Korcula, Croatia
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
10
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Korcula,
Croatia
Sunday, October 30, 2005
We arrived at the island, a place that our guidebook had said that after seeing, one would regret not staying. As we debarked the ferry walked into town I began to wonder what was so regrettable. A slender man in his later sixties walking his bike by us said, "you are tourists looking for a place to stay? I was too, thirty years ago. Come, I'll show you a cheap place that me friends own. She is an old lady and has rooms to rent. Come."
We walked with him down the street and entered a dark room that was used to process olives. "Come, it is just through here. Look here is the light," he said flicking the switch on and off several times.
We walked through the olive cellar and entered a court yard. Ivan, our guide, yelled something in Croatian and a woman came out to see what was going on. We settled on a good price for a double room for Erin and me, and a single for Josh. Both rooms had views of the harbor. Ivan stayed in our company for a little while talking about books, Basque people, his time in the navy and his opinion that I looked like Andy Garcia. Yes, he was peculiar, but he was very nice. He showed us where we could get some good, inexpensive, food and wrote down what we should order.
We thanked our new Montenegrin born, Swede sailor friend who lives on the island 6 months of the year, and left to walk around the town center. He had pointed not far down the street and said that once you make it there, there is nothing more to see. At the time, it seemed like a queer remark, but by the time that we had walked it, we could see that there really wasn't much to the town. There was no true town center, just one main street, a gas station on one end and a few restaurant on the other. The harbor side was nice, but certainly more a place of business than beauty. The streets were asphalt and the stairs and walks between the buildings were concrete or stone. We climbed a hill so that we could view the town and watch the sunset behind the small steep mountain islands in this section of the archipelago.
In muted, almost dim colors, the sun faded away. We followed its setting path downward to the port and saw that another ferry had landed. Many people debarked and went directly to a waiting bus parked near by. It was then, as the sun set, that it dawned on us: we were probably not in the regrettable Korcula town. The ferry had landed at the islands port town Vela Luka, though it had picked us up in Hvar center. I guess that sometimes you so have to think. We considered making a dash down the hill, grabbing our luggage and trying for the bus, but our sense of fate kept us where we were. I was envisioning another swim in the sea, but it was not going to happen in Vela Luka. As we walked down I wondered if we had just missed the last Summer wave.
On the boardwalk back to our pension we ran into Ivan. He had changed into a jogging warm up suit and a wool sailors cap staring out over the water, into the sky. He said that he was watching the weather, then asked if everything was alright. We told him that we were heading to Dubrovnik the next day and he walked us to the bus schedule to make sure that we knew when it left: 5:15AM. Then he walked us to a grocery store pointing out good juices, waters and yogurts that we could take for snacks. After showing Erin some good crackers he said, "OK, now I must go," and walked out the door.
That night we ate the "mixed grill," cucumber and tomato salad, French fries and drank white whine mixed with mineral water. In Croatia it is customary to cut the wine with either flat or sparkling water. It both makes the wine taste better and produces less of a hangover.
Returning to the pension, Josh and I knocked on the family's door so that we could pay than rather than the morning. The woman, in her seventies, had large strong hands and a firm hand shake. Her palms and fingers were calloused. Her nails and fingerprints were stained with olive juices. Her husband was home from work, still wearing his standard issue working man's jumpsuit. Mechanics, to carpenters, to street sweepers all seem to wear the same outfit.
They were just finishing dinner in their modest room which served as the kitchen, living and dining area. She was washing dishes and he was sitting on the couch watching soccer. With a big smile, she invited us in to sit with them. She spoke very little English, and he spoke none. But, as usual, with charades and a soccer game we had a fun conversation with laughs. Standing on the table was a reused water bottle a third full with what looked like olive oil. She poured each of us a glass of the bronze liquid and I was relieved to see that it mixed with the water with which she topped off the glass. Until she pointed at the sky with all ten fingers extended saying "rain good," and pointing to the pitcher. Then, pointing to the faucet, saying, "bad." But, the homemade wine mixed with rain water wasn't bad and we sat for a while. We watched the game and had broken conversation. Randomly, her husband would remove his dentures and hum some operatic lines.
We woke at 4:40 the next morning to catch the bus and ferry to Dubrovnik. Ten till the hour, Ivan, fully dressed in his jump suit stuck his head around the corner and said "you better get going, you're going to miss the bus." I don't know where he came from, but we made the bus.
