to arrive (where was it? On a coffee break?) and dropped us at Terminal 1 JUST in time for us to miss the Malpensa Express train. We had to sit around for another half hour to catch the next train. We got to Saronno station late in the night, to find that the last train (for which we had tickets) had left 20 minutes ago. We had to sit in the station for over an hour and wait for the substitute bus, which arrived after 23:00. By the time we hit Como, needless to say all of the other busses had stopped running and there we were – stuck at the bus station with 50 kg of luggage. (I was carrying 24, N 25.5) How on earth have we accumulated so much crap? 50 kg of luggage and a map. *%#@ing great. So we walked. And walked and walked and walked. We walked through Como to the other end of town. We got there at twenty past midnight, to find locked gates at our hostel and a thoroughly disgruntled man, who had been expecting us at 19:00. I was exhausted and starving and my feet and hips incurred a lot of damage (which I am still struggling with) on that unhappy midnight tramp through Como. Thanks a bunch, EasyJet.

Being A Hobo – The next day we toured Como and ended up leaving later than originally planned. We trained back to Milan and then the plan was to train and bus out to Arco. N warned me while on the train back to Milan that he “might want to look about for an i-phone in Milan.” I said fine, but I did not want a repeat of the night before where we get stuck in a two bit town with no transport anywhere. We reached Milan. We wandered out of the train station. I saw a computer shop and we nipped in there to replace my laptop power cable (lost in Mallorca – looking back I am starting to develop somewhat negative feelings towards that island…) and to ask if they had i-phones. Well, I got a power cable (62 Euros – flipping well seven hundred bucks!) but no i-phones. They recommended N try “near Duomo.” So to Duomo we went. Fortunately we took the metro because by now my hips were trying to pop out of their sockets. At the Duomo stop, I waited with the 50kg of crap while N fled into Milan to run from phone shop to phone shop, getting nowhere. Not an i-phone to be found. After 40 minutes he returned to me where I had managed to buy the onward metro tickets and fall and twist my ankle in the process. (Well, you try lugging 50kg of backpacks through a metro station by yourself when you weigh less than 60.) I had also tried to open my last tin of sardines and eat it, because I was ravenous and heading into hyper-glycaemic shaky hands and light-headedness. Needless to say, the pesky opener on the tin broke and try as I might I was unable to bludgeon it open with a fork. So N returned to a shaky, light headed, sore ankled, sore hipped, starving, miserable me. We metroed to the central station in Milan, which is an extremely impressive building. Pity I was too miserable and broken to bother to take a photo. Pizza in the station managed to restore me slightly and we took off by train for Pescheria del Gardia, where we were going to catch an onward bus. Ha! Yeah right. We got there after the busses had stopped running. Bloody i-phone. It was pitch dark by this time (after 22:00) and the nearest camping was allegedly 5km or so away. Walking there with my 24kg was a physical impossibility. N cunningly suggested that we stash our backpacks in the bushes near the train station and walk without packs until we found a spot that was wild enough to camp and then return before light to retrieve the packs. Just as cunningly I declined to do so. I will not be leaving my pack in any bushes in an urban setting. If my pack is found somewhere it shouldn’t be, I want to be with it. Having spent R700 to replace my power cable and R300 to replace the day pack it was in, (and a bunch of other stuff still to be replaced) I do not feel like replacing everything else when my abandoned pack gets nicked. I also didn’t feel like walking anywhere, what with my hip bones grating in their sockets. So we slept in the bushes between the train station and the long term parking. I was a hobo for a night. It would have been fine, except that we (obviously) couldn’t pitch the tent. And so the mozzies attacked me relentlessly the entire night. I was chewed. I slept very little. I had a remarkably unpleasant night and was remarkably unimpressed the next morning, with life in general.

So you can see how Arco is a small paradise for me. After those two nights of awfulness, Camping Zoo feels like home. 

My other lowlight is the blisters. After a week of being unencumbered by a pack, my hip joints have 90% recovered the ability to rotate without seizing, but the blisters remain. And they get worse every day. I’ve had two days where the walk into town turned into about a five km walk, due to grocery and i-phone hunting. And two days of hiking and doing via ferratta. Last night I could barely hobble to the bathroom. So I threw caution to the winds and popped the blisters. All three of them. And then I doctored them with N’s tincture of merthiolate. Which stings like wasps sting. Hopefully they will now harden up and allow me to be fully mobile again, because I am looking forward to doing more via ferratta in the Dolomites in the next couple of days.

Ending off the lowlight post on a positive note, I am sitting under a tree in the shade. The wind is blowing. The day is pleasantly warm. I am eating salted sunflower seeds. Later (blisters allowing) we will walk into town for the last grocery supply and maybe some more ice cream. Soon we will be heading off to the Dolomites. Life is good!

Ps - discovered the best ice cream place! 5 Euros for half a litre of ice cream. We shared one the other day. Flavours – dark chocolate fondant, crème caramel, dulche de latte, grapefruit, tiramisu and fior de latte. Might have to have another half litre tonight before we depart Arco for good.
Pps - another highlight! Tonight Camping Zoo has advertised a "white yoghurt party." We are intrigued and looking forward to it.

Northern Italy Highlights

The opening line is always the hardest. Once I start writing it just kind of comes. But sometimes I spend ages trying to figure out how to begin. Fortunately I’ve got that over with already and so I can now commence “just writing.” 

Oh yes – this is a no photo post, since my photos are on my camera and my camera cable is in the tent across the river and I’m not going to fetch it. Sorry, I will try and post more photos soon.

It’s Arco right now. Northern Italy. What a sweet town. (I mean that as in “schweet” and not “Biggie Best”, although it is really cute too.) Arco will be hosting the 2011 climbing world champs. There are mountains all around and I love that. I am a mountain junkie. It’s not quite the Dolomites (we’re going there next) but it’s still very relaxing for me to have hills and cliffs all around me. We’re staying at “Camping Zoo”, which is just a km or so out of Arco. So we walk in to town every day or second day for groceries and stuff. It’s doing my fitness levels a lot of good and my blisters a lot of harm. We're very happy with Camping Zoo. It’s about 500m further out of town than Camping Arco, but I think it’s worth it. Not only is it a couple of Euros a day cheaper, but the atmosphere is enjoyable. It’s relaxed. The people seem to be here less for a massive party and more to experience a chilled holiday with their families. People cycle everywhere. They walk. They rollerblade. (I was dead keen to buy myself a pair of rollerblades but try fitting those into a backpack…) They climb. 

Every night we eat supper at a wooden table and bench next to our tent. I have wine. It’s less than 1 Euro for a litre carton (re-sealable) of red wine. That’s cheaper than I can get it in SA! And the wine is pretty tasty too. Plonk, but very yummy plonk. During the day we wade across the icy, icy, icy river and sit in the shade and work on our laptops. Then, when it cools down a bit we putter in to town or off to a crag or (once) to the local pizza joint. It’s a delightfully peaceful existence. I am enjoying it a lot more than I did Mallorca. It’s not as hot during the day and we have lovely shady trees all around. It’s also great to be based in one spot and not to be haring about from place to another with ten tons of crap in a backpack. 

Highlights of the past week:
Via Ferratta – What fun!!! For those not in the know, a via ferratta is something in between hiking and rock climbing. It’s a route up a mountain (or cliff, or canyon) that is artificially protected with iron cables and stemples (big staples in the rock) and pegs. You need a climbing harness and via ferratta gear. Oh yes – gloves are highly recommended. The gear consists of a shock absorbing device, incorporating some dynamic rope. You clip the middle bit to your harness and then you have two “tails” each with a carabiner on the end. You clip the tails to the cables and off you go – attached to the cables by two ropes. You get easy routes, on which you hardly need the safety gear. (Yes Mum, I promise I am using it anyway. Um…. most of the time…) And you get hard routes which could just about be climbing routes. We’ve done two so far. One super easy route opposite the camp site, which was really just a scramble. And then we did a day trip to Castello de Drena for a slightly harder one. It was so awesome! A route up a small canyon, walls water-smoothed by centuries, which used to be used as the escape route from the castle in old times. It was pretty, it was fun, it was slightly athletic – I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was also a cool wire bridge across the canyon. Three wires – you walk on one of them and you hold the others in your sweaty little paws. If you are even slightly athletic and you go to the northern Italy/Germany region you must must must do at least one via ferratta. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. They are fantastic. I wish I had my photos on my computer to share some of them with you!

Castello de Drena – At the end of the via ferratta we coughed up the 2.50 Euros each and nipped into Castello de Drena. This is a ruined and now somewhat restored castle in the very small town of Drena. We were accosted by an excited employee. We couldn't understand a word he said, but he was very keen for us to do something. We eventaully gave up and followed him, after surrendering my passport. The suspense…..! Turns out he wanted us to climb to the top of the tower. Why us? Not sure. He didn’t accost anyone else while we were there. Perhaps we had that manic “we are adrenalin junkies who have just finished the via ferratta” look in our eyes. He hustled us off to the tower, unlocked the door for us and shut us in, giving us strict sign language instructions to close the door when we came out. And then off he went. We climbed to the top and had a gorgeous view of the mountains in 360 degrees. The wind blew in from hundreds of miles away, danced over our faces and then rushed off again. Stunning. Down we came, retrieved my passport and left with the castle employees smiling happily after us. We then had to walk 2 km or so to Dro because Drena is so small that only two busses run per day and we had missed them. From Drena we caught a bus back to Arco. Wish we had such useful public transport in SA….

Arco Market – Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! We encountered this on our way to the via ferrata in Drena. It surprised us in Arco town. Luckily the bus only left for Drena an hour after we got into Arco, so I had a short while to putter about. I bought myself a lovely t-shirt for 2 Euros and a super cute dress for 10 Euros (brought down from 25 Euros for market day – ooooooh the scrooge in me rejoiced at the bargain!) Even with an exchange rate of nearly 12 to 1, that’s pretty good going in Rand terms. I was very sad that I didn’t have more time to rootle further. I saw a lot of stuff that was incredibly cheap and so different to the things in SA. I would have loved to have bought more. To my great regret and to N’s utter relief and delight, we had to leave the market and catch a bus. 

The Watermelon Party - Last Saturday, Camping Zoo sprung upon us ….. a watermelon party! Open to all campers, and entirely free, it was a delightful surprise. They had piles of watermelons, which they cut up and gave out in slices. Eat as much as you like. We did. We ate. We liked. Then they brought out the entertainment. We had a mini-circus. A fat man lay on his back and twirled logs and wooden boards. Someone else threw knives at a pretty girl. A lady did some fire eating. Then they brought out a massive bowl of cheese and more watermelon. We guzzled. The cherry on the top of the evening was the candy floss machine! What circus is complete without candy floss? I scrummaged for a candy floss for N, who wasn’t sure that it was entirely fitting for a 33 year of man to be elbowing children out of the way in his quest for candy floss…. This 34 year old women had no such compunction. After we polished off the candy floss we wisely decided not to get another one and waddled off to bed, replete and content. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and reinforced our liking for Camping Zoo. (Note to others, that you may learn from my mistakes – do not eat vast quantities of watermelon straight before bedtime. I was up five times during the night to pee.)

I was going to make this a highlights and lowlights post, but I see how long it is getting. I think I will post the lowlights in a separate post.