Day 16 - Dubrovnik to Mostar

Tuesday, October 20 -- Day 16 -- A Tale of Two Cities or A City of Two Tales

C decided to make up for the lack of photos yesterday!

Dubrovnik Franciscon Monastery courtyard from the wall

Dubrovnik Stradun (main drag) - a rare view with few tourists

Our apartment from wall (the top-most three dormer windows on the house with the orange roof. All the bright orange roofs are new -- repaired since the war in the early 1990's)

I'm on wall that is high above and circles the old town of Dubrovnik - lots of steps up

The drive to Mostar - C thinks I made a mistake and we are going to Sarajevo

This was one of those days Charlie and I seemed to be on two different trips.

My story: We had gone to bed last night agreeing that we wouldn’t decide what to do today until we saw how he felt and what kind of night he’d had. We woke up and he felt crappy and had been up a lot. His cough was worse. That meant we would stay on in Dubrovnik for another day or two until he felt better. But no, he didn’t want to stay. He wanted to forge ahead to Mostar.

It was not raining. We got in our long delayed walk around the walls of the Old Town before picking up the rental car. I really felt now I could leave and say I’d seen it.

Made a couple of wrong turns heading out of town, but nothing major. Stopped at the biggest supermarket we’d seen since San Diego and got lots of juice boxes for the patient. Confirmed that we were on the right road to Mostar and crossed into Bosnia-Herzegovina without event. (In fact, when the border guard saw US passports, he didn’t even open them to match our pictures to our faces.) We start to climb rugged mountains with spectacular views of the coast below.

One gets a sense that B-H is very different that Croatia, though the only part of Croatia we’ve seen so far is relatively wealthy and developed thanks to tourism. But the towns here are poor, and everything looks like it’s in a state of decay. Shells of stone buildings may have been rotting for centuries or only since the 1991 war. I couldn’t tell. The mountains get a little more wooded, the fall colors are showier, and now they’re covered in snow. It’s misty, but not really raining, and the snow isn’t melting. The cattle seem one rung lower on the evolutionary chain. They’re a little wilder looking than our domesticated cows. And they roam freely. We nearly hit one when we came around a curve and there he was in the road. And the Cyrillic alphabet freaks me out. I’m trying to read a map with Roman lettering, and the few road signs we find are written in another alphabet!

By the time we arrive in Mostar, I’m pretty proud that we found it. I’ve enjoyed the scenery and my first impression of the country is “Wow! I’m so glad to see this and so glad to live in America!”

Charlie’s story: Bad night. I feel awful. Get me out of this place. She wants to walk the damn walls.
We get the car. It’s a piece of junk. Banged up, sticky gears, and after being on the road awhile I find it gets lousy mileage. She can’t navigate; we’ve never made so many wrong turns, and I’m never sure it’s the right way even when it is. The road is mountainous and wet. I think I have a fever. I know I have a headache. She wants to take pictures and there’s no place to pull off. I need to pee so badly I have to go on the side of the road. I get my shoes wet. She thinks it’s funny. When we do get down this mountain, I want a decent hotel so I can take a nap and maybe stay in tomorrow.

Charlie’s story in his own words: I might have had a headache but I wasn’t delirious. I counted at least 5 instances where we made a wrong turn and in one case drove for many kilometers before deciding we were going in the wrong direction. These mistakes resulted in making dangerous U-turns on roads with no shoulders. So much for the great navigator. Next time I’m taking a GPS.

Their story: We stop at a apoteka (think we’ll know the word for pharmacy in every language before we’re done) and get cough syrup and Tylenol. We find a great B and B on our first try. It even has wi-fi. Charlie sleeps for an hour but doesn’t feel any better. We go out just to grab a bite and luck out at a little cafe that only serves one thing, zeljanica, which is a flakey pastry filled with meat or cheese and they were fabulous. We were in the Muslim quarter over the Stari Most which is the Old Bridge, the symbol of the city.

Home for medicine and (I hope) sleep. Tomorrow I will go sightseeing. We’ll see how Charlie feels.

P.S. Do you think he means a GPS instead of me?

11,429 steps