Off-Roading and Sweaty Backpacks

Day 5 of my European Journey (8/24/11)

My first sweaty instance of the day was at 6:45 am when I woke up stuck to my sheets with sweat because of the Anti-AC Spanish chick. I laid in my upper bunk in agony wanting to turn on the AC so cold that it would freeze that Spanish girl to her bed! For another hour at least, everyone squirmed and wormed around on top of their sheets as they tried to get some more sleep. The Spanish girl was under a sheet and a wool blanket... WHAT?? It was already at least 80 out and WAY hotter inside of our little 10 person dormitory style room.

Finally Julia and I got up at 8:00 am because we couldn't stand it anymore. We planned to rent mopeds in order to go to Brela Beach, which was recently rated as a Forbes Magazine's "Top 20 Most Beautiful Beaches in the World" beach. We paid our 250 Kuna ($43) for 12 hours of use and helmets, then the moped man gave us the mopeds. Julia and I exchanged a look of fear and uncertainty, so I said "Can you show me how to start it?" Haha, big mistake... He then took away our helmets and mopeds :( he said "Why you tell me you drive moped before?" We had not told him that, we had said we could drive cars. Then he gave us some money back and handed us two black mountain bikes. We asked how long it would take to get to Brela (we had been told a 20 minute drive on a road, the only road that runs along the coast), he said 30 minutes riding along the coastal path that started at the local beach 100 meters away.

Made it to Brela Beach!!!

It was only about 10 am, the sun was not scorching hot yet, but it was already about 85 degrees. So off we went on the bike ride of our lives. We started on the pathway that ran past the restaurants, junk booths, and crepe makers. There were tons of people walking so we had to get off a few times. We discovered that these people do NOT respond to bike bells. They don't move, at all! After we got away from the tourist section of Makarska we found ourselves on a smaller paved path that made for easier riding. My front tire was a little flat. This changed into a gravel path after some time which was quite difficult to ride on. The trees became more dense and the path was then made of dirt and full of roots. About this time we were a little tired and quite warm, but then we saw the next section of the path. It was a narrow, sandy path within the rocky cliffside of the coast. It wasn't high up on the cliff, there were just giant, jagged boulders on one side of us and a mountain face on the other.

We rode on that section of the path for at least 40 minutes and were dripping sweat all over the whole time. We had to stop to wipe the sweat off of our sunglasses and hydrate with my Camelbak backpack multiple times. Sometimes the rocks were so uneven that we had to walk. We past a family of four with kids about 9 and 12; I was so glad that I was not that young trying to conquer the path on a bike that was too big for me!! We came to a beach and Julia said, "Is this it?" It didn't look too impressive, but I asked at a bar and the bartender said, "Brela? 20 km North." Then I asked how far South Makarska was, he said 10 km! It had taken us well over an hour to ride 10 kilometers. We asked about the bike paths but he didn't really understand. We found a bike path map, but there was no "you are here" sticker or indication... so we guessed. Once past that beach we soon came to a harbor that was paved! Yay!

We stopped for a bit and the family (from Israel) caught up to us. They thought we should go up the giant hill in the road, so we decided to go too. I was pedalling and switched to a lower gear and my chain came off of the spokes!!! I didn't know what I was going to do on the hill. The dad of the family came down and said they thought the path was actually not the hill road, so we went back down. I tried to fix my bike, but the chain was caught between the spokes and the frame pretty badly. Julia was asking about a bike map from some lady at the harbor entrance gate. Finally I got the chain out, but I was covered in oil and sweat was dripping into my eyes. Once I washed off and wiped my face clean I went back to find out that going up the hill was the right path. The second time I walked up so that I didn't have to fix my chain again!

After the monster hill there was a nice downhill and a wide, paved road for us to bike on for some time. Eventually this turned into smaller roads and then we came to another town where it was kind of a boardwalk, but every once in a while there was a step or two... not really a bike path. We went up and down and swerved along the coast until we got to some more small roads and finally saw a sign saying we were in Brela. We hit a few switchbacks and arrived in the beach area. The narrow beach was swarming with tourists under umbrellas.

We locked up our bikes and had a bottle of water and a nice cold coke/iced tea at a shaded restaurant with outdoor fans! It was about 1:40, we had been in route for 2.5 hours!!! We were both covered in sweat, my backpack was dripping and the water pouch had been completely empty for a half hour. We sat for a long while letting our muscles relax and then walked to the beach. I had forgotten my towel again! We rented an umbrella and quickly jumped in the water. It was very refreshing and there was a beautiful backdrop of mountains.

We spent a while there, but the beach wasn't very impressive since we'd just been to Zlatni Rat beach 2 days earlier. The pebbles were nice, but it was jam packed. I suppose we arrived at the peak time (Zlatni Rat was also crowded from 12-4) and therefore got a bad spot on the beach. I looked around under the water with the goggles I brought. There were a few fish, but nothing very interesting. There was a big drop off around 35 feet out and it was freaky. After visiting about 3 beaches with large drop offs, I found that I am extremely afraid of deep water. When I look down and can't see anything but dark blue my chest feels tight and I get very scared! Even worse is when I don't have googles and I can't see anything underneath me... then I think that a shark is going to come and eat me!!

Luckily I stayed where I could see the bottom and didn't get eaten! I got out and ate some bread, gouda, and salami while Julia explored with my goggles. We both fell into a dozing sleep state while laying on the warm rocks and, when we came to, we decided we should start home. We talked about putting our bikes on the bus to get back to Makarska, but couldn't find the bus stop. We asked a few locals and they said the next town over, so we started to ride back along the little roads around 5:30 pm . We found a bus stop and the bus timetable, but no bus came when it was supposed to arrive. The busses that we did see didn't really stop, even when we tried to wave them down! I asked Julia if she was game to ride if we continued on the road after the big hill at the harbor instead of taking the rocky path, she said she was up for that and we set off once again.

The view from our highway ride home.

We went up and up and up and up cutting back and forth across the mountain for 30 minutes. When we finally reached the flat(er) main road, we looked down to see that we had made zero forward progress. We had walked a lot of the way because it was too steep to ride up. We rode single file along the small sidewalk for a while, stopped to take a few pictures of the view and made our way slowly towards a shower and some dinner. The sidewalk ended for a while and we had to ride on the very thin paved shoulder It was quite scary, but we couldn't ride next to the road because it was a cliff.

Around 8:00 pm we found that our friend Paul was staying at our hostel when we got back and he was already pretty bombed. He explained that he had met up with a friend that happened to be in Croatia at the same time as him. The friend and girlfriend had bought him many drinks after an early dinner. We told him we were going to dinner and we'd see him in the morning for breakfast. We went to one of the restaurant booths on the peninsula an had delicious chicken and veal, with french fries of course! We bought some gummy bears on the way back and went to bed as soon as we could.

The Spanish girl and I had an AC war the whole night. I even put another wool blanket on the floor next to her that she could use if she was cold. The AC was blowing on her, but 9 people can't sweat to death so that 1 person isn't a little chilled... She put the controller next to her pillow around 4:30 am so I decided to stop fighting the war. Later in the morning I took it, turned the air on again and returned the controller to the bookshelf. Of course, a little while later we were being cooked again!!