Travel Memories:
Biking Pit-Stop for Mulberry Foraging

Spotting a huge mulberry tree on the side of the road after hours (ok, barely two hours really) of biking uphill read like salvation – like a thirsty man in the desert spotting a mirage this seemed too good to be true. It was hot, I was sick and forced to pull over frequently during the bike ride and the last steep hike to the top of the Bribirska Glavica archeological ruins outside of Krka National Park in Croatia were just no longer worth …

The whirring sounds and motion of the overnight train to Bosnia did little to cover the noise of constant intrusions into my train compartment; I was doing a late night border crossing into Bosnia from Croatia and the customs officers have absolutely no mercy. The officer who came through the train on the Croatia side to check my passports and issue an exit stamp was as unsmiling and humorless as so many of the other Croats I’ve met. I hate to make a generalization about the Croats, but while …

Plitvice Lakes National Park  is one of those places that absolutely and totally lives up to it’s hype – it is stunning. Just. stunning.
The Croatia Lonely Planet has a picture of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Plitvice Lakes National Park as one of the main images and reasons to go to Croatia – and the picture was spectacular enough for me to add this country and national park onto my RTW route.
The bus from Krka dropped us off in the middle of dense and verdant forest – what a …

Umm…can we pull over for a sec? I have to go to the bathroom…
That auspicious start to a 20 kilometer round trip bike ride then turned into a little personal torment by the presence of my old friend from the developing world, travelers’ diarrhea. We visited Krka, Croatia yesterday and noticed that the only other thing you can possibly do to pass time in Skradin is biking out to, Bribirska Glavica, a site with really old archeological ruins that sits up on a 300 meter high plateau. That sounded …

I woke up to a spectacularly sunny day with huge puffy white clouds in the sky- it looked  like it was going to be perfect weather for a hike through the Krka National Park. I am one of those freaky earlier risers lately–my internal clock is set to 7:00am precisely (it was set to 5:30 in Nepal which pissed Helen off to no end…but we didn’t have any window curtains, so what could I do?). Anyway, while Helen and Jenn continued sleeping I decided to get …

My lucky weather streak didn’t hold and our travel day from Milna started a bit ominously, I woke up to the sounds of thunder in the distance and a quick look outside the cottage window showed a sky pregnant with dark clouds and rain –it didn’t bode well for making it across the country and to a new Croatian town.
But, rain wasn’t about to stop us so it we spent the morning closing up the cottage, putting away the dishes, locking closed the windows and repacking our packs. I …

Sorry to disappoint with no new hair picture….none of them are very good – I just dyed it though so once the color dulls down I will post one…maybe tomorrow.    ;)
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I have to admit, Milna is a bit different than I first imagined. The town is tiny, but it is actually a bit of a tourist hub for a part of the day.

Small cruise ships pull up into the harbor around late morning and about 40 or so older tourist come crawling off of the ship like ants …

Eight months on this rtw trip has taken a toll on me. Not just mentally, because there is certainly some of that, but physically too. Helen and I indulged vanity in India with the purchase of a small bottle of nail polish. And with more than six days in our little cottage first up on the list was some serious help for my feet. I will spare the gritty details about my feet, but let’s just say that they were not looking too pretty. Every time I unleashed …