An island, some sun and a scooter

• Mike81's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Korcula

Trip Start Jun 08, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Dec 08, 2008 Next
Entry

  Korcula, Croatia
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

We took the bus over to the island of Korcula. The bus ride was pretty uneventful other then the fact that it was long as hell. A three hour bus ride with a 30 minute ferry and we had arrived on the island. We were told before we left not to book accomodations that people will meet you at the bus stop and offer their rooms direcly. We arrived and jumped off the bus, I told Tamara to score some rooms and Anthony and I would go get the luggage. Well we didn't even have a chance to breath let alone get the bags. 10-20 people screaming at you wanting nothing else but for you to stay at their house. I knew we had the bargining power at this point and cheap was the only thing on my mind. I immedialy was drawn to this really nice woman named Marija. She spoke little English but as soon as she got my attention she ran over and grabbed her son to see what we could do. That is where I met Dragan. We talked for a while and we came to the price of 120 Kuna per person per night. That is about 20 Canadian each. We thought we scored so we jumped on the chance to take his place. Big beds, but kitchen, nice patios and a pool. We were all so excited and felt that we scored the perfect place. We asked Dragan where we could get some wine and the first thing he did was run down stairs and grab us two bottles. We had a drink and headed into town for a bite to eat. A little Lobster Risotto, a few more glasses of wine and a nice chat with some fellow canadians and we called it a night. We were all a little drunk so it made for a very "fun" walk home. The next day was the day I had my mother in worry mode.

We got up and decided that it would be a great day to rent scooters and tour the island. It was warm and we heard of some great beaches on the other side of island. We walked the town and found that the prices were too much and decided that we were not going to rent them. We spendt the rest of the afternoon just chilling out, walking the town, eating ice cream and looking at the most beautiful clear water one could imagine. Korcula Town is a nice little old town, similar to Dubrovnick but smaller and less people. I bought some sunny glasses and the day was turning out to be a very nice one.

We got back to the house we all wanted to go for a walk down to a little beach that Dragan told us about. When we got there we checked out the prices of scooters that the hotel was renting. After about 15 minutes of talking the woman down to a normal price we had finally found the deal that we wanted at the beginning of the day. I just didn't know I was going to pay for it later. We got our small amount of instuctions on how to ride the thing and we were off. I wasn't on the freaking bike for more then about 1 minute, hit the gas and headed down the street. When the road started to curve, I noticed really quickly that the bike didn't want to curve with it. I paniced, slammed on the breaks but it was way too late for that. I nailed the curb going WAY TOO fast flew over the top of the handle bars. Lucky for me Anthony and Tamara were right behind me and saw the entire accident. I got up right away, nothing hurt just yet but I was in a little bit of shock. I started to freak about about the damage on the bike not really even noticing that I was scratched to shit. I was bleeding from my legs, my knees were torn apart, I had road rash on my right leg from the knee right to the waist. I had a huge scrape on my shoulder and my elbow. I had severe road rash on my right arm from my wrist to my elbow, and I had dirt and gravel inbeaded into my hand. I was in rough shape but still didn't understand the extend of my injuries. I was more concerned about the bike. Anthony jumped back on his scooter and headed the one minute back to tell the guy what had happened. Ant also called Dragan to tell him and ask if he could come down to give us a hand. Everyone showed up and then it got tricky. Everyone felt bad for me but they were more concerned about the bike.

Croatian laws are tricky, if we called the police I would have to give a report which in turn means that the scooter company could sue me for the damage, I would have to pay court costs, I wouldn't be able to leave Croatia, and I would most liekly have to to pay for the clean up of the road. After Dragan did some negotiating we came to the conclusion that we would leave the police out of it and I would just pay for the damage on the bike. There was one little problem, I had to go to the hospial to get my injuries checked out. Since it was a traffic accident, the hospital wouldn't treat me without a police report. Since we weren't calling the police I was screwed. All of the Croatian guys that were there started to get call in their favors. They snuck me into the hospital, cleaned me up and didn't even look at any of my documentation. It was doggy for sure. The nurse was not a happy lady and was not impressed with me. I could tell when she was jabbing gause into my leg and making me winse like a little girl. She could care less.

I headed back home and layed in pain for the rest of the evening. Not one of my finest moments but I knew I was going to pay for it, for the rest of my stay in Croatia because these wounds were not going to heal fast.

The next day was SALT WATER DAY. Most people would think beach, I was thinking wound cleaning. I knew that it was going to sting like hell but I knew to keep them clean I would have to take a few dips in the water. I headed out there by myself because if I wanted to cry I didn't need to have the others watching me. It stung like a bitch, I can't explain the pain that I was going through. I just stood there waiting for it to go away but it never did. The salt was eating away at any crap that was left in there.

I layed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon and tired to get them nice and dry. I was successfull. They were looking really good and the pain was starting to relax a little. It was a nice day, worked on the tan, took some pictures of my bloody war injuries and called it the first day at the beach in Croatia.

The next morning I woke up tired mainly because I couldn't sleep I kept rolling over onto my bad side and the pain woke me up about every hour on the hour. We took it really easy on our last day in Korcula, it had clouded over so it was a good day to sit back, play some cards and just chill out. Took a small walk into town just to pick up bandages and pain killers. Our next stop on our Croatian tour was the Island of Hvar, a one hour ferry ride. I was thinking about trying the scooters there, WHAT DO YOU THINK?????..............

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry