|
|
|
|
|
|
In all, I was in and out of Croatia three times while travelling last summer, and each experince could not have been complete without the unexpected adventures in border crossings!
4 July 2004
We took a 9:30am bus to the Montenegrin - Croatian border - aparently that's as far as they go. Pretty much alone on the bus for the 1.5 hour trip from Budva Once across the Kotorski bay on a ferry, I was then dropped off in a bare spot on the side of the road. It was about 500 meters to the crossing, and my met-on-the-road-travel-friend Andy and I took the dusty hike to the first trailer on the side of the road. We were in the middle of nowhere, the dry, white, crumbling rocky hills that surrounded on all sides brought thirst to my lips with ever gritty blow of the wind, as I watched our bus trundle from whence we came.
At each trailer they wrote our passport numbers into a ledger and waved us on. Leaving Montenegro with smiles, entering Croatia with a snarl.
Another 500 meters and we were at a border cafe, emply save for us, a drunk truck driver and the lady working. German is a gateway language here, and I asked her when the bus to Dubrovnik would be arriving. She held up four fingers and expelled circular combinations of "four" and "hours" for a while, until we smiled, and said thank you, satisfied that it would be here in four hours or at 4. Either way to long to sit around, or "schlaffen" as she insisted we do. I proposed we attempt to hitch a ride, against all advise of guidebooks, the lady, and truck driver. The books said "no Croat will stop for a hitchhiker, especially on the coast in high season" which is where we were. The driver chucked at us, asking if we were Italians, which I thought was an obvious no (especially for my Australian friend). The aldy would dart around the corner when one of us approached the road with thumb ready, and with her hands clasped together in a gesture under her tilted head, "schlaffen, schlaffen."
The oncoming traffic exiting from the crossing seemed to only speed up at our notice. An hour went by, and I considered walking. Afew taxis stopped and offered to take us the 35 kilometers for 30 Euro. We impolitely declined. But as the sun got hotter, we decided it imperitive to find out exactly how much the bus ticket would be - was it worth it to wait. At first, the lady said a bus ticket costs 13 Euro. Visibly irritated at this, we got our bags and went to hail a taxi. She stopped us, and shook her head, no, no, the ticked costs now 2 Euro! Was she an authorized salesman, I wondered? We sat back down, and I decided to make a sign offereing 10 Euro for a ride to Dubrovnik. They laughed at us, and she took the piece of paper and on it wrote with her finger the figure of 60 Euro. For what, I asked. "Autobus, 60 Euro!"
A few minutes with the sign and a father and son pair pulled over and picked us up. They were on the way to the airport, the son returning to Germany. He droppe dus off near the bus station in the center of town, and happily took the Euros off our hands.
