My Achilles Heel

Ancona, Italy; Split – Zoastrug, Croatia

I think I’ve mentioned that my favorite sport is cross country skiing. I’ve been doing it now for 40 years. My skills are definitely diminishing, but I’ve always been proud of my transitions. Changes in terrain. Moving from diagonal stride to double pole. That type of thing.

Sadly, bigger transitions in life are not so easy. 

Today we landed in Croatia, the seventeenth country on our journey. And, while Croatia is not some other planet, it is still a new place, with a different language, different stores, different customs, and different food. 

Lots to figure out . . .

My first big mistake in making the transition from Italy to Croatia was not bringing more water onto the ferry yesterday, when we boarded. Didn’t seem like a big deal. But it’s pretty important for me to guzzle a bunch of water first thing in the morning. And, being pretty thirsty after our ride yesterday, and after eating salty pizza for dinner – I drank most of my water before bed last night. Leaving only a little for this morning . . .

Then I compounded the mistake by only buying one liter of water when we went to the grocery store after disembarking from the ferry. With two of us drinking, that liter didn’t amount to much . . . Of course, part of the problem is that when I’m dehydrated I have diminished decision-making abilities. So once things start to spiral, it’s all bad . . .

Oh, and then I never really had a good breakfast either. They had croissants on the ferry. But that’s not a meal to start a day – that’s a snack . . .

Dehydrated and hungry is a really bad combination for me . . .

The sad thing is that Croatia itself was amazing. Or it would have been if I had my s—t together. As it was, I just kind of moped through the morning – with some poor decisions thrown in just to make things worse . . .

The big one happened about two miles into our ride, when Google Maps told us to turn right – onto a highway. Divided highway. Big entrance ramps. Looked pretty busy. Probably not where we wanted to be . . .

After conferring, we decided to switch to Komoot – another mapping device we sometimes use. 

I hate Komoot. It’s always sending us on routes with about 47 turns per mile. 

Go right, then go left, then, after passing the fire hydrant with the peeing dog, go left around the dog, then right, and, after ten meters, go straight for 17 feet. 

And then the display doesn’t just continually follow our progress. Without constant refreshing, the cursor on the map will show a place you were about ten minutes ago. Not very helpful. And when I go to refresh the this is where you are arrow (while riding) I frequently hit the wrong button-thing – and then I end up on another page altogether. 

After about ten minutes I’m usually super-frustrated – and wanting to throw my phone away. 

Nonetheless, we went to Komoot because it didn’t tell us to take the highway. Instead, it sent us around on some secondary and tertiary roads that, as it turned out, also went straight up and down. 

We follow Komoot for about a mile – and now we’re way up above the highway – following little neighborhood roads. “Turn left, then right, then proceed straight,” squaks Komoot. 

Trouble was that when we try to go straight we see a big truck hogging basically the whole narrow road in front of us. Upon closer inspection, we see that there is a big backhoe in front of the truck – digging up the road for what looks like a sewer project of some kind . . .

We spend the next half hour trying to find a way around – because with our loaded bikes we’re really not going to make it around the construction without taking all our packs off . . . But every time we go down a new road we find yet more construction. 

Not a fun morning, really . . .

Eventually we find our way around the construction and continue on – switching to yet another mapping app – Organic Maps for Bikes. It was either that or throw my Komoot-infected phone into the sewer ditch that they were digging . . .

Organic does okay for a while – but then it sends us up some giant climb. 

I guess there’s something you need to understand about Croatia. Most of it is just a narrow spit of land – between the island-filled Adriatic and this big ridge of mountains. I think the whole thing is about ten or fifteen miles wide. 

And now we’re going up the ridge of mountains . . . 

It’s pretty and all, but, with me being dehydrated and kind of hungry, I’m really not enjoying it. Instead, I’m thinking all kinds of yucky dehydrated thoughts – kind of my Mr. Hyde brain. I don’t like the guy – but, again, once I’m in this state it’s hard to get out of it because Mr. Hyde wants to be in charge, and he always argues that the world really is this bad; it has nothing to do with being dehydrated . . . 

And I’m out of water anyway . . .

Once at the top our new job is to just come right back down. And, of course, the descent is on gravel. Never as fun to go down hills on gravel on a loaded bike – especially when the gravel is super loose and deep . . .

By the time we pull in for lunch it’s almost 1, and we’re both pretty disspirited. With all the choose your own adventure riding in the morning – and with the wind against us for good chunks of the day – we’ve only gone about 30 miles – in something like six hours since we got off the boat. 

Going another 32 after lunch – 62 total was our original plan because that’s the distance to the campground that Diana found – seems daunting, at best . . .

But the good thing about water and calorie problems is that they are easily solved. I just have to convince my Mr. Hyde-dominated mind that the real root of the problem is dehydration, not the Mr. Hyde default: that is, that everything is terrible in the world . . .

After I drank about a gallon of water and ate a little bit, my personal sun started to shine. Dr. Jekyll looks around and realizes that he is actually in an amazing place – no reason to mope . . . Only a dehydrated fool would mope while biking through such a beautiful place . . .

Okay – I won’t bore you with more ride stuff. I’ll just tell you this: Croatia has it going on. Beautiful houses. Plenty of amenities. Incredible sea – full of different shades of turquoise. Big ridgeline of mountains. Kind of unbeatable, really. 

Alright, a few more Italy thoughts . . .

For us Minnesotans there is a pretty easy way to understand Italy. It’s Minnesota, except taller. Like Minnesota, it’s about 250 miles wide. But Italy is about half again as big as Minnesota – meaning, I guess, that it’s about half again as tall . . . The crazy thing is, though, that Italy’s population is about 59 million. Basically six or seven times as densely populated as Minnesota. 

Now, everyone is pretty concerned with birth rates over here. Italy’s is super low – like 1.3 births per woman, or something like that – way below replacement. But by my way of thinking, this is a good thing. Who wants to live in a world that is that super-densely populated? I like people – but I think we all need some wild spaces as well. Hard to find them when there are so many people around . . . All of whom need to be fed as well . . . meaning endless fields of crops . . .

Shifting gears a little, we also ended up speaking to our campground host, Simone, for quite some time yesterday before we left. Young guy. Seemed very dynamic. Simone’s four-month old son had to go to the hospital the night before. (Diana actually did a little doctoring – reassuring the worried dad that her son’s illness was probably just a virus . . .) Simone commented that Italy has free health care but he said the system is terrible. Can take 4-6 hours to see a doctor in a situation like this. (I’m not sure it is actually much different in the States – but that’s a different topic . . .) 

We also asked Simone about the campground – and accompanying farm. He told us he started working the farm about seven years ago, but it took him three years to obtain the government permits for the campground. So he’s only been running that for a short time. 

Simone was a very positive young man – but he clearly has a little frustration with his homeland . . . Too difficult to get anything done . . .

This might dovetail with another thought I’ve been having about Italy: It’s like riding through a museum. Florence and Pisa, obviously, with their super-old buildings and monuments. But even in the rural areas there are super old houses and structures everywhere. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the country of Rome . . . Pretty cool – but I’m also guessing it’s pretty difficult to change anything, because you don’t want to wreck some ancient aqueduct in the process . . .

Two other notable people we met in the last day . . .

Patrick. He’s German, but lives in Gibraltar – mostly, I think, for tax purposes. We met Patrick at the ferry terminal yesterday. He runs a company that gives dirt bike/motorcycle tours in remote areas around the globe. He was heading to Bosnia to scout a new tour when we saw him. Pretty interesting. He was driving a vehicle that looks like it should be playing a big role in the war in Ukraine. Huge black tank-like beast of a truck. Six wheels – also huge. Patrick explained that it can go anywhere – so it’s great for his business. 

He showed us inside. A little nicer than our tent. Hell, it’s a little nicer than our real house back in Minnesota. Stove and refrigerator. Big king bed with a television. Air conditioning. Nice bathroom with a shower. It probably has a built-in bazooka as well – but Patrick didn’t show us that . . .

Most of his clients are German, and he used to live in Germany – but he told us that the government hassled him for every little receipt and document and it drove him nuts. He explained that, for instance, he used to run tours in Mongolia – and the German government wanted receipts for every meal he had there. My guess is that it’s a combination of bureaucracy and just plain old tax avoidance; I doubt Gibraltar even has an income tax at all . . .

Tony. He stopped us as we biked by today – asking us where we were headed. First off, I think he might be the first person in Europe to ask us about our trip. Tommy himself was a fun guy. He lived in New Jersey for a number of years. I think he was working as a waiter at a fancy restaurant that Diana had actually heard of: Smith & Wollensky in Manhattan. (Diana says it’s a $200/plate restaurant . . .) I think he said his cousin recruited him to work there. Seems to take great joy in life. Good guy.

Well, the second half of the day was amazing. Once we ate and drank enough we saw Croatia for the amazing place that it is. Diana found us a great campground, right on the Adriatic,

we went for a swim, we ate at a good seaside restaurant – fresh fish caught by the owner, accompanied by actual real vegetables, and we finished the day with a little gelato. 

My only real confusion on Croatia is how nice everything is. The houses, the buildings, the roads, the restaurants, the grocery stores, the campgrounds . . . No evidence that the country was war-torn in the early-90s, or that Croatia was under Communist rule for 45 years before that . . . 

It probably helps to have all this natural beauty – and hundreds of miles of coastline on the Adriatic – but someone should study the Croatians. They sure seem to know something about how to succeed . . .

Tomorrow is another day in Croatia – but hopefully with adequate food and water right from the start . . .

Loving it here. 

And then the next day we pass through Dubrovnik, before heading into Montanegro and the more down-trodden Balkan states. It will be interesting to see all that. 

Send us your thoughts or suggestions.