Soul Fishing©: Dubrovnik - Hvar, How on Earth... ??

7/24/2013

Dubrovnik - Hvar, How on Earth... ??

Have you ever stopped an entire ferry from sailing from the port? My friend and I have and this is a story that I will be telling my grandchildren: It all began when we were driving from Dubrovnik to Drvenik, thinking, yep we're definitely not going to catch the 7 pm ferry (it was exactly 6.58 pm when I had said this to my friend) and lo behold! We reach the ferry that is about to sail out at exactly 7 pm, there was even a bus that was about to drive onto the ferry as the last of the vehicles and we had driven in front of it (we were highly motivated to get on the ferry).

The only problem was that we had had no tickets because we had driven directly to the ferry, otherwise it would have sailed out without us. The ticket collector asked us whether we had the tickets. We said no, having the decency to blush slightly. He sighted. We were quiet. Really quiet. He said the ferry was to leave at exactly 7 pm. We sheepishly nodded as said we knew. Then, something amazing happened. ''There's the ticket counter, buy the tickets, we will wait for you.'' My friend stepped on it like there was no tomorrow, I ran out of the car and bought the tickets while the guy in the ticket booth totally ignored my pleas to hurry up and 3 minutes later we were on the ferry that sailed out with a three minute delay because of us. If this were Germany or heaven forbid Scandinavia, we would have been left stranded in that port because their punctuality is cherished above all else. Only in the Balkans. I love it!!!

The ticket collector said that they would otherwise have never done this for anybody and I said I love him. And in that moment I really really loved him.

35 minutes later, we were in Sučuraj, a small town on the very edge of the Hvar island, phoning our landlady. We optimistically thought that we were going to be in the city of Hvar in about an hour since it was only 70 km away. But no, due to the state of the roads, it took us more than 2 hours, with a nice British voice from the GPS saying we should turn left, when we should have turned right. What do the Brits know about Croatia anyway?

After meeting our landlady, we made dinner and just crashed. The next day, our adventure began.