Leaving Plitvice

When the alarm went off at 6:24 this morning, we bolted out of bed, into yesterday's clothes, grabbed our cold veggie pizza from last night, some water, and headed out the door sleepily. Our goal was to hit the Plitvice trails before anyone else. We succeeded. Obviously, park transportation was not running until a more reasonable hour, so we began hiking to "Stop 4"- the furthest point of the park. It was longer than we remembered, and took us more than an hour to get there.

The hike was more than worth it (even Janna agrees). We were totally alone on the trails (which is pretty amazing in a place that sees 10,000 visitors per day). Saw some fabulous waterfalls, had good (but cool) morning weather, and got our 5 plus miles of hiking in before breakfast. Once we saw our first people, we hurried toward the shuttle (literally a full out sprint, as they only come every half hour). We made it in time, and sat for 15 minutes while the driver read his morning paper.

At this point, you should know that we were following a really tight timeline for the day, in order to make all our transportation connections and enjoy the places we visited enroute. You can imagine that this full out sprint to sit and wait for 15 mins was frustrating.

After the shuttle ride and 1 mile uphill hike back to our hotel, Sue went to find some bus information. Here, again, some important information: think about today a little bit like an extension to the Amazing Race. Plitvice is a very isolated place, far from cities and substantial towns. Busses come through on the main road from Zagreb (capital city, 3 hours north) and Split (big coastal city 4 hours south). We had been warned that catching one from here was tricky, and involved standing at the bus station (a small roofed fort) and trying to hail a very crowded passing bus, looking as desperate as possible. We needed to make it to Split for a 5:00 ferry, and wanted to make it by 4:00 if possible.

Well, Sue found some "information". Keep in mind that before this we had tried the internet, guidebooks, and busstations and had been able to attain no worthy bus schedules other than "look pathetic and try to hail a bus on the way by". The woman cleaning rooms at our hotel, who spoke only Croatian and Deutsch, was very helpful and told Sue that a bus went by the bus station (which was very close by) at 10:00 am every day. Sue returned to the room where Janna had begun to pack with this important information. It was 9:52.

We literally THREW all of our stuff in our bags (to give some more context here, before leaving the room, Sue had to unpack the big bag of trash including a 1.5 liter soda bottle Janna had packed in Sue's backpack in her haste). We dropped our key in the lobby, sprinted out the front door, jumped over the plants, off the 3 foot high ledge, rolly suitcases in tow. Landing on the grass below, we continued to huff it into the street, and out to the main road, not even pausing to roll the bags. A local tractor driver driving by our hotel at that moment watched the scene and must have wondered what we stole.

Janna was in the lead out the door and off the ledge, but 20 feet before the end of the road succumbed to fatigue and began a slow plod the final stretch. Sue, behind through the jumping phase, sprinted all the way to the bus stop, passing Janna in the final stretch and arriving a full 30 seconds ahead of Janna.
It was 9:58 when we got to the bus stop. Whew.
Janna wanted to make lunch, but Sue insisted that we didn't have time. We took turns pasting our eyes on the corner of the road from which the bus would come, ready to flail and wave as soon as the bus rounded the turn. The one not watching was allowed to get a drink, finish brushing hair, clean out the bags, and get ready for the day.

At 10:30 we were still waiting, but our hopes were bolstered because a local man had arrived and was also waiting for a bus to somewhere. He said it would come in 10 minutes. At this point, Janna was resting in the shade of the small station (think tree fort) and Sue was practicing synchronized rolly bag dancing routines. Lunch had been eaten. Janna clipped her fingernails, and Sue was wishing she had had time to wash her face.

At about 10:55 (one hour after our mad sprint to the bus stop), a large bus pulled over. It didn't have a sign on the front window, but it did have a Atlas Bus (big tour company in Croatia) label on the side. One of the drivers got out, asked where we were going, put our luggage underneath, and on we hopped. We had almost sat down when we realized that the bus was empty, save for two other people. Hmmmm....
The second driver was a very friendly man who spoke good English with a thick Croatian accent. He was thrilled to have Americans on his bus and engaged us in conversation for 30 minutes. We learned that the bus had actually just spent 7 days in England leading a tour group around and was just being driven back to its home in Dubrovnik. The drivers were so friendly and thought it was wasteful to drive an empty bus...so were picking up people like us. The other couple was from the Netherlands. We also learned that soon we would get on the highway and fly to Split.
Really, somehow we had caught an amazing break. Busses to Split take 4-6 (and usually 6) hours. We would make it in 3.

The only problem is...Split center and bus station is actually a good 18-20 kilometers off of the expressway....hmmmmmm.......
So, at 2:00 we got dropped off at the edge of the greater Split area. We waited half an hour for another bus, heading into Split, got on and made it....Whew. 3:00, ahead of schedule (miraculously). Note here that our ride from Plitvice to Split cost us 8 dollars total. It should have cost almost 100. Lucky.
So, we had 1.5 hours in Split until we had to be on our ferry. We were efficient experts, as we had been in Split just last year (albeit in a Bonnine hangover-type state, but there). We left our bags with a bag-leaving man, bought fruit and pastry and water and AMAZING dark chocolate gelato, a backpack full of Christmas present (Split is the biggest shopping place we have been thus far and knew we needed to take full advantage of it), and the piece de resistance: a take away mexican salad and a fishburger from the Black Cat Bistro (we needed to not eat pizza tonight).

Even though throughout our day everything seemed to be going wrong and going right at the same time, we somehow made it to Korcula (in the right place), with full bellies and good storeis.
After a wonderful but frenzied 2 days getting to and away from Plitvice, we are really excited to be settling in for 3 nights on a Dalmatian coast island.

In Korcula, the 13 year old son of the Guest House owner met us at the ferry, led us to the place, showed us our room and checked us in (Willie- this could be you!).  He copied our passports, took our money, showed us around......