This next bit is not about our Balkans adventure, but it is what I was writing about at breakfast time before we ventured out for our big day of exploration, seeing another million new things.

Today, Caroline and I are just 18 days away from celebrating the 30th anniversary of our fairytale romance when we were both swept off our feet. It did not start with a conversation, though we had spoken numerous times. It did not start with long phone calls where we learned about one another. It started with a kiss.

By the time that happened, it was late in the night, or maybe it was early in the morning. Earlier in the evening, we both happened to be at a concert by the Pixies at the Batschkapp in Frankfurt. We had met at a few shows previously, so we ended up talking outside after the concert until it had gotten late I suggested I give her a ride home, and she accepted. At her place, we talked about her impressive book and record collections, and soon, it was 5:00 in the morning, and I needed to get home.

Caroline walked me to my car through the maze of her neighborhood as she wasn’t sure I’d remember where I parked on those crowded streets. At my car, we kissed, not an aggressive, forceful thing but the most passionate, soft meeting of the lips that barely touched. That delicate moment hung there, lingering forever, and we returned to it again and again to this day.

In the intervening years, we have endured the trials and forces of growing together that, with occasional severity, have tested our bond and sometimes good sense to stay together through our idiocy and shenanigans, but here we are 30 years later, 25 of them married and we still get lost staring into each other’s eyes. I know my wife’s vulnerabilities, and she knows mine. As we’ve grown older, we matured, trying not to exploit those soft spots as much as we did in the early days. Mostly, we try to understand one another and discuss our issues, but emotional heights can still have precipitous falls.

We are imperfect like most everyone else, though I believe too many others wear the mask of perfection as they attempt to delude others of their grandeur instead of embracing the warts of their humanity. In this context of awareness of faults and weakness, we are still trying to overcome ourselves to discover the hidden parts we might not have encountered yet or packed away into our inner schweinehund (Literally translated as ‘inner pig dog or the weak or lazy part of one’s nature).

It could be characterized that Caroline and I are living a kind of modern hunter-gatherer experience. In hunting for opportunity, we gather shared memories that form the still-evolving arc of our story. In work and routine, we try to manage a healthy symbiosis of responsibilities that involve hunting for the economy to feed our bills and caloric needs while gathering knowledge from how our free time is able to be spent in learning and crafting.

While I’m aware of these primitive human characteristics, I’m also highly aware of the esoteric rare earth elements that arise from those who attempt to express themselves through art, science, music, thinking, and occasionally politics. We are on a quest to explore these metaphorical distant lands to find treasures the rest of the tribe will find value in. This also applies to the relationship we are nurturing. Every day, I search for that thing that may bring a smile to our faces and lend approval that one of us has found sustenance, allowing us to survive another day.

Through the collective efforts of Caroline and me playing these roles of hunter-gatherer, we are absolved of needing to be active participants in the agrarian culture as industrialization took away that demand. Regarding the industrialization of society, we are both in rebellion against being trapped like a cog in the machine. In effect, we were catapulted back towards humanity’s earliest responsibilities but as modern interpretations of what it means to hunt and gather.

Because we humans have this language facility that often languishes or, at best, runs along on a treadmill of repetition, we do not stretch to escape the path that runs in circles. Instead of scaling the imagination and mind, we reach for the physical and the beautiful, which are archaic relics of previous ages when those attributes lent wealth and power to those who could cultivate those strengths.

The Enlightenment hinted at our most human traits found in our intellect and creativity while modernity is using a digital mirror to amplify the superficial fringe of nonsense reflecting the abyss and the monster of our primitivism. I dream of the age when we are allowed to forget the animal within and ascend the potential heights of our humanity.

After breakfast and a walk around Skradin that took us up to the old fortress, some of the group departed for a day of sea kayaking while seven of us went for a bike ride. Normally I’d struggle with a 12% grade on a mountain road and would have likely had to push the bike up the entire mile had this been any other day. This incline, though, didn’t represent any serious problem for us today because we were on electric-assist bicycles.

Along the way, we passed a vineyard, had a great overview of the city below after climbing the mountain, and passed this roadside grave in the village of Dubravice. The marker is for Ante Goleš, who appears to have died in the Balkans conflict at the age of only 26 years old. I can find nothing about him on the internet, maybe because he died before the age of it. Today, I wanted to acknowledge this anonymous person whose life was extinguished before he likely was ever able to explore the breadth of experiences that Caroline and I have been so privileged to seek out.

This was the first destination of our 34km (21 miles) bike tour of the Croatian countryside: the island of the Visovac Monastery. We were not prepared to row out to the island as this was simply a stop along the route into Krka National Park.

These electric assist bikes we are on have changed my life. When we started up the mountain, I was certain I’d have to push at least part of the way, but all I needed to do was change to high-power and keep on pedaling, and about 15 minutes later, we were overlooking Skradin. When we get home, I’ll be making a serious investigation into getting two bikes so Caroline and I can revisit many of the places we’ve wanted to pass through slower than we did in the car but faster than we could on foot.

We weren’t done with our ride quite yet as we were on our way into the part of Krka National Park that draws the most visitors, but instead of taking the boat as most do, we were able to ride along the pedestrian path.

After locking up the bikes and taking a much-needed pitstop for toilets and a bite to eat, there was time to check out the flowers before moving further into the park for the main attraction.

These are the waters that, back on August 28th, 1895, powered the world’s second hydroelectric power generator. Two days prior, at Niagara Falls in New York, the most famous hydroelectric generator was started, but it was the town of Šibenik here in Croatia that was the first city on earth to have alternating current-powered lights on its streets.

I would have been thrilled if Plitviče Lakes National Park had been the only place in Europe where I might see the type of waterfalls we witnessed, but yesterday in Slunj, we were again presented with spectacular flows of water. Now here in Krka, we are once more astonished by how incredibly deft Croatians are for bringing us right to the edge of rushing water and letting us pass just inches above it.

Instead of working at the shore, the Croatians go right into the middle of the maelstrom and build paths and houses right in the flow. It’s exhilarating to walk this close to fast-moving water.

A small enclave among the buildings in the middle of a part of the river has water running right inside, with the travertine still growing.

We are just inches away from a powerful cascade of water that occasionally sends a splash of water over the retaining wall and right into the face, my face, to be more precise.

Our time is short here in the park as we still have another scheduled activity for the entire group, and the others are likely wrapping up their sea kayaking right about now.

The path we came in on is the same one we are departing on. As I said, most visitors enter the park on a shuttle boat that brings them from Skradin on an inlet of the Adriatic up the Krka River, so our trail is a peaceful and quiet ride in the canyon high above the water. Once we were back in town, we were just as quickly back in the vans on our way to the next destination.

Welcome to Zadar. While evidence of human habitation stretches back to the Stone Age, it is the Romans and Venetians who left a lasting impression upon the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia. While we won’t be joining the ranks of history as a conquering force entering the city, we will be indulged in hanging out for a few hours.

The impressions come on fast as we walk by the port, heading into one of the gates that people have been passing through for centuries.

Our first stop will be at a restaurant for dinner, where we have reservations for our group. The place is called 2Ribara with the number two being pronounced as “dva” and Ribara meaning “Fishermen.” Along the way, I’m nervous about losing any available daylight, so I start snapping photos of everything.

Turns out that we’ve arrived in Zadar during Ethno Days which is a festival running from mid-March thru June 1st in cooperation with the National Museum of Zadar. The folklore side of the fest has brought out many groups from the surrounding areas who are sharing their unique clothes and music with visitors to Zadar today.

When you live in Phoenix, Arizona, and all of the architecture looks nearly identical, small glitches in the matrix make for ecstatic sighs when we look at what others consider to be mundane or normal. The same thing happens to Caroline and me when we are among trees and other things that are deep green; we want to bring it all home with us, so we should never forget what real green looks like compared to desert tan green.

Can you smell that? Probably not, so let me tell you what I’m referring to. It’s late in the day, and we are surrounded by history and the sea, where the two combine to intoxicate you into believing this might be one of the greatest places to live. Then you hear someone speaking Croatian nearby and realize you will never own enough vocabulary beyond some obligatory curse words, a few numbers, and various greetings appropriate to the time of day, but how you do things, like get the electricity to your newly rented apartment in your name, will have you running for the border to return home. So this ends up being the smell of fear that you are falling in love with the forbidden fruit of desire.

How many streets can I photograph with surfaces polished by the incredible number of feet that walked over them? I can photograph all of them as the reflections are magic in my eyes.

On your left is the Church of St. Donut. The bottom of the church started as a kind of fritter, but by the time they reached the top, it was realized that it should be round like the deep-fried cakes St. Donut used to make in the Bible. Okay, I was joking with you; Donut was a bishop and diplomat in the 8th and 9th centuries and was never mentioned making donuts in the bible. He is recorded as having made donuts in Constantinople for Charlemagne. This brings us full circle (another donut reference) to Frankfurt, named during Charlemagne’s rule, who, after putting sausage into a sliced donut, created the hot dog, which was modified after relish was invented. Oh wait, Caroline is informing me that the church was built by and named after St. Donatus, who created the Döner Kebab! I hope God can’t read.

Sadly our visit to the Greeting to the Sun monument was marred by an idiot who, earlier in the day, worked hard to destroy the popular attraction in Zadar near the Sea Organ. Taking a photo of the smashed monument or trying to capture the essence of the Sea Organ with photos were not going to work here, so instead, I present our smiling faces that were just happy to be here listening to the sea bellowing at us and people enjoying the late afternoon.

Pre-sunset photos are where ideas of the grandeur of the approaching sunset let one know that they need to be around for that moment when the sun actually sets. This will also act as the signal that we tourists need to go find our group and get out of Dodge or Zadar.

We are racing through town on Caroline’s behalf as there’s just one more thing she really really needs to make the day complete. We’d seen what she so badly desired earlier, but our mission at that time didn’t allow us to just hang out, so with serious purpose, we were combing Zadar on the lookout.

We found them or at least one group of them. These roving singers are meandering through the old city, singing folk songs. From our understanding, they come from the surrounding countryside and bring with them a banner showing exactly where they are from. Their acapella songs are hauntingly beautiful, while their clothing is festive and quite elegant in our eyes.

From this point, you can guess correctly that Caroline is intrigued by the clothing that is screaming at her inner fiber artist to join the club and acquire something with these motifs. Fortunately, our time is limited here in Zadar, and Caroline is astute enough to know that the majority of this stuff must be handmade, so it will not be found in shops that sell skimpy bikinis and gold glitter shoes, which appear to be the hot item in Croatia right now.

Back at the sea, we are on hand with half of Zadar to watch the sun dip below the horizon.

The leggings John, please take a picture of the leggings. “Oh, that will work out great as the old fat guy chases the teenagers trying to photograph their legs and then explains to the policeman that I do not have a fetish where I’ll be selling Croatian foot photos on the internet.” How about we just ask them to pose with you?

The folk music and dance event had already started and we only know of it because we could hear their performance from a block away as we were heading for the town gate. So we ran from our group, promising to catch up in order to at least have a glimpse of the gathering. Now that we are fully aware of Ethno Days, maybe we’ll try to schedule a proper visit to Zadar in the future so we can see more of the events that happen over the more than two months of festivities.

Wait for us, everyone; we’re almost there.

Back in Skradin, we had the briefest of briefings regarding tomorrow; what those details were I can’t say because I wasn’t really paying attention. Ten seconds after Petar started, he finished, and with that, the group dispersed and apparently were off to bed. At the bar, the night crew took over, that being myself, Caroline, Petar, Ivan, Cliff, and our newest addition, Matt. It was already getting late when Mičo showed up. This well-traveled and likely drunk boatman is a good friend of everyone who is anyone in the Balkans world of rafting. The guy is incredibly charismatic, even when he’s inebriated. He spent a good long time barely allowing a word in edgewise as he regaled us with sage advice about life lessons.

Finally, after midnight, we crawled upstairs with our sore haunches from the bike ride that took its toll on our tender sides, not accustomed to the cruelty of small bicycle seats. Facing yet another night of barely six hours of sleep hardly matters when compared to the wealth of impressions that work to fill the deficit days after we return to our routines. Back home, we struggle to find novelty; out here, it presents itself with every waking moment.

Breakfast was once again spectacular, with our hosts going above my wildest expectations when I was looking for a replay of yesterday’s elderflower pancakes. They weren’t planned, but upon learning what I was looking for, Ivka went out in the rain to harvest a small supply of the blossoms and whipped some up in minutes. Off in the distance, a cuckoo bird let us know it was present as the rain continued right up until the time our vehicles were packed and ready for our departure.

Ivka’s parting gift to Caroline traveling with us to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It wasn’t a long drive to Bosnia and the town of Bihać. Our goal was to raft the upper and lower Una River, but heavy rains created conditions that if we were to have a boat flip, the resulting swim might be a long one at about 2 kilometers or 1.25 miles. We were also requested to leave everything in the vans so we weren’t encumbered with anything such as drybags. After the rain stopped while still on the river, we had the opportunity to listen to just how much the quiet enhanced the beauty of the canyon. Should any photos from the rest of the group show up, I’ll be sure to share them here.

While I can never see too many waterfalls, rainbows, or sunsets, I’ve already seen too many bullet holes in the homes of people who were obviously not combatants but were caught in the crossfire of others. Part of me is happy that not everything has been patched over, cosmetically hiding the horror of what was, as thinking about the atrocities that are part of war should always give one pause.

With another couple of hours driving through our landscape as we make our way to Skradin, Croatia, we snag the front seats again as it’s the only place in the vans where I can open the window to grab a few photos of what things look like outside our speeding vehicle.

We have to have these images of the route, else with fading memories, we might forget how enchanting the small villages looked like during our travels. At some point during another month or maybe a year into the future, we’ll find ourselves looking back at our first trip to the Balkans, wondering why we never planned on a return visit. These photos are key to keeping our memories alive and vivid.

Do you see bad weather on the horizon? For me, there is a potential to see the landscape under different conditions should we one day decide to make that return visit. Our sense of the world found here in the Balkans is already intriguing enough to know that we are enchanted and that just because things might be obscured doesn’t mean they won’t hold our interest. On the contrary, we know that out that way along the coast, there is a highway, and beyond the shore, there are islands that are likely worth exploring, too. To Caroline and me, scenes such as this only work to increase our curiosity about just how much more beautiful things are beyond our purview.

Able to pull a face and keep his eyes on the road, I have to give much credit to our guide, Ivan, for keeping us entertained. We are up here learning a lot about the Croatian language, road signs, good versus horrible Croatian music, a few thoughts about the conflict between people who normally have no animosity towards each other, and corruption that exploits not only Croatia but the people who need work in order to break out of their 2nd world status and join the more prosperous countries to their north.

Kind of like our first-hand impressions of the Balkans, the realities found in this corner of the world are blurred. Will we ever see enough light at the end of the tunnel to find certainty about the politics, history, religious, and economic issues that nuance the complex relationships that have shifted over the centuries from one rule to another before bouncing back on self-rule?

Rainbows portend good things, even if those are more smiles on our own faces.

Inching ever closer to our first encounter with the Adriatic along the Dalmatian coast.

Uh-oh, the van has broken down. A call to Petar assures us that we’ll only be out here minutes before he drops the other guests in Skradin and returns to pick us up. Caroline and I were aware of the faltering clutch as we’d seen the check engine light and saw Ivan struggling to get the van into gear when he downshifted a little while ago. Passing through a toll booth, the clutch no longer wanted to work at all, so we all pushed the van through and to the side of the road, then opted to hitchhike to our next stop. It turned out that manually pulling and pushing the pedal for the clutch allowed it to start functioning like normal. While saving Petar a trip out to pick us up, the guys at Raftrek opted to have another van brought to our hotel in Skradin later in the day so there’d be no ambiguity.

The smile of a great actor and a seriously decent river guide so far. I’m accusing Petar of being an actor because not only is he likely dealing this very moment with our van situation, but we also learned that the Zrmanja River we were supposed to be rafting tomorrow is rapidly rising due to the heavy rains. Matter of fact we also heard of a group that was in the canyon as the waters became unnavigable who had to hike out of a difficult spot and took five hours to finally emerge. So, knowing he’s dealing with the expectations of the group he’s guiding and the potential for disappointment, I’d say that smile is a legitimate effort to not allow the stress to show through, that or those charismatic blue eyes are able to hide his feelings and pull you into what he wants you to believe.

Time to freshen up in our room? Not unless we’d accidentally defecated on each other or ourselves. With dinner just around the corner, we were going to use as much available daylight as possible to see just where it is we were staying tonight. The village of Skradin is somewhere nearly 1,000 years old and has been under the rule of almost everyone, including the Romans, Turks, the Republic of Venice, Napoleon, and the Austrian-Hungarians. With less than 4,000 inhabitants and a small marina that leads out to the Adriatic, this seems like the perfect place to spend the night.

Inviting narrow streets and even narrower stairways lead us to parts of the city that will have to remain unexplored for now while we try to cover as much ground as possible in the shortest amount of time.

An organist is playing in Crkva Male Gospe (Church of Our Lady), thus guaranteeing that we’ll have to stop in as we cannot know if we’d be so lucky tomorrow to hear this church filled with music or even whether the doors will be unlocked then.

The Latin phrase memento mori means “Remember death.” When we visit churches, we are reminded that we are here to prepare for our death. Mortality and the sacrifices of those who have preceded us are supposed to help guide the soul of the parishioners to find salvation through the acts of others and through how we live our lives. Besides Jesus on the cross, I often wonder what the average churchgoer’s level of knowledge is regarding the symbolism adorning these walls.

After witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, Mary Magdalene spent the last 30 years of her life in a cave in southern France. This motif of Mary in a cave is a popular one and will likely not be the only one we see on this trip.

Thin pillows on the pews with these Croatian or Slavic designs were sure to capture Caroline’s attention, and even before she started to ask me to photograph them for her, I’d grabbed a couple of images.

I must admit total ignorance of this painting while we were looking at it in stunned disbelief. Is this woman really holding a martini with a couple of eyeballs in it? Saint Lucy is, in fact, the patron saint of eye illnesses and of the blind. Legend has it that her eyes were gouged out prior to her execution or that maybe she removed them herself for some curious reason or other, but in any case, her eyes were miraculously restored upon examination in the family mausoleum; hence, she became a saint. Whatever the true nature of the story, I much prefer the idea that some gothic lady is now famous into perpetuity for sipping her martini with some cheating husband’s eyes adorning her drink.

The marina is about as far as we can get before needing to turn around and head back to our hotel, which is also where we’ll be having dinner.

I think the attraction of this village is obviously apparent, though we have no idea how crowded things get as the main tourism season gets underway. If the number of ATMs is an indicator (we counted at least eight), then this place might be packed a couple of months a year.

Ivan is not feeling his best today, hence the giant L on his forehead for LOSER. First, he failed to identify us at the airport and managed to be invisible to us; next, he took a wrong turn on his way to Plitviče Lakes, adding a significant delay to his group’s arrival (we were in Petar’s van – clearly the winner), and then today his van had mechanical issues. Poor Ivan was feeling like the low man on the totem pole, but we still like him and hope he can overcome his feelings of inferiority someday.

Back out on the romantic deserted streets of Skradin where a midnight stroll seemed well in order for the perfect punctuation of another terrific day.

Just who is it that rafts upon whitewater in the morning to stroll later in the day in a small town along the Dalmatian coast on the Adriatic Sea, passing yachts, listening to the funny songs of frogs and toads, holding the hand of someone they’ve been in love with for countless years? Today is the day that Caroline and John get to do this.

Just as I’d suspected last night, the family hosting us at their country homestead is out here with the wood fire going; the table is mostly set with homemade bread, jam, a couple of varieties of cheeses, smoked meats, and some strong Turkish coffee. It will be close to an hour before any of the other guests appear.

After saying good morning to the Jelaš family and learning that somehow these elderflowers that were just picked from some nearby trees were going to be part of breakfast, I took a walk around the property. From the kitchen, Croatian music played quietly while the birds sang their own morning songs. A light wind rustled the trees, and I got a close-up view of the flowers among the shrubbery. For a brief moment, I was able to find a sense of what a more typical day alone out on this hilltop might be like if this was the place I called home.

Elderflower pancakes are a new treat to me. Never in my 56 years have I eaten a breakfast that included fresh cuttings from a nearby tree that were simply dipped into batter and fried with the branch still attached to use as a handle when eating the delicate blossoms. Gluttony being my middle name, I likely ate half a dozen of these before I could finally refuse Ivka’s pushing more of them on me. Ivka is Juraj’s wife and is pictured below in the last photo of this entry.

The building with the outside stairs is the main house, and under a gallery on the right side of it is the dining area with a view of the trees and surrounding countryside. The building on the right is the house Caroline and I stayed in, specifically the upstairs room closest to the camera.

Shortly we’ll be leaving the homestead for the day, though we’ll return later this afternoon as we have two nights out here. Our destination is the Mrežnica River Canyon for some kayaking: our first paddling experience of the trip.

Suited up in wet suits and splash jackets, we are close to putting in on the river. Our kayaks are sit-on-top two-person affairs, and while Caroline said she’d never ride in a kayak, a.k.a. divorce boat with me ever again, that is exactly what she’s about to do.

I can’t tell you that I’m not approaching panic as I look down and face the river below. If only I didn’t have an inherent fear of water, this would likely be a lot easier, but being pushed off the back of a boat into Lake Erie when I was about four years old and then being caught in a riptide only a few years later in California made some of my early encounters with the force and nature of water one fraught with anxiety.

The first briefing of the morning, and we’re learning about the type of travertine waterfalls that we’ll be navigating. I’m fairly certain that Caroline is as nervous as I am, but we are surrounded by guides, have our personal flotation devices strapped on tightly, helmets on our noggins, and have been assured again and again that this is safe for beginners.

Down a hill, we carried our boats to a relatively calm pool where we practiced getting our bearings and reinforcing the skills to have our kayaks do what we’d like them to do. While not convinced I’d be graceful in my actions, I was determined to stay upright as we headed downstream, encountering a chute that was to send us over our first waterfall. The hope was that we’d still be upright after doing so, but things didn’t work out that way. We rolled out pretty quickly after entering the rapid/waterfall, but pretty quickly, we were right back in our kayak with the help of a guide who was standing in the waist-deep water just in case he had to help a passenger or two back into their kayak. Good thing we were right back in because we were soon flying over the next fall, where strangely enough, we remained out of the water and on top of our kayak.

I should probably mention at this time that our Croatian guides for this trip are Petar and Ivan (pronounced E-vahn, not Eye-van). These two guys seriously helped push our river skills into new territory today. Ivan’s patience in helping again and again by bringing my attention to correctly maneuvering our kayak was always on point. Caroline and I both consider ourselves beginners because although we’ve been out in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Straights of San Juan De Fuca, and a couple of other places, we’ve never been seriously coached in how to properly kayak, and so we’ve inadvertently mostly worked against each other.

The river was running high today due to recent heavy rains. Even when we were out on the water, we got hammered by a hard downpour, but as it finished, a fine mist rose over the river in the canyon and added to the already tremendous beauty we were witnessing. It’s not just the river that is gorgeous either, but the deep greens of spring are painted over the forest and only add to the fascinating spectacle on display. Hands down, though, it is the travertine falls that are going to enchant anyone who visits here as they are struck in disbelief that they are actually in this place of the extraordinary.

On one particularly difficult waterfall, our guides set up ropes and used carabiners, attaching them momentarily to our kayaks, allowing them to drain so they’d not be too heavy as we went over the final drop.

We now understand that we can figure out the direction of the kayak and stay upright, going over one to two-meter waterfalls boosting our confidence to great new heights. Petar and Ivan work for a company called Raftrek and were helped today by their coworkers named Marko, Dario, and Eugen, who not only helped us climb down a waterfall because we were too nervous to jump down a 7-meter (21-foot) cliff over the edge of a waterfall into a deep pool below but also helped by often jumping back into the hip-deep water rushing over the travertine edges in the middle of the river to help ensure we made the line we needed to for navigating the various rapids.

With the wet suits on we were well prepared to be comfortable on the cold water and in it. Our guide Eugen had an infectious enthusiasm that allowed him to ply the waters in nothing more than shorts and a t-shirt. This guy jumped from a travertine edge over the 7-meter tall waterfall into the center of the maelstrom below; he jumped out of kayaks with a backflip to get back in the water and, at the end of the trip, jumped off a bridge more than 10 meters over the river. This guy certainly relieved stress for some of us by demonstrating absolute comfort with any part of the river. The confidence of our well-skilled guides definitely lent loads of confidence to the rest of us who needed it.

Off the river and getting changed into dry clothes was no easy feat due to the intermittent rains that had us in a hurry to wrestle out of our clingy, wet suits in a rush to get warm. Once we were packed up and back at the Raftrek base camp, it was time for our picnic lunch, coffee for me and a beer for Caroline.

There’s no way to adequately convey in these post-adrenaline moments just how amazing this all was. What started in near panic ended with new confidence that only after kayaking down waterfalls can offer. This must surely be one of the most beautiful stretches of river in all of Europe, well at least today it is.

We’ve already seen this type of sight dozens of times on the local roads: a damaged house has been abandoned. The owners may have perished at the hands of the invading military, or maybe they left the country after the trauma of having their homes made unlivable due to the Balkans War of 1991 to 2001. There are signs of the conflict in every village we pass through, as bullet-riddled walls can be seen over and over again. The cost to repair the damage to the walls seems to be secondary to replacing windows and roofs in order to regain protection from the elements during winter or seasonal rains.

We could be in Wisconsin, Idaho, or Maine with these views. We could be in love under these skies. We could let these landscapes linger in our memories forever. We could return someday and fall in love with it all again.

The next stop on today’s adventure is in the village of Slunj. This old mill town was built over an area of dozens of waterfalls and is obviously the influence of many a sci-fi film where one need not think long about the movies it inspired.

I found no way to do justice photographically to what I saw here. The breadth and scale of the place with intricate details defied capturing it for me with a single image that might share some of the character seen from the overlook we walked along.

While writing this part of the blog, I went over to Google to search for the images I was certain I’d find, but I quickly learned that others are having the same problem in finding the perfect angle to share a fraction of what will greet your senses as you walk around the old town center.

I’d be willing to go so far as to say that a visit to Croatia would be incomplete without a stop here. It is that important for your own eyes and ears to have gazed upon the spectacle of so much water flowing through and under this small patch of land that people call home.

It’s only about 5:00 when we arrive back at the Jelaš homestead. Being early and having passed a bunch of sheep, Caroline and I took a walk back down the road to check them out.

The sheep were being moved over to another pasture as their dogs were herding them to a different hillside and started barking wildly at us as we got too close for their liking.

These sheep are not supplying their coats to any fiber artists but are instead meant for dinner tables.

Not two seconds after turning around, a white van came racing around the corner; it was our host Juraj, also called “šef” or boss by our guides Petar and Ivan. He tried telling us something that was being lost in translation, so he motioned us to join him in the vehicle, and we hopped in. We backed down the narrow road to a steep grassy incline where he was able to turn around before heading down it and around the corner to the thing he was trying to tell us about.

We were at an “Izvor,” or spring, where freshwater was trickling out of a seep. Gesturing, he let us know that the water was safe to drink, and after we sampled it, he offered us a large plastic bottle to fill, and off the three of us went on another adventure.

The road narrows, and we speed along with the familiarity of someone who’s driven this road so many times before that it’s mapped into the back of his mind and is now traveled by instinct.

Can the road get narrower? Yes, and we are now on it listening to Radio Velkaton deep in the countryside of Croatia. Further into the woods, we drove, not able to share a word or idea of where we might be going. When we finally pulled over at a scenic overlook, Juraj pointed to the center of the landscape, drawing our attention to a tower ruin called Sokolac.

This is not where tourists go, this is where travelers arrive knowing that they are seeing a rare sight compared to those who cannot leave their trophy collecting. We do not see Saint Mark’s Basilica in the distance or snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas rising to the heavens; we are merely offered a glimpse across time into the heart of rural Europe with a rare opportunity to simply see and experience an ordinary moment. It’s priceless.

Our fellow rafters are either busy tending to the drying of their wet river clothes, are showering, or are off napping. I’m off to visit with Ivka to see if I might be able to learn a thing or two about Croatian cooking.

Ivka and her helper friend are busy in the outdoor kitchen getting ready to finish the final baking of the stuffed peppers we’ll be having later. The bake will happen “Under the Bell.” In Croatian, this is known as Ispod čripnje, and should you be interested and find yourself in Croatia, it turns out that a group in Zadar is organizing cooking classes and wine tastings in the area that focus on learning about this popular method of cooking in the Balkans. They are called Truly Dalmatia, and maybe one day, we’ll take them up on their offer to teach us more about cooking Under the Bell.

The weather is bringing back the overcast skies while dinner is nearing completion. Our stuffed peppers are being served with mashed potatoes and homemade bread.

Ivka Jelaš is the wife of Juraj Jelaš, who came to me and, through Ivan, let me know that should Caroline and I ever come back to Croatia, she would like us to be their guests. How much more touching someone could have been at that moment, I cannot say. If I thought their generosity reached a limit that night, I would have been wrong, as after the majority of guests went to sleep, Ivka brought out a loaf of still-hot soda bread. With a large block of butter, Juraj and I put a pretty good dent into that loaf.

Here we are at the best time of day again when almost everyone else has gone to bed, and now it’s just Juraj, Ivka (wearing the cowboy helmet – it’s Cliff’s custom-made boating helmet!), Petar, Mira (the woman behind Ivka), and Cliff sitting at the dining table drinking and smoking late into the night.

I don’t know how the conversation came up, but we fairly quickly got to Jebi Se (Croatian for “fuck you”). It was the very first thing I said to Ivan upon meeting him at dinner on the night of our orientation meeting. I explained to him that someone once told me it was a common greeting in Croatia, his eyes looking at me in disbelief were perfect. Now we’re all laughing about it and how curse words are always people’s entry into another language.

The wine is flowing as the radio serenades us with accordion music, and the fire burns strong with the new log Juraj just added. Listening to the mostly Croatian spoken around the table, there are occasional breaks used for translating the important bits. For these moments, we are outside of time, having an experience that feels like we are with family on a Balkans adventure that cannot be bought.

A step out into the yard allows for a more focused listen to the crickets, the trill of the frogs, and a few drops of rain that are falling. Back at the table, I learn to say no shit, “ne seri,” or as kids say, “ne kakaj” for the slightly more polite “no kaka.”

Ivan relates his two-hour wait for Caroline and me at the airport, holding the sign from Wantok that escaped our view. He had seen us but decided that these happy hippy people, who moved like they knew what they were doing, couldn’t be the people he was looking for, so he just kept waiting until we reached the hotel and word got back to him. I think he’s enjoying himself just a bit too much by holding our feet to the fire for “blowing him off.”

Caroline and I called it quits shortly after midnight and did our best to quietly head upstairs while the two other couples in our building hopefully remained sound asleep, enjoying their slumber.

The instructions were clear and succinct last night: breakfast starts at 7:00, and everyone needs to be ready and curbside by 8:30. For those accustomed to the $30-a-night roadside motel where you might be lucky to find stale cornflakes, this luxurious hotel in Zagreb put on an extravaganza for breakfast. While we skipped the caviar and champagne, we scoured the tables for those things we hoped might be uniquely Balkans-influenced before heading back upstairs to grab our bags and comply with our trip leader Petar’s request to be punctual. It was raining as he pulled up on the narrow street that he might not have been allowed to stop on. We packed up our luggage, piled in, and were soon on our way to Plitviče Lakes National Park.

The necessity of the timely departure was in small part due to the 130km (80 miles) two-hour drive we had ahead of us, but more importantly, was that we were on a timed entry schedule. To deal with the extraordinary popularity of Plitviče Lakes, the park service has started to schedule entry times in an attempt to combat overcrowding. After parking, our group took shelter near the entrance while Petar finalized our entry, and some of our fellow travelers replenished their supply of coffee.

Established in 1949 as Croatia’s first National Park, this place is knock-your-handknitted-socks-off-your-feet beautiful, and we’re here in the rain. It’s quickly apparent just how lucky we are to be here on a Monday before the summer vacation season gets fully underway, as it’s easy to imagine the trails with 100 times more people than are here now. The poor weather also likely worked to our advantage and probably dissuaded some people from showing up today, and it nearly feels like the park is ours alone, even though some might have thought otherwise (there were plenty of buses in the parking lot). Peeking through the forest is a small hint of what lay below. Fortunately for me, I never researched any specifics about the locations we’d be visiting on this journey into the Balkans.

There’s another important thing to note for me here: as I don’t watch television, I’ve not been exposed to every amazing location on Earth. My bucket list is still being discovered with surprises that continue to capture my imagination here in my mid-50s. I learned not too long ago to not always hope for great weather and disallow disappointment should I encounter what some might call less than ideal conditions. I’m lucky to visit places at least once in my life that I could have never dreamt of seeing in person as a younger adult.

One can visit the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon under clear blue skies in the middle of summer and never see a drop of rain, but they will have been cheated from seeing clouds collecting below the canyon rims. They will not see spontaneous waterfalls come into existence with a good monsoon soaking. Had they been in the park in the winter, they might have had the pleasure of looking up to see snow-capped rims. Measure your expectations and allow yourselves to be enchanted by the opportunity instead of finding disappointment that your ideals were not realized.

Petar stops at the park map to show us the route we’ll be taking today, promising us a solid four- to six-hour walk through this extraordinary landscape of lakes, travertine pools, and waterfalls that promise to astonish us.

It should be obvious from this photo that the first impression that strikes hard is that the water is extraordinarily and profoundly crystal clear. The second impression, if you are in a group situation, is that different people have different ideas on how long one should dwell in being mesmerized staring into the pools. Lingering what might be an adequate amount of time for Caroline and me would require a multi-day visit to the park and probably across the seasons, too.

The third likely impression is going to be your astonishment at the boardwalks that are guiding you through this environment. There are no guide rails on the trails; they are bidirectional, and when they are wet, they look deceptively slippery, though they are surprisingly not, and at times, they are barely a hair above the water except for the occasional spots that are actually in the water.

With these elegantly placed boardwalks taking visitors directly over the water, they are able to bring people to the best imaginable views that would otherwise be impossible to see without the help of a small boat.

Caroline and I struggled to race ahead of our group to remain out front in order to capture these photos without getting in the way of others. Along the way, I was told by one of our guides how, at the height of the season, it often happens that people effectively move along on a kind of conveyor belt where the flow of traffic forces the stream of visitors to rarely, if ever, stop.

Water is seemingly flowing everywhere as it cascades over the majority of surfaces, wrapping us in its web of channels, waterfalls, and pools. Returning to the thought of how fortunate I am to have not seen anything about Plitviče prior to our arrival, how many times have you watched a movie trailer only to be left feeling that you’ve seen the best parts of the movie? Today, I can stand here and honestly say that every corner is a constant non-disappointing surprise of standing in awe with mouth agape that such a place is so easily accessible to people without the ability to walk on water.

What’s missing from this photo? The audio of what it sounds like to stand right here, well, that and a hammock.

The elevation is constantly changing as the water falls from one pool to another. We walk along shores, next to ledges, through the trees, and over streams until we emerge at wholly new views that could not have been anticipated just seconds before arriving at them.

You’d think that while taking in a million new impressions, a few more would easily fit, but you have to make a serious effort to stop and look at the other trillion things if you are going to process the fraction you are struggling to hold on to and make space for just one more detail. There are tiny orchids along the path, along with other delicate flowers, all competing with the constant movement swirling around your feet that beg you to see them, too. Immersion is inevitable here as you are surrounded by a reality that envelops you as deeply as the flower here is part of its ecosystem.

The path to the right will remain a mystery to me as we came from behind and took the boardwalk to the left. Then again, there were moments I felt I was in a maze, and only our guides’ familiarity with the park helped me find where to go.

I’m still wondering how these and many other trees take root in the flowing waters of Plitviče Lakes. I get that the water freezes during winters, but that’s not the time when trees sprout, either. Maybe the travertine pools that contain the waters that flow through here occasionally break and allow the water to change course, but then how do all of these trails through the park seem so perfectly aligned to guide us past the most spectacular sights?

The obligatory selfie (in front of Veliki Slap – or the Big Waterfall) is required to prove that we were, in fact, here where we claim but not for anyone else except Caroline and me as we are ourselves hardly believe we have been where our travels have taken us. Look to Caroline’s right, and you will see a hint of our umbrella. It was nearly constantly open to protect the camera from the rain while I snapped away. I can appreciate that even under gray skies, we were treated to a landscape that required no embellishment, and will look forward to a day we might return when winter brings a new level of solitude and quiet to the park or when we arrive to witness the glorious sun smiling down upon the Plitviče Lakes.

Looking at these incredible formations of travertine implies some amazing limestone deposits and, consequently, a rich hydrological world below us. I’d guess that there’s a labyrinth of caves that are still quite active in their development. Matter of fact, during our walk-in to the park, we passed many a sinkhole where the ground had subsided, and in some cases, former trails had become inaccessible.

We are not necessarily in a rush to exit the park, but we also have a lot of ground to cover in trying to explore a wide variety of sights along the trails. I see untaken photographs that will have to wait for a return in the future while others beg to be illuminated under the gaze of the sun in order to show their full spectrum of color. Even with their vibrant hues muted in the gray light of an overcast sky, there are hints that tease the passerby that an order of magnitude more beauty verging on the psychedelic is waiting for the rays of our star to truly shine. All the while, I sense that everything within our purview is evolving right under our noses more rapidly than we can comprehend.

What is it that we find intrinsically magical by observing flowing water? Why do the depths of the sea draw us into their mystery while being inherently dangerous to our very survival? Something runs deep within us that remains inexplicable to my conscious mind, where water seems to speak to me on some basic level. I cannot be certain if it is my awareness that is excited by proximity to water or if maybe my cells are communicating to this larger force excited by the energy at play.

Self-contained and able to live up to 25 years in captivity, I’d imagine that due to their languorous speed while moving through nature they experience life to be thousands of years before they move on to snail heaven. For whatever reason, I perceived this snail to be quite old. From its broad foot to a massive scar on its shell, I could easily believe that this specimen of snailhood has been cruising across Plitviče Lakes for a long time and has taken in kilometers of the park. This would be quite the feat, considering it moves at a maximum of 25 meters per day or about 82 feet.

What kind of tragedy befell this boat? Were its passengers able to be rescued from the turbid waters that must have been raging back on that fateful day? Is it possible that Gilligan has been able to survive all these years since this small craft took its tragic turn? The mysteries Plitviče Lakes National Park will continue to hold back from sharing its knowledge, keeping me curious for years to come; obviously, we will have to return one day.

There are waterfalls within waterfalls just beyond what the camera can observe. Our ears are useless in teasing out all of the directions where the sound of flowing water is traveling. While down there on the trails that take you right into the heart of this multi-level cascade I found it impossible to capture with photos what it looks like to be surrounded in such an environment. If it is true that under direct sunlight, we see a near infinity more beauty than we are allowed to observe on the day we are visiting, I can honestly say that should we have been exposed to such a sight, my tears would have certainly sprung forth adding yet another layer to the waterfalls too numerous to comprehend.

The visitor to Plitviče will never know what this place truly looks like. They may have some small idea of a corner, a snail inching over the lichen, the song of a bird in a nearby tree, or the raindrop that fell out of the sky to touch their cheek, but what they believe they saw will be profoundly altered by the light, changed angle, the height of observation, or the frame of reference operating in their mind after getting lost in the visual symphony of complexity that is too grand to remember every note. Try to comprehend the many layers, the flow of water, the work of nature sculpting an environment that is always being reshaped, and you will be lost. The macro overview is easy to have; it may be simple to say one has been to Plitviče, but seeing is not knowing, and knowing the intrinsic universe that is found in this corner of Croatia will continue to mystify you in your dreams and memories of such a wonderful place.

Through the hills and over dale, we drove until we reached a designated meeting area in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere at which our host was patiently waiting in his van for our arrival. The shortcut he would lead us on took over an hour off our drive time had we taken the roads Google had recommended. Good thing he acted as a guide because the single-width lane we took is a maze that zigzags over the lush rolling hills.

We arrived at Imanje Jelaš, where our host Juraj welcomed us to his homestead with several different flavors of homemade Rakija, Croatian fruit brandy. There was the famous Šljivovica (plum brandy), but also concoctions based on grapes, lavender, apples, and herbs. I believe Caroline tried them all, but with five or six to choose from, I lost count at her third shot.

Dinner felt like a true Croatian experience. We sat outdoors on long tables next to the cooking fire (complete with the aforementioned iron bell). The homemade dishes were a gourmet delight and accompanied by large helpings of heartfelt welcoming from our hosts. While our fellow travel companions were relatively benign, I felt a bit embarrassed for their lack of enthusiasm. I don’t mean to imply that anyone was rude, but from the reaction to our dinner and tempered response to heartily digging in, I’d say that the crowd couldn’t truly appreciate the wild boar and deer goulash served with polenta and dumplings that were all cooked “under the bell.”

Dessert of walnut bread and poppy seed bread followed with offers of more wine, beer, or Rakija.

Shown to our rooms, Caroline and I were the lucky ones who had first dibs and consequently felt like we scored the best room of all – under the roof.

Plitviče Lakes National Park is already becoming a memory as I scratch out the notes I’m able to collect. It’s now after 11:00 p.m., and after a long day and the pleasure of spending more than a couple of hours with our hosts at the same table they fed us at, I need to give in to the need for sleep. As has been the situation with nearly every other river trip Caroline and I have taken, most everyone goes to sleep before 9:00 p.m., leaving us to be the ambassadors with our hosts who genuinely seem to appreciate that we are interested in hanging out with them into the middle of the night even though they’ll be up well before everyone else in order to make our breakfast.

If today were the totality of our Balkans adventure I’d say that we already received the full value of our investment to visit this corner of the world. That we still have almost 11 days of experiences ahead of us only lends wealth to our incredible good fortune to be able to participate in such opportunities.