Make like a banana.

Friday 26th August.
Our first port of call in Croatia was Zadar. We arrived at 3am and I walked while John hobbled along on his crutches out through an industrial estate to the peninsula of the old town where young people were still partying and swimming. Grabbing some sleep next to the world's only sea organ made sleeping outside much more pleasant.

We positioned ourselves facing west and awaited the sunrise. The sun does not rise in the west. We missed the sunrise. Zadar is an excellent small city, rich in culture but we were too tired to fully appreciate it so we made our way sweatily to the youth hostel and had a relaxed evening watching an awesome sunset (in the west).

Saturday 27th August.
We made like a banana on our day trip to Split. On the bus there we passed a full on forest fire with fire planes and helicopters dropping water over it. It was quite exciting to watch which I'm not sure is the correct emotion when witnessing a natural disaster but it really was cool.

Split is most agreeable, we spent a happy afternoon and evening wondering the narrow streets of the historic walled city before stocking up on beer and playing cards for the 10pm bus ride back to Zadar. After a couple of games of shithead and a couple of beers our bladders became too full and we had to annoy the other passengers by getting the bus driver to pull over so we could wee in a bush. He spoke no English so this was communicated through the cross legged I need to wee mime. After this we became sleepy and stretched across the back seats for a nap. I was woken by John and I told him to leave me alone.
'Glyn isn't it three hours from Split to Zadar?'
'Yes. Go to sleep'
'Didn't we leave at ten?'
'Yes, they know where we're going, they'll tell us when we're there'
'But it's 2am. We've been on here four hours now'
'Oh. I see. I'll go check'
We had missed our stop and the next stop was Rijeka at 5:30. Our conclusion was that getting off was pointless as we were in the middle of nowhere with no idea when the next bus back to Zadar might come. Might as well get some sleep then.

Sunday 28th August
By the time we got back to our hostel too much of the day had gone to go out to the national park we had wanted to see but determined not to waste John's last whole day we got on a ferry out to an island. It was a great day. We explored, swam in the sea, watched Liverpool stuff Bolton 4-1 and Man U smash Arsenal 11-6 or something like that, there were a lot of goals. We were also able to play our new favourite sport of electronic darts cricket and finish off the night sharing a bottle of booze on the beach with some Germans and Belgians from the hostel.


John had been an excellent travel companion and I look forward to our next adventure in South America in November. Love you little brother.