My 2006 Ducati Sport 1000
posted by John Goff @ 11:08 AM
1 comments
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
It's been too long
Indeed it has. Ok, so I'm not out traveling the world these days but I am enjoying Austin. I've been here for over 8 years now so I guess I can call it my new hometown. I'm trying to light a fire under my ass to get do some art/photo projects which I'll be posting on here at some point. Some may be old work revisited, some may be new. I'll also be posting pictures of my new passion, my Ducati Sport 1000.
posted by John Goff @ 9:19 PM
0 comments
Saturday, August 12, 2006
The Whirling Dervishes spin for long periods of time as they meditate, it's truly amazing!
posted by John Goff @ 5:08 PM
0 comments
Whirling Dervishes. These monks spin for about 20 minutes at a time - Istanbul
posted by John Goff @ 5:06 PM
1 comments
Country Life - Veg grocery store and the only vegan restaurant in Prague
posted by John Goff @ 4:21 PM
0 comments
Church of St. Barbara - Kutna Hora
Overlooking St. James Cathedral - Kutna Hora
Tea
posted by John Goff @ 4:16 PM
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Ressurection
Ok, I know it's been a while. I'm going to be reviving this blog. Stay tuned for pictures from my last trip to Prague and Istanbul.
posted by John Goff @ 8:47 AM
0 comments
Friday, November 19, 2004
Back from Egypt
So there are just too many stories to tell about my Egypt trip. I'll try to post something in the next day or two but I have to get ready to head back to the States. I leave Prague on Monday so I have to scramble. I'm already thinking about my next big trip as I'm really not ready to get back to normal life. Anyway, I've posted just a handfull of the many photos I took while in Egypt. Check 'em out below and I'll be posting more in the days to come.
posted by John Goff @ 4:02 AM
9 comments
Praying at noon on the last Friday of Ramadan, Midan Tahrir - Cairo
posted by John Goff @ 3:56 AM
0 comments
Felucca ride on the Nile(Tombs of the Nobels in the background), Aswan
posted by John Goff @ 3:53 AM
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The 200 year old tea house, El Fishaway in Kahn el-Khalili - Cairo
posted by John Goff @ 3:42 AM
0 comments
Monday, September 27, 2004
Last part - Croatia roadtrip
Where was I? Oh yeah, so after walking around Jajice, we got in the car and headed back to Croatia but first, I wanted to stop in the little town we were in the other day that was in the Srpska region of Bosnia and spend some of my Bosnian money at the bootleg CD shop. Actually, we saw lots of merchants on the side of the road selling bootleg stuff and we just had to stop and check it out. These guys had everything from porn to Passion of the Christ on DVD. I decided to save my money and go back to the CD shop because they had the Ozone CD which I just had to get. When we got back to Mrkonjic Grad in Srpska, we were again greeted with odd looks, and shortly after we parked the car and started down the street, a cop approached us and asked us for our passports. After looking at them with a curious eye for a minute, he gave them back to us and said "OK". We stood out like, well… big time. I later found out that there was some pretty bad stuff going on at Mrkonjic Grad during the war about 9 years ago and the Serbs claim that there was a big massacre. Apparently the town was hit hard and a lot of civilians lost their lives there. It looked it, the town was run down big time. Anyway, we went back to the CD shop and I picked up some computer software and the Ozone CD. On our way out of town I was a bit disappointed that the CD didn't sound so good, but what can one expect for $2? We took a little different route as we left the country because our next stop would be Plitvicka National Park in Croatia which was a bit north inland. As we crossed over the border I noticed a big poster with a bunch of mug shots of what appeared to be war criminals who were wanted, most of them wearing their military uniforms. Steven and I took note but we didn't recognize any of them. A stamp later and we were in Croatia again. We made it to Plitvicka with plenty of daylight left so we decided to check out the park then continue on to Zagreb. Now we were pretty impressed with Krka National Park, but Plvicka blew everything else away. This place was a Garden of Eden if I ever saw one. There were miles of waterfalls and crystal clear water. In some areas the water was quite deep and you could always see the bottom as well as all the fish, which there were so many of. It took us over 2 hours to walk through the park and we didn't even see everything. The tallest waterfall in Croatia is here at 80 meters, and there were plenty of caves as well. I would have to say that this was the highlight of the trip. The coast was great but nothing really compared to what we saw at Plitvicka National Park. We finished up as the park was closing and started our way up to Zagreb. Steven friend Iva lives there and the plan was to contact her once we got there so we would have a place to stay. When we got into town, we found free place to park and met up with Iva who was very kind to let us crash at her place. The next day we met Iva's boyfriend Dura and he showed us around Zagreb. We ate at a macrobiotic restaurant called Biovega, then walked around the city some more. We were going to leave Zagreb that day but we still had some time before the car needed to be back so we decided to stay another night. The next day we headed for Slovenia. We had stopped in Bled on the way down but this time we were going to stay in the capital city of Ljubljana. I hadn't been to Ljubljana before but had heard good things about it. It was a short drive from Zagreb so we got there with plenty of time to walk around before finding a place to sleep. It was Sunday so things were pretty slow, but Ljubljana turned out to be a very nice place. It's kind of like a smaller and cleaner Prague. As it turned out we went on a wild goose chase trying to find cheap accommodation. The Hostel we ended up at was all booked up except for one bed and there were 2 of us so that wasn't going to work. We ended up heading to the local campground where we only had to pay 8 euros to set up our tent. It was a bit chilly at this point, but I slept quite well while Steven was up all night being either too hot or too cold. The next day we headed to a local vegetarian restaurant called Vegedom. I wasn't too impressed with it though. After walking into town and checking out the Castle and some other attractions, we headed back to the car. We only had the car for a few more days and at this point we were pretty traveled out. We had considered going to Italy before heading back to Prague but felt that we had spent enough money and Italy would be quite expensive so we made our way back to Prague. We didn't leave Ljubljana until 6pm and we drove through the night making it back to Prague at around 1am. That was the trip. We had a great time and got to see lots of stuff, and at a bargain basement price. I think I might have spent $500 total on the whole trip which is really good when you consider that we were gone for 2 weeks and got to see as much as we did. So life back in Prague has been well, cold. The weather has been pretty terrible and to make things worse, our furnace is busted so we have no hot water or heat in the flat and it doesn't look like we'll get it until this Friday. Our landlord isn't too happy since she had to recently get us a new refrigerator, toilette, and fix our washing machine. Anyway, I'll try not to freeze to death before the next post.
posted by John Goff @ 7:50 AM
1 comments
Friday, September 24, 2004
Serbia Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia Hercegovina
So from Dubrovnik to Serbia Montenegro we went. A lot of things changed moving from Croatia to Serbia, but the landscape stayed pretty much the same. The coast was just as beautiful. As we headed towards Budva, we drove through several towns on the coast. We skipped the ferry ride across the bay known as Boka Kotorska and took the long route, going through the town of Kotor on the way. We stopped to check out the fortress and castle that climbed up the mountain it was on. Within the city walls were many shops, most of which were closed. It was here that I took my chances on an ATM and got 20 euros which surprised me because I didn't realize that Serbia had no currency of it's own. On the way back to the car I was tempted by a guy selling bootleg CDs and DVDs but held back.
After driving for a couple of hours, we made it to Budva. I would later find out that taking the ferry would have saved us most of that time but that's ok because we wanted to see as much as possible while we were in Serbia. Now I had heard good things about Budva but I had also heard good things about another place just 20 minutes to the south called Sveti Stefan(St. Stephen). Sveti Stefan is a town that has a tiny island that was built up hundreds of years ago. Over the years it became a tourist hotspot and today is where the rich go to relax on the beach and gamble their troubles away. The island is only accessible by foot, so after driving through the town we spotted a place where we could get a room for just 6 euros/each. Everything seemed nice and the guy running the place was 90 years old, an interesting character who didn't speak a word of English. It's a good thing that Serb and Czech share many words. The guy even gave us some grapes picked from his garden, yummy. Once we got settled in, we took a stroll down to the beach and walked across the small bridge to the island. The island is surrounded by walls and it even costs money to get in. This was bad news because I had already spent most of my 20 euros that I had just pulled out of the ATM. The guy taking the money told us it was 6 euros to get in. I laughed and told him that's how much my room cost for the night. There was no bargaining here so we moved on and enjoyed the island from outside it's walls. The beaches here were quite nice and there were many trails and interesting spots along the water here. After seeing everything we could in this small town, we headed in for the night. The next day we jumped in the car and headed back to Croatia, this time saving the time and taking the ferry across the bay. As we pulled in to buy a ticket, there were many kids who quickly cleaned our windshield against our wishes. Afterwards I felt that the windshield really did need to be cleaned and gave the kid .30 euros which he gladly took. The ferry cost us 3 euros and lasted about 15 minutes, we were at the Croatian border in another 15 minutes, this time with no pushy border cops. Our next plan was to make it back up to Split, and catch a boat over to the Island of Vis. Vis is a tiny island that is furthest inhabited isle from the mainland. We were interested in Vis because of another small island just west of it called Bisevo. There is a cave on Bisevo that you can swim in and we thought it would be cool to check that out, so after driving most of the day we arrived in Split with a few hours of daylight left which we needed in order to find a free parking spot for the car. Once that was taken care of, we walked down to the dock and bought a ticket to Vis. The boat ride took about 2 hours but we made it to Vis before midnight. Because of the ferry schedules, we would need to stay on Vis for 2 nights in order to do everything we wanted to do there. We found a room for about 10 euros each per night. The next morning we got up early caught the 7am bus to the other side of the island which is where we could catch a boat to Bisevo. Unfortunately, the wind was strong this day, and nobody was going to Bisevo because the cave was being pounded by the waves. The town on the other side of Vis was small, I don't even remember the name of it now, but we saw everything there was to see within an hour and decided to catch the bus back to the main town of Vis. The only problem was that the bus wasn't leaving until later in the afternoon. It was a 10k walk which wasn't so bad, but there was a steep mountain to climb along the way, and the heat of the day was upon us. We decided to start walking and just hitch along the way. We were picked up just as we began by a nice local couple. We were back in Vis in no time and had the rest of the day to walk around the town and check things out. We were tired and took a nap on the beach, and after dinner headed in for the night. We caught 12:30 ferry back to Split the next day just as a Croatian naval gunboat had pulled into the dock. Once back to Split, we said goodbye to the coast and headed up to the National Park known as Krka.
Krka is one of two national parks in Croatia that contain magnificent waterfalls. The southern half of the park is open to tourists, but it just so happened that about 10 years ago during the war, the front line ran right through the northern half of the park. So there are landmines scattered all over the place up there. We noticed on the map that they gave us there were many waterfalls and historical ruins in the northern half but we were told that this part of the park was not accessible, yet we noticed that roads ran right through this area, so we knew that we could at least see the area from our car. Well that would be later, for now we were at National Pak Krka and we were checking out the info. By the time we had arrived at the park, there was little daylight left, so we decided to wait to go in until tomorrow. We drove around and found a room at a zimmer and bargained with the owner for 6 euros each, not a bad price considering it was one of the nicer places we had stayed on our trip. We had a little daylight left so we headed back towards the coast to check out the city of Sibenik, which looked pretty big from the map. I turned out to be a very interesting place. Like most of the towns we had visited on the coast, Sibenik had an old town section that was only accessible by foot. There were very few tourists there and the old town was preserved but a little run down at the same time. This gave it a character that we had not really seen yet on the trip. We roamed through the streets of the old town for about 2 hours but could have continued much longer. As it got late, we headed back to our room which was about 30km away. When we got back there was a German couple who had rented another room from the same people and we stayed up chatting with them as we ate dinner. The next morning we got up and went to the park which was a quite a site. We had to take a bus into the park as no cars are allowed. The waterfalls were amazing. We spent several hours walking around the trails and bridges through the park. There was a swimming area as well but we hadn't brought our swim trunks, plus it was a bit cold. The water was crystal clear and there was an old settlement with a mill and some other buildings that we walked through. We didn't want to spend to much time down at the main part of the park because we wanted to head up north to where the landmines were so once we hit the road, we started checking the map to see where the best spot might be to see more waterfalls and possibly go swimming. The further north we drove, the closer we got to the border with Bosnia, and the more bombed out buildings we saw. We started seeing signs posted that indicated landmines were around, but the scenery was quite nice. We ventured down one area where a waterfall was flowing into a big lake which was several hundred feet below the road. The area was desolate, and there were hardly any cars on the road. We passed one car that was parked on the side of the road and as I looked in my rearview mirror, I noticed that it had US plates on it so I stopped and backed up. The car turned out to be from Georgia and there was a couple inside having lunch or something. The couple was from Croatia but they were now living in the States. I still couldn't figure out why they brought their car over from the US but after a quick chat, we were on our way again. We turned down this one road that was just big enough for the car and there were good views of the lake below. We stopped to try and figure out how we might be able to get down to the lake but there was no way down. At this point, I really needed to relieve myself and since there was absolutely nobody else around, I found a nice spot to do my business. We drove down the road a bit more and saw more signs for landmines, then came to an area with a gate that was open, and beyond were what appeared to be construction workers working. Maybe these guys were removing landmines I thought. As we approached, one of the guys stood in front of our car and I motioned to him that I wanted to pass through. There was a white sign with a red circle around it on the road in front of us. I wasn't completely sure what it meant but I gathered that it meant to stay out. The worker guy started shaking his head and motioning us to turn around, then he came up and started yelling at us. He said "do you know what that sign means?". Steven's response was no. Then he went into a fit and started asking us where we were from. Steven said he was from the States and the guy became even more agitated. The whole episode was funny and the dialogue lasted several minutes. He then told us to stay there, and he started walking away. We said "sure", but we weren't going to stick around to find out what he was going to do. I kind of wanted to stick around but we took off in a hurry which was probably for the best. Less than an hour later were at the Croatia-Bosnia Hercegovina border. We breezed through the border with no hassle which was a surprise to me.
The scenery in Bosnia was very nice, the roads were terrible. As we drove through the mountains there were sections of road that were just missing completely where they had collapsed down the mountain. As we went through towns and villages, we noticed that there were plenty of cops. In fact, they were everywhere. I couldn't believe how many cops there were, more than we had seen anywhere else in Europe. Many of them were driving cars that were very old and run down. I was a bit nervous with all the cops around. At one point a cop followed us out of a town that we had driven through but didn't stop us. As we drove through populated areas, we noticed many mosques along the way. Some towns had only mosques, no churches. We drove into one town and noticed a cop car on the side of the road. As we approached, one of the cops signaled us to pull over. I gave the guy my international drivers license and insurance papers. He spoke broken English and asked me to get out of the car. There was another cop in the car parked on the side of the road. They asked me to come over to their car and the other cop showed me a radar gun. They said I had been speeding, doing 75km/h in a 50km/h zone. The other cop was older, and he did a quick calculation and said that I owed them 23 euros. I looked over at Steven and asked him if we had the money, we didn't. After going back and forth with the cops for a bit on what was going down, I had the idea that these guys were scamming us. I mean, cops in Bosnia just ticketing people on the spot and getting money. You know that money being pocketed, or at least some of it is. I told the cops that we didn't have 23 euros, then asked if we could pay in Croatian kuna. They told us it would be 200 kuna. Now, the exchange rate for euros to kuna is about 7 kuna to 1 euro, and when you do the math, 200 kuna is more than 23 euros. Steven started questioning the cops about this, at which point they looked at each other with a smile and said they didn't understand us. I started acting like we didn't have the money, and started trying to run interference again asking about what other currencies that they would take. It got to a point where the cops were getting frustrated with us. I thought we might be in for trouble but was surprised to hear the guy tell us that it was a warning and that we were free to go. So we beat the speed trap and were on our way again. We were headed for the town of Jajice, which I had heard was nice but before we got there we entered the Republic of Srpska. Now, Srpska is the Serbian part of Bosnia. The attitude became quite different here. People seemed more aggressive and nobody had a smile on their face. We didn't notice any mosques in this area, and the alphabet changed into a Cyrillic that we couldn't read. We stopped in one town that was very run down and had many bombed out buildings. I wanted to exchange some money but the banks were closed. We got lots of strange looks in this town, and after a stroll down the main street, we decided it best to be on our way. We went into a CD shop there though that was all bootlegs. They even had computer software and everything was dirt cheap. When we finally made it to Jajice, we drove through town and could find only one hotel there so we went in to see how much it would be to stay, 33 euros for the both of us. We thought that was a bit much so we asked if there was anywhere else around. We got directions to another hotel in a small town just outside of Jajice. This place wasn't too bad at all, and it was only 23 euros for the both of us. In fact, this was the nicest place we had stayed on our trip. The hotel sat on a lake and I guess it was kind of a hotspot for people who like to go fishing and what not. The hotel was new. We could tell that it had just opened and we may have even been the first ones to stay in our room. The next day they served us breakfast which for us, only consisted of bread and jam, Bosnia isn't too vegan friendly yet. We headed back into Jajice in the morning and strolled around. Walked up to a castle that was on top of a hill in the middle of town, but it was very run down. There were no tourists here, and many of the buildings were in ruins. In the town center I was able to change money at a bank and get Bosnian marks, then we found the post office and got some post cards. After seeing what Jajice had to offer, we were ready to head out and make our way back to Croatia.
Done for now, I'll finish up in the next post.
After driving for a couple of hours, we made it to Budva. I would later find out that taking the ferry would have saved us most of that time but that's ok because we wanted to see as much as possible while we were in Serbia. Now I had heard good things about Budva but I had also heard good things about another place just 20 minutes to the south called Sveti Stefan(St. Stephen). Sveti Stefan is a town that has a tiny island that was built up hundreds of years ago. Over the years it became a tourist hotspot and today is where the rich go to relax on the beach and gamble their troubles away. The island is only accessible by foot, so after driving through the town we spotted a place where we could get a room for just 6 euros/each. Everything seemed nice and the guy running the place was 90 years old, an interesting character who didn't speak a word of English. It's a good thing that Serb and Czech share many words. The guy even gave us some grapes picked from his garden, yummy. Once we got settled in, we took a stroll down to the beach and walked across the small bridge to the island. The island is surrounded by walls and it even costs money to get in. This was bad news because I had already spent most of my 20 euros that I had just pulled out of the ATM. The guy taking the money told us it was 6 euros to get in. I laughed and told him that's how much my room cost for the night. There was no bargaining here so we moved on and enjoyed the island from outside it's walls. The beaches here were quite nice and there were many trails and interesting spots along the water here. After seeing everything we could in this small town, we headed in for the night. The next day we jumped in the car and headed back to Croatia, this time saving the time and taking the ferry across the bay. As we pulled in to buy a ticket, there were many kids who quickly cleaned our windshield against our wishes. Afterwards I felt that the windshield really did need to be cleaned and gave the kid .30 euros which he gladly took. The ferry cost us 3 euros and lasted about 15 minutes, we were at the Croatian border in another 15 minutes, this time with no pushy border cops. Our next plan was to make it back up to Split, and catch a boat over to the Island of Vis. Vis is a tiny island that is furthest inhabited isle from the mainland. We were interested in Vis because of another small island just west of it called Bisevo. There is a cave on Bisevo that you can swim in and we thought it would be cool to check that out, so after driving most of the day we arrived in Split with a few hours of daylight left which we needed in order to find a free parking spot for the car. Once that was taken care of, we walked down to the dock and bought a ticket to Vis. The boat ride took about 2 hours but we made it to Vis before midnight. Because of the ferry schedules, we would need to stay on Vis for 2 nights in order to do everything we wanted to do there. We found a room for about 10 euros each per night. The next morning we got up early caught the 7am bus to the other side of the island which is where we could catch a boat to Bisevo. Unfortunately, the wind was strong this day, and nobody was going to Bisevo because the cave was being pounded by the waves. The town on the other side of Vis was small, I don't even remember the name of it now, but we saw everything there was to see within an hour and decided to catch the bus back to the main town of Vis. The only problem was that the bus wasn't leaving until later in the afternoon. It was a 10k walk which wasn't so bad, but there was a steep mountain to climb along the way, and the heat of the day was upon us. We decided to start walking and just hitch along the way. We were picked up just as we began by a nice local couple. We were back in Vis in no time and had the rest of the day to walk around the town and check things out. We were tired and took a nap on the beach, and after dinner headed in for the night. We caught 12:30 ferry back to Split the next day just as a Croatian naval gunboat had pulled into the dock. Once back to Split, we said goodbye to the coast and headed up to the National Park known as Krka.
Krka is one of two national parks in Croatia that contain magnificent waterfalls. The southern half of the park is open to tourists, but it just so happened that about 10 years ago during the war, the front line ran right through the northern half of the park. So there are landmines scattered all over the place up there. We noticed on the map that they gave us there were many waterfalls and historical ruins in the northern half but we were told that this part of the park was not accessible, yet we noticed that roads ran right through this area, so we knew that we could at least see the area from our car. Well that would be later, for now we were at National Pak Krka and we were checking out the info. By the time we had arrived at the park, there was little daylight left, so we decided to wait to go in until tomorrow. We drove around and found a room at a zimmer and bargained with the owner for 6 euros each, not a bad price considering it was one of the nicer places we had stayed on our trip. We had a little daylight left so we headed back towards the coast to check out the city of Sibenik, which looked pretty big from the map. I turned out to be a very interesting place. Like most of the towns we had visited on the coast, Sibenik had an old town section that was only accessible by foot. There were very few tourists there and the old town was preserved but a little run down at the same time. This gave it a character that we had not really seen yet on the trip. We roamed through the streets of the old town for about 2 hours but could have continued much longer. As it got late, we headed back to our room which was about 30km away. When we got back there was a German couple who had rented another room from the same people and we stayed up chatting with them as we ate dinner. The next morning we got up and went to the park which was a quite a site. We had to take a bus into the park as no cars are allowed. The waterfalls were amazing. We spent several hours walking around the trails and bridges through the park. There was a swimming area as well but we hadn't brought our swim trunks, plus it was a bit cold. The water was crystal clear and there was an old settlement with a mill and some other buildings that we walked through. We didn't want to spend to much time down at the main part of the park because we wanted to head up north to where the landmines were so once we hit the road, we started checking the map to see where the best spot might be to see more waterfalls and possibly go swimming. The further north we drove, the closer we got to the border with Bosnia, and the more bombed out buildings we saw. We started seeing signs posted that indicated landmines were around, but the scenery was quite nice. We ventured down one area where a waterfall was flowing into a big lake which was several hundred feet below the road. The area was desolate, and there were hardly any cars on the road. We passed one car that was parked on the side of the road and as I looked in my rearview mirror, I noticed that it had US plates on it so I stopped and backed up. The car turned out to be from Georgia and there was a couple inside having lunch or something. The couple was from Croatia but they were now living in the States. I still couldn't figure out why they brought their car over from the US but after a quick chat, we were on our way again. We turned down this one road that was just big enough for the car and there were good views of the lake below. We stopped to try and figure out how we might be able to get down to the lake but there was no way down. At this point, I really needed to relieve myself and since there was absolutely nobody else around, I found a nice spot to do my business. We drove down the road a bit more and saw more signs for landmines, then came to an area with a gate that was open, and beyond were what appeared to be construction workers working. Maybe these guys were removing landmines I thought. As we approached, one of the guys stood in front of our car and I motioned to him that I wanted to pass through. There was a white sign with a red circle around it on the road in front of us. I wasn't completely sure what it meant but I gathered that it meant to stay out. The worker guy started shaking his head and motioning us to turn around, then he came up and started yelling at us. He said "do you know what that sign means?". Steven's response was no. Then he went into a fit and started asking us where we were from. Steven said he was from the States and the guy became even more agitated. The whole episode was funny and the dialogue lasted several minutes. He then told us to stay there, and he started walking away. We said "sure", but we weren't going to stick around to find out what he was going to do. I kind of wanted to stick around but we took off in a hurry which was probably for the best. Less than an hour later were at the Croatia-Bosnia Hercegovina border. We breezed through the border with no hassle which was a surprise to me.
The scenery in Bosnia was very nice, the roads were terrible. As we drove through the mountains there were sections of road that were just missing completely where they had collapsed down the mountain. As we went through towns and villages, we noticed that there were plenty of cops. In fact, they were everywhere. I couldn't believe how many cops there were, more than we had seen anywhere else in Europe. Many of them were driving cars that were very old and run down. I was a bit nervous with all the cops around. At one point a cop followed us out of a town that we had driven through but didn't stop us. As we drove through populated areas, we noticed many mosques along the way. Some towns had only mosques, no churches. We drove into one town and noticed a cop car on the side of the road. As we approached, one of the cops signaled us to pull over. I gave the guy my international drivers license and insurance papers. He spoke broken English and asked me to get out of the car. There was another cop in the car parked on the side of the road. They asked me to come over to their car and the other cop showed me a radar gun. They said I had been speeding, doing 75km/h in a 50km/h zone. The other cop was older, and he did a quick calculation and said that I owed them 23 euros. I looked over at Steven and asked him if we had the money, we didn't. After going back and forth with the cops for a bit on what was going down, I had the idea that these guys were scamming us. I mean, cops in Bosnia just ticketing people on the spot and getting money. You know that money being pocketed, or at least some of it is. I told the cops that we didn't have 23 euros, then asked if we could pay in Croatian kuna. They told us it would be 200 kuna. Now, the exchange rate for euros to kuna is about 7 kuna to 1 euro, and when you do the math, 200 kuna is more than 23 euros. Steven started questioning the cops about this, at which point they looked at each other with a smile and said they didn't understand us. I started acting like we didn't have the money, and started trying to run interference again asking about what other currencies that they would take. It got to a point where the cops were getting frustrated with us. I thought we might be in for trouble but was surprised to hear the guy tell us that it was a warning and that we were free to go. So we beat the speed trap and were on our way again. We were headed for the town of Jajice, which I had heard was nice but before we got there we entered the Republic of Srpska. Now, Srpska is the Serbian part of Bosnia. The attitude became quite different here. People seemed more aggressive and nobody had a smile on their face. We didn't notice any mosques in this area, and the alphabet changed into a Cyrillic that we couldn't read. We stopped in one town that was very run down and had many bombed out buildings. I wanted to exchange some money but the banks were closed. We got lots of strange looks in this town, and after a stroll down the main street, we decided it best to be on our way. We went into a CD shop there though that was all bootlegs. They even had computer software and everything was dirt cheap. When we finally made it to Jajice, we drove through town and could find only one hotel there so we went in to see how much it would be to stay, 33 euros for the both of us. We thought that was a bit much so we asked if there was anywhere else around. We got directions to another hotel in a small town just outside of Jajice. This place wasn't too bad at all, and it was only 23 euros for the both of us. In fact, this was the nicest place we had stayed on our trip. The hotel sat on a lake and I guess it was kind of a hotspot for people who like to go fishing and what not. The hotel was new. We could tell that it had just opened and we may have even been the first ones to stay in our room. The next day they served us breakfast which for us, only consisted of bread and jam, Bosnia isn't too vegan friendly yet. We headed back into Jajice in the morning and strolled around. Walked up to a castle that was on top of a hill in the middle of town, but it was very run down. There were no tourists here, and many of the buildings were in ruins. In the town center I was able to change money at a bank and get Bosnian marks, then we found the post office and got some post cards. After seeing what Jajice had to offer, we were ready to head out and make our way back to Croatia.
Done for now, I'll finish up in the next post.
posted by John Goff @ 8:44 AM
1 comments
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Croatia
So one of my flat mates and I decided to rent a car and take a trip down to Croatia. Now I've been to Croatia before, but only the Istra region on the northern coast and thought it was pretty cool. I had always heard great things about Dubrovnik which is way down on the southern coast near the border with Serbia Montenegro and have had the itch to go there ever since. We rented the car for 15 days so we figured that we'd have plenty of time to see everything that we wanted.
Steven and I started off on Sept. 8th. We picked up the car from the same guys that Shannon and I had rented from when we took our Scandinavian trip. At 400 Czech Crowns a day, these guys have the best deal on car rental, or autopujcovna as it's known here in Prague. That amounts to about $15/day. Now granted, it's an older Skoda Felicia that we get but there's little room for complaints at that price. This car had a decent stereo in it and seemed to handle ok. It's not the most comfortable ride but it gave us no problems at all, and considering we were driving through some pretty obscure territory, we're very lucky that it didn't break down.
We headed out of Prague the first day and intended to make it to Bled, Slovenia before dark. We ended up getting there a little late due to a diversion in Austria. I had hoped to find a spot near Bad Ischl in Austria to eat lunch. After driving through some of the best mountain scenery in Austria, we ended up in Bled just after sundown. Bled is probably the most picturesque town in Slovenia. It's nestled in the Julian Alps and lies on a lake that has a small island in the middle with a monastery on it. I had been to Bled a couple of years ago when I took my first trip to Croatia so I knew what a great place it was and thought it would be a good spot to stop on day 1. We brought my tent and our sleeping bags with us on this trip as we had hoped to get by as cheap as possible and as such, we rolled into the local campgrounds in Bled. Things weren't so cheap though, at around 20 euros, it was the most expensive campground that we stayed at on the whole trip. After a really bad night's sleep, we got up and strolled around the city. We had brought a bunch of food with us so we had our lunch and then took off for Croatia.
Our first stop in Croatia was the city of Krk on the island of Krk, in the North Adriatic. Lucky for us, the island is connected to the mainland by a bridge. The island was quite nice with fig trees everywhere we looked. I couldn't believe all the fig trees. In fact, there were fig trees all down the coast of Croatia, so there were plenty of figs for us to eat. I didn't have so many but Steven was going crazy picking these figs. We even had a little system set up in the back of the car to dry them out along the way but I think that they were eaten before they had time to dry.
Krk was a pleasant town with some nice architecture, but there wasn't much to do there. We found a youth hostel which we bargained down to $10/night from $15/night. It was very basic accommodation which was fine by us. After walking around the town and the beach for a while, we decided to check out some of the restaurants. We were quite surprised when we found a Mexican restaurant that had some vegetarian items on the menu so we ordered a few things, bad idea. Back at the hostel, this strange German guy walked into our room and started speaking to us. He seemed nice enough but after a while we felt that we had enough of him and thought it best to take off again so we went to this weird bar where they were playing music videos on a big screen, really bad music videos that is, mostly French hip hop. They also had one computer where you could do internet but there was a long wait and after about 2 hours, I walked home and went to sleep while Steven stayed and checked his email.
The next day we headed down the island to catch a ferry to another island called Rab. The ferry was a bit expensive but our plan was to save some time by continuing south and taking a ferry to the mainland instead of backtracking up north and taking the bridge back. Since Rab is not connected to the mainland by a bridge so we had to catch another ferry once we drove across it, then we were back on the mainland heading south towards Split, the second largest city in Croatia.
So far the trip was going good. We intended to stay in Split, but I had always heard Split was a more industrial city and when we rolled into town, my expectations were met. After driving around and not finding a campground, we decided to keep heading south towards Dubrovnik. By now it was dark and we needed to find a place. Just outside of Split were several campgrounds off the main road. We rolled into one that was right on the beach. Only $5 to camp which was fine by us. We set up the tent then headed down the road to see what this little town had, not much. There were a couple of restaurant/bars right on the main highway but there wasn't much going on. We walked a little further south and found some hustle and bustle going on at this little outdoor bar right on the beach. Some tour group from Poland was having a private shin-dig, complete with a one man show who was covering everything from John Denver to traditional polka classics, all on his Casio keyboard. It was terrible! I was actually surprised that the guy didn't cover that Billy Ray Cyrus song, Achy Breaky Heart. It was so bad that it was actually entertaining, and the Polish people were having a blast. We kind of tried to blend in but it wasn't happening, and after a while, decided to had back to camp to get some sleep. This time, I slept like a baby, but the wind picked up in the night and almost blew the tent over. Steven didn't sleep so well in the tent and ended up trying to sleep in the car. I woke up fairly refreshed and it was nice to wake up right on the beach. On the way out of town we stopped at a supermarket and ate breakfast, then headed towards Dubrovnik.
The drive to Dubrovnik was incredible. We saw the best coastline yet, and probably some of the best Europe has to offer. The ocean was the deepest blue-green and so many times we wanted to just stop and jump in. The road was narrow and there were lots of twists and turns but the Skoda held strong. There were parts of the road where it was a straight drop down hundreds of feet to the ocean. The pictures really don't do it justice. As we approached Dubrovnik we stopped at a tourist info place to get the scoop. We found out where the free parking was near the old town. Once we got there, we did some walking around, swim trunks in hand. We did a quick pass through old town which was quite amazing. This city is known as the most beautiful in Croatia and that reputation proved to be true. Old Dubrovnik is a very picturesque city that is over 700 years old. All of the streets are very narrow and there are no cars, just room for walking. It was like a maze of old stone and marble that seemed to go for miles. Since we were going to be staying for a couple of days, we decided to wait until the next day to see the rest of old town and go swimming. We found a nice little cove with lots of rocks to jump off of just near old town. I jumped in first and the water was great. After swimming for a bit, we got out and headed back up to the car to go find the campground on the other side of town. Once we set up the tent, we headed back into town for the evening. There didn't seem to be much going on, although there were a ton of tourists in town. We headed back to the tent and the next morning went back into old town to walk around the city walls. Dubrovnik is famous for it's walls which are some of the biggest in Europe. I did hear that Napoleon's forces made it into the city when he invaded it but I'm not sure that the walls were ever breached prior to that. It's a shame that Dubrovnik was shelled during the war about 10 years ago, some roofs were still missing but it looked like they had rebuilt most of what was damaged. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking about Dubrovnik. The only downside to it was that there were so many tourists there that it was a bit crowded. It reminded me of Prague. We were going to stay another day in Dubrovnik but we felt we had seen everything there was to see there in 2 days so we hit the road again.
I had done a little research on the area and wanted to go south into Serbia Montenegro. There is a town there called Budva which looked pretty nice from the pictures and I thought it would be neat to venture into Serbia a bit and see what was up. The border wasn't far from Dubrovnik so we were there within 20 minutes. Steven still had his shirt off when we rolled up to the border crossing and there was a border police officer talking to a guy and a girl who were coming across the border on foot from Serbia into Croatia. We overheard them speaking English but I didn't catch their accent so I thought they were from the States. They said that they were making their way up to Poland and they were carrying signs with them so we could tell that they had been hitchhiking which I thought was a pretty bold move coming from Serbia. Things were taking some time here so Steven decided to get out of the car and approach the border cop. Meanwhile these kids said hi to us. The border cop met Steven with some hostility and told him to get back to the car and put a shirt on, "this is the border, not the beach". Well, after a while the guy came over and asked for our documents. I thought we might get a bit more harassment but he let us on through with only a few questions. The next stop was the Serbia border and the cops there were a bit more interested in us. The cop asked us several questions about where we were going and how long we were going to be there, then he started asking Steven about his hair. Steven has very long dreadlocks which is very unique in this part of the world. He asked if the hair was real which I thought was kind of funny. Steven was like, "yeah, it's real". The cop asked "what's the point", and Steven said, "oh, it's great actually. It's easy because you don't have to worry about it". It was an interesting conversation to have with a border cop. After a while we knew that the guy meant no harm and he let us go on our way. I have to say that I was a bit nervous being in Serbia. I wasn't sure what to expect but that was part of the fun.
Ok, I've written a lot on this post so I'm going to stop and post some pictures. In the next post I'll talk about pooping in a minefield and getting extorted by cops in Bosnia Hercegovina. Until then, take care.
Steven and I started off on Sept. 8th. We picked up the car from the same guys that Shannon and I had rented from when we took our Scandinavian trip. At 400 Czech Crowns a day, these guys have the best deal on car rental, or autopujcovna as it's known here in Prague. That amounts to about $15/day. Now granted, it's an older Skoda Felicia that we get but there's little room for complaints at that price. This car had a decent stereo in it and seemed to handle ok. It's not the most comfortable ride but it gave us no problems at all, and considering we were driving through some pretty obscure territory, we're very lucky that it didn't break down.
We headed out of Prague the first day and intended to make it to Bled, Slovenia before dark. We ended up getting there a little late due to a diversion in Austria. I had hoped to find a spot near Bad Ischl in Austria to eat lunch. After driving through some of the best mountain scenery in Austria, we ended up in Bled just after sundown. Bled is probably the most picturesque town in Slovenia. It's nestled in the Julian Alps and lies on a lake that has a small island in the middle with a monastery on it. I had been to Bled a couple of years ago when I took my first trip to Croatia so I knew what a great place it was and thought it would be a good spot to stop on day 1. We brought my tent and our sleeping bags with us on this trip as we had hoped to get by as cheap as possible and as such, we rolled into the local campgrounds in Bled. Things weren't so cheap though, at around 20 euros, it was the most expensive campground that we stayed at on the whole trip. After a really bad night's sleep, we got up and strolled around the city. We had brought a bunch of food with us so we had our lunch and then took off for Croatia.
Our first stop in Croatia was the city of Krk on the island of Krk, in the North Adriatic. Lucky for us, the island is connected to the mainland by a bridge. The island was quite nice with fig trees everywhere we looked. I couldn't believe all the fig trees. In fact, there were fig trees all down the coast of Croatia, so there were plenty of figs for us to eat. I didn't have so many but Steven was going crazy picking these figs. We even had a little system set up in the back of the car to dry them out along the way but I think that they were eaten before they had time to dry.
Krk was a pleasant town with some nice architecture, but there wasn't much to do there. We found a youth hostel which we bargained down to $10/night from $15/night. It was very basic accommodation which was fine by us. After walking around the town and the beach for a while, we decided to check out some of the restaurants. We were quite surprised when we found a Mexican restaurant that had some vegetarian items on the menu so we ordered a few things, bad idea. Back at the hostel, this strange German guy walked into our room and started speaking to us. He seemed nice enough but after a while we felt that we had enough of him and thought it best to take off again so we went to this weird bar where they were playing music videos on a big screen, really bad music videos that is, mostly French hip hop. They also had one computer where you could do internet but there was a long wait and after about 2 hours, I walked home and went to sleep while Steven stayed and checked his email.
The next day we headed down the island to catch a ferry to another island called Rab. The ferry was a bit expensive but our plan was to save some time by continuing south and taking a ferry to the mainland instead of backtracking up north and taking the bridge back. Since Rab is not connected to the mainland by a bridge so we had to catch another ferry once we drove across it, then we were back on the mainland heading south towards Split, the second largest city in Croatia.
So far the trip was going good. We intended to stay in Split, but I had always heard Split was a more industrial city and when we rolled into town, my expectations were met. After driving around and not finding a campground, we decided to keep heading south towards Dubrovnik. By now it was dark and we needed to find a place. Just outside of Split were several campgrounds off the main road. We rolled into one that was right on the beach. Only $5 to camp which was fine by us. We set up the tent then headed down the road to see what this little town had, not much. There were a couple of restaurant/bars right on the main highway but there wasn't much going on. We walked a little further south and found some hustle and bustle going on at this little outdoor bar right on the beach. Some tour group from Poland was having a private shin-dig, complete with a one man show who was covering everything from John Denver to traditional polka classics, all on his Casio keyboard. It was terrible! I was actually surprised that the guy didn't cover that Billy Ray Cyrus song, Achy Breaky Heart. It was so bad that it was actually entertaining, and the Polish people were having a blast. We kind of tried to blend in but it wasn't happening, and after a while, decided to had back to camp to get some sleep. This time, I slept like a baby, but the wind picked up in the night and almost blew the tent over. Steven didn't sleep so well in the tent and ended up trying to sleep in the car. I woke up fairly refreshed and it was nice to wake up right on the beach. On the way out of town we stopped at a supermarket and ate breakfast, then headed towards Dubrovnik.
The drive to Dubrovnik was incredible. We saw the best coastline yet, and probably some of the best Europe has to offer. The ocean was the deepest blue-green and so many times we wanted to just stop and jump in. The road was narrow and there were lots of twists and turns but the Skoda held strong. There were parts of the road where it was a straight drop down hundreds of feet to the ocean. The pictures really don't do it justice. As we approached Dubrovnik we stopped at a tourist info place to get the scoop. We found out where the free parking was near the old town. Once we got there, we did some walking around, swim trunks in hand. We did a quick pass through old town which was quite amazing. This city is known as the most beautiful in Croatia and that reputation proved to be true. Old Dubrovnik is a very picturesque city that is over 700 years old. All of the streets are very narrow and there are no cars, just room for walking. It was like a maze of old stone and marble that seemed to go for miles. Since we were going to be staying for a couple of days, we decided to wait until the next day to see the rest of old town and go swimming. We found a nice little cove with lots of rocks to jump off of just near old town. I jumped in first and the water was great. After swimming for a bit, we got out and headed back up to the car to go find the campground on the other side of town. Once we set up the tent, we headed back into town for the evening. There didn't seem to be much going on, although there were a ton of tourists in town. We headed back to the tent and the next morning went back into old town to walk around the city walls. Dubrovnik is famous for it's walls which are some of the biggest in Europe. I did hear that Napoleon's forces made it into the city when he invaded it but I'm not sure that the walls were ever breached prior to that. It's a shame that Dubrovnik was shelled during the war about 10 years ago, some roofs were still missing but it looked like they had rebuilt most of what was damaged. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking about Dubrovnik. The only downside to it was that there were so many tourists there that it was a bit crowded. It reminded me of Prague. We were going to stay another day in Dubrovnik but we felt we had seen everything there was to see there in 2 days so we hit the road again.
I had done a little research on the area and wanted to go south into Serbia Montenegro. There is a town there called Budva which looked pretty nice from the pictures and I thought it would be neat to venture into Serbia a bit and see what was up. The border wasn't far from Dubrovnik so we were there within 20 minutes. Steven still had his shirt off when we rolled up to the border crossing and there was a border police officer talking to a guy and a girl who were coming across the border on foot from Serbia into Croatia. We overheard them speaking English but I didn't catch their accent so I thought they were from the States. They said that they were making their way up to Poland and they were carrying signs with them so we could tell that they had been hitchhiking which I thought was a pretty bold move coming from Serbia. Things were taking some time here so Steven decided to get out of the car and approach the border cop. Meanwhile these kids said hi to us. The border cop met Steven with some hostility and told him to get back to the car and put a shirt on, "this is the border, not the beach". Well, after a while the guy came over and asked for our documents. I thought we might get a bit more harassment but he let us on through with only a few questions. The next stop was the Serbia border and the cops there were a bit more interested in us. The cop asked us several questions about where we were going and how long we were going to be there, then he started asking Steven about his hair. Steven has very long dreadlocks which is very unique in this part of the world. He asked if the hair was real which I thought was kind of funny. Steven was like, "yeah, it's real". The cop asked "what's the point", and Steven said, "oh, it's great actually. It's easy because you don't have to worry about it". It was an interesting conversation to have with a border cop. After a while we knew that the guy meant no harm and he let us go on our way. I have to say that I was a bit nervous being in Serbia. I wasn't sure what to expect but that was part of the fun.
Ok, I've written a lot on this post so I'm going to stop and post some pictures. In the next post I'll talk about pooping in a minefield and getting extorted by cops in Bosnia Hercegovina. Until then, take care.
posted by John Goff @ 8:42 AM
1 comments
