John Wise

Kayaks and cannons in Dubrovnik are a million times better than aging obese tourists here to pay homage to a TV show I’m loathe to even mention. Guess what? Give up? I’m not one of those people from our group out on a kayak because I got cold feet at the idea of going over the waves and so I’m going to wade into the sea of people behind me in the old town. That helicopter over the fortress is delivering a cannon, an honest-to-goodness real cannon. Upon asking about it, I was told something in Croatian that I think translated to, “We are about to take aim at all of the Game of Thrones fans who are driving up the cost of living here in Dubrovnik.” Walking into the walled city, I almost instantly regretted my decision to wiggle through this morass of humanity’s detritus.

I had to develop a plan quickly, so I opted to find the lesser-traveled alleys and follow the dearth of voices. River rafting, snowshoeing Yellowstone in winter, hiking along the Oregon Coast in late fall, or hanging out prostrate in the desert during the middle of summer have all conditioned me to enjoy the solitude found in places of immense quiet. Being in Dubrovnik is counter to these ideas, but how was I supposed to know? I seriously had no idea about the connection between “that” TV show and its setting here, just like when, on our second visit to Forks, Washington, I learned about the glitter vampires of Twilight.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy places that can be crowded, but transitioning from a non-hectic, off-the-beaten-path kind of vacation to mayhem where the horde is running around in chaos stabs at the heart that has fallen in love with tranquility. Similarly, when going from chaos to serenity it takes a few days to wind down and reconnect with my inner turtle.

Traveling to popular destinations is becoming tedious as the media is turning Earth’s amazing places into movie props, which then extend into being social media backdrops. There is no more meaning or history in these locations where visitors must claim their trophy of having captured a place that has taken on media significance. The surroundings that were once a part of the lives of the residents and living history are now merely architecture that serves as set dressing for people walking through ephemeral dreams that are, at best, fragments of a disunion of parts.

Often, a peaceful moment can be found while dipping into a church as there is an expectation of visitors to be respectful and quiet, but this goes against the grain of those gabbing about trivia that makes them important examples of nonsense to themselves. For centuries, the sacrosanct walls of these buildings have offered refuge to the weary; today, I’m one of those who need to seek solace from the hostility of those seeking fame among their peers.

To have been visiting Dubrovnik 20 years ago must have been an extraordinary moment in time. War had only recently come to a close; the city was not on everyone’s radar as a must-see destination. I’d imagine that on nearly any given day in this city and walking down an alley things looked pretty much just like this. The idea that I could have just hung out like a tea bag steeping in the history of a city that is now lost to time would have been a dream.

This Croatia, this version of the former Yugoslavia, is not real. This is a fake world made for tourists who have a twisted, romanticized view of a fairytale environment where everything they are accustomed to and have come to expect will be here for them. The right bed, linens, shower, and air-conditioning. The food, flavors, and smells from home should be accessible. At every turn, things should be cheaper than those at home because the tourist suspects that everyone else is trying to take advantage of their perceived wealth.

After walking around the city upon the old fortification walls I needed a break, but where to find that?

A cafe was in order, one away from the center of it all. Nope, not down there, though; that looks like my speed with absolutely nobody else in sight.

Dubrovnik is beautiful in its own right, and tourism, while likely great for the local economy, is probably difficult for people trying to maintain a hold on living here as they are squeezed out by the ever-increasing cost of living. From up here, I cannot hear what I do not want to hear, I cannot see what I don’t want to see, but neither can I find that elusive shaded spot to sit down to espresso and water with a bit of writing.

The island to the left is Lokrum, where Caroline and the rest of the group paddled out. While earlier I lamented my decision to stay back, I have to admit that in these moments when I chew on my cud of discontent, while bitter at first, I often find nuggets of thoughts that bring me to a kind of understanding I know of no other way to discover.

I found a cafe off the main thoroughfare with a side corner that’s even a little more removed from the central part of the place, so I was able to sit nearly isolated. It’s been a frantic two hours circumnavigating the old town, and I welcome the decompression of just sitting down with my pen and paper to jot down whatever comes to mind. If I were a more patient, accepting person of others’ foibles, I could probably look past these things that make me aware that I likely have some pretty thin skin. Being who we are, though, is not a choice; it’s a dictate that arises from somewhere deep within and is the likely neighbor of that inner Schweinehund (I explained this in an earlier blog post as being something akin to “the enemy within” or your inner demons) while in my case its neighbor is this grumpy, old, get-off-my-lawn kind of guy.

With the group meeting up again at the designated spot, I’m once again back together with my safety blanket, known as Caroline. All I need now is her reassuring hug, and all will be good in the world.

Having been around the city once on my own it’s now time to share the experience with my best friend. We voted on this as being the best roof in all of Dubrovnik, and so it is by the authority given to us, by us, for the sake of making judgments such as this.

So here’s the kayaker who paddles out to that island over her right shoulder and now some words from her about her experience: [Note from Caroline: I’ll add something later.]

Onofrio’s Fountain near the entrance to the old town is a relic from 1438 when an Italian architect named Giordano Onofrio della Cava promised the people of Dubrovnik that he could deliver water from 7.5 miles (12km) away or he’d reimburse the cost out of his own pocket. Almost 600 years later, the water still flows through the fountain.

Of course, we drank from this amazing work that has stood the test of time. Over the years, it was severely damaged by an earthquake back in 1667 and then again recently by two grenades during the Balkans conflict.

It’s not every day you get to sit down with a Lijerica player in Dubrovnik, but that’s what Caroline had the good fortune of doing. Once again we are seeing the influence of the Turks on this region as this instrument was influenced by the Lyra that originated with the Byzantine Empire. If I failed earlier in the blog to mention the role of the Ottomans in the Balkans, it’s because this confined space isn’t conducive to talking about nearly 400 years of Turkish influence on the region.

There are moments if you look just right and block out the distractions that you can feel like you are in Dubrovnik without the masses and their silliness. Find a corner away from the main tower, which is also the highest point on the wall, and include a judicious amount of the Adriatic in your view and for a short time, if the wind is blowing just right, you might experience a perfect summer day in a city not yet discovered by tourism. Of course, the spell will be short-lived as, ultimately, you will have to turn and see all the people who’ve been passing you as you selfishly kept the best spot all to yourselves.

Maybe instead of turning around, you glance over your right shoulder and take in this beautiful view that is equally as enchanting. Practice keeping those crowding around you at bay so you might indulge your senses in order to best appreciate how much history is right before you.

And if the crowd once again gets under your skin, there’s always another church to dip into. I may be mistaken, but it appears that there are well over a dozen churches in the old town.

Sitting heavily upon the earth, these shrines to our deities are works of art worthy of our admiration, but so are the people who work here to give us water, pizza, and ice cream. I send thanks to the busker demonstrating the Lijerica, the shop attendant who sold us a bath towel featuring a map of Croatia, and the people who cleaned away the trash and ensured the toilets were working. Sitting heavily upon my consciousness is my debt of gratitude to all those who sacrifice their time and peace of mind to satisfy the people who don’t give them a second thought.

Goodbye, Dubrovnik.

Hello, Forest Path here in Zaton Veliki. We are taking a walk around the inlet out to a spit of land for me to clear my mind of infractions, transgressions, and omissions of compassion that can occur because of mindless moments or from introspections that dig too deep for answers that are not really there. It may be a vacation, but this is not an escape from self, especially if that self is intent on finding more than beauty, idyllic landscapes, unique flavors, and the sounds of a place. Discovering answers about oneself is, to me, the most valuable souvenir we can take from these breaks from routine.

At the end of the trail, near the end of our epic journey, who is here to share a smile with me? The same woman who has shared countless smiles on the trail of life for the past 30 years with me.

A thistle because I just love these beautiful flowers that, while pokey and kind of threatening on the outside, are deeply intriguing and complex in ways that are not always readily apparent at first glance.

The slow walk back.

Through the golden light of sunset.

Until reaching the edge of civilization again and the last rays of the sun before having dinner at a romantic seaside little place, indulging our taste buds in much the same way as we indulged the rest of our senses today, yesterday, and the previous 10,000 days before that.

Sleep deprivation finally caught up with us, letting us attempt 8 hours of sleep. I say attempt because Caroline has been suffering through a cough for some days now, and at times, it’s ruthless in how it forces her to hack. As for me, this is the most amount of sleep I’ve seen in over a month since landing in Frankfurt back in early May.

Breakfast will be under overcast skies at 8:00, but about an hour before, we are heading into the dining area with some Croatian folk music set to poorly produced videos on a TV. I sit down with a Turkish coffee to write, and Caroline throws back a Slivovitz (plum schnapps) the barman/barista offered her. I believe this to be a first where Caroline starts the day with a drink, even before coffee.

The locals are the first to arrive with cigarettes just as quickly lit all the way around the table. We’ve forgotten in America what it’s like to have smokers in our midst puffing away in a relatively small space. Listening to the Serbo-Croatian language and the various dialects that are only subtly different to us but obvious to the Croatians here. The soundscape helps define that we are somewhere different. Black and gray are the primary colors worn by the men here. Black hair on the men with blond and brunette for the women.

While I can share photos and fleeting impressions of the beauty and moments of delight that we are encountering, I cannot convey that which is lost in the nuance of conversation and gestures that are the ingrained behaviors and customs of a people communicating beyond the comprehension of my perceptions.

My nerves have been jittery since late afternoon yesterday as we faced rafting the Tara this morning. With the put-in only a seven-minute drive from camp, we’d already donned our wetsuits, yet I still wasn’t nearing a zen moment of calm. Calls for rain over the course of the day were made, but right now, things look great with the sun shining down upon us.

We weren’t on the Tara long before we were pulling over for a hike up a cascade. This, though, isn’t just any hike, as we are just inches from a massive amount of water rushing by that originates just up the hill. Sadly, I hadn’t heard what was just ahead, and I assumed it was just more of this; nope, it was the source of every drop of this. Up and around the corner is a spring where out of the rocks flows a rush of water of giant proportions. With everyone heading back as Caroline told me what I missed, it was too late for me to grab a photo. Really drives home the old adage by Louis Pasteur that said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

Petar showed me how to lean back in order to reach out and pull hard in order to move the raft sideways. Again, I need to point out how incredibly helpful Petar and Ivan from Raftrek were in teaching us about rafting and kayaking.

Look hard at these photos and the next half dozen that follow, as tomorrow we will not have even one image of the Tara River as we’ll be on a short run but a demanding and often difficult stretch of river.

While these passing clouds did not open upon our heads they were signaling us that something ominous outside the canyon was building up.

It’s a shame that I could have easily brought a waterproof camera or bought a waterproof bag for my phone, but my feelings before the trip were that I wanted to focus on writing and not photography. As I put together these blog entries, I realized that a couple of action photos here and there would show an important aspect of what our days looked like and just why we had wetsuits and helmets on.

I’ve watched many a video on rafting the Tara River and admit that today it is not looking like what I’ve already seen online and that’s likely due to the incredibly high water we are experiencing out here. The color is murky green, where normally it’s easy to see the river bed through the clear water but also the many rocks that line the river corridor that are apparently buried today.

We spun through rapids, entered them backward and sideways, and even caught a boulder that elicited an “uh-oh” from our guide.

We are approaching three hours out here on the river, and we’ve been moving fast. The rapids were supposed to be Class I-III, but the high water seems to have tamed them. Tomorrow, we are promised Class IV, or maybe that’s a threat.

It’s enchanting out here with fog rising off the river. The weather couldn’t be any better, and the threat of rain seems to have subsided. Such is the luck Caroline and I enjoy when on vacation.

Our lunch is at a camp under renovation. Matter of fact, this should have been the location of our second overnight on the river, but near the last minute, before we started our Balkans adventure, plans needed to be shifted, and so with that, we instead had our spontaneous Montenegro safari and today will raft more than 50km (31 miles) to the camp that was supposed to be our third overnight on the river instead of the second. Such is life when flexibility due to changing circumstances demands we keep open minds about schedule changes.

While our sack lunches are unpacked, I take the time for a moment alone in the quiet of the path next to the Tara. It’s a sad and tragic realization of how difficult it is to find tranquility amongst such a small group of people intent on filling the silence with their banter about their favorite TV shows, the weather, their jobs, and their previous and future travel plans.

Instead, I’d rather focus on a flower I know nothing about. There’s a spider crawling within it that knows nothing of what I’m about, either. When we leave, it will return to its life in a universe that is vast and rarely visited by human voices going on about really nothing at all, while I’ll return to my life being choked on the pollution of human voices that neither sing nor share the poetry of things felt or dreamed of when dwelling in moments that should be filled with contemplation.

Look hard at that blue sky because, in just a few minutes, it disappeared to be replaced by a downpour that hammered upon us with a ferocity I’ve never seen, even in the worst, angriest moments of the monsoons we’ve experienced in the Arizona desert. Visibility was reduced to no more than 100 feet around our rafts that were drifting on the water without features as the massive drops removed the perception of its surface. The large splashing drops blurred the line between river and rain, and then, when we were hunkering down deeply in our rafts, lightning with near-instant thunderous applause from the heavens rippled through the canyon, ensuring us that the storm was directly overhead.

Kamp Tara-Top, our home for the night. The water heaters here are outdoor 55-gallon drums with wood fires below them. That our hosts knew we’d be arriving soaked to the bone and likely just as deeply cold was a soul saver. The truth is that even if I could have only showered in cold water or needed to step into the river, I would have without hesitation. You see although my wetsuit was disinfected prior to it being assigned to me, someone else had taken a certain liberty in the thing that will forever scent it with a particular aroma.

With our gear hanging up with the hope of it drying a little bit, some will linger by the fire, some will disappear to their rooms, and I will practice being unsocial in the dining area where no one sits so I can write. Dinner was an extravagant affair of home cooking that served up chicken, pork, potatoes, carrots, soup, salad, two types of bread with one stuffed full of cheese, and two different pastries for dessert. All the major Balkan food groups were covered except alcohol, but there should be no doubt that it punctuated both sides of the meal.

The boatmen, hosts, and cooking crew are all on hand when, at 9:30, Cliff, Caroline, and I are once again the ambassadors of our group. Someone here loves the music of Haris Džinović because as the playlist moves along, it’s inevitable that the stereo will be fumbled with, and again, we hear more of this guy’s voice. Haris must be widely known because here we are with Croats, Bosnians, and Montenegrins singing along heartily like that’s just the thing to do. Sadly, we don’t know the words, not that I’d join, but Caroline would. In the background, the sound of the river, the crackling fire, and this boisterous party flow deep between the canyon walls.

This all smacks of the proximity of the exit where I’m trying to grasp hold of every moment that might fill in gaps in the memories that will all too quickly begin to fade as we return to the routines of our other life that pick up again in just a few days.

The Balkans might have been the destination of a river trip that has included a good share of other experiences, but what has to stand out are the smiles, free drinks, singing, the abundance of locally prepared fresh handmade foods, and, of course, plenty of cigarettes. Compared to Northern Europe the people of this region obviously enjoy their time spent with others, especially friends. While their lifestyles may not be the healthiest, their living of life is filled with all the celebrations that can fit into shared moments sitting around a table laughing and singing with one another.

Usually, over the course of a river trip, I bond with at least a passenger or two or maybe a boatman, but on this journey, it has to be the sounds, tastes, and sights of the Balkans. In Germany, I’m drawn to my inner dialog, in America to the vast emptiness of the landscape, but here tonight in Bosnia, I want to get stuck in the moment of the song with these wonderful people dancing right here in the seats and in their souls.