#8 Croatia and a little Bosnia and Herzegovina

First impression of Croatia: The streets are lighter! Fun at the side, the first kilometres already showed some differences. I rather drove through hardly used side roads and saw no more pine trees, the rocks looked brighter, it was not so extremely green, rather brighter. Could be the difference in altitude. Of course there were a lot of birds and insects, also reptiles were back.

I decided to go to Ogulin to a camping site for two days.
Since my navigation program Komoot cannot help me there without Internet, I took Maps.Me. I was already broken from pushing in Slovenia and just wanted to rest. Unfortunately, of course, my navigation device led me over a mountain. I guess I was allowed to run up 200 – 300 meters. Up and down again. Then it went down again.
In the city centre (approx. 13,000 inhabitants) there was suddenly free Internet access, wow!
On the camping site I found out that there is another currency here. Oops, I thought. But the euro is also accepted here.
Life in Croatia is supposed to be just as hard as in Slovenia, you just have to fight your way through.

When I was setting up my tent I brought 2 friends with me

A very nice and clean campsite, that surprised me. I paid about 11 EUR and stayed there for 2 days. Ate until overeating in the restaurant in the evening. Ajvar is often served with meat.
The campsite is about 200 m from a small lake. The lake has a circumference of approx. 16 km.

On the campsite I decided to change my route. Unfortunately, I would no longer go to Albania, but directly east to the Black Sea. So I would drive more about Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. The reason for this is that it costs me too much time and too much energy at the moment. I want to go to Asia sometime and not get stuck around here. I can visit these places again and again later, when I should come again 🙂 It’ll do me good to ride a bike instead of pushing a bike.

The morning I wanted to leave, it was raining hard. My outer tent was completely wet, of course. I wrapped the wet rag, killed another tick and drove off.

The way led both by smaller villages, and by a little touristic places.

If that hurts the pig, I hope not

A typical picture I saw again and again: a newly built house made of red bricks, still without exterior plaster. But also abandoned old houses. In some still habitable old houses, some of which are still made of wood, older people also live. But I also saw some newly built houses, with the red bricks, on which however no more was built.

Also totally dilapidated warehouses, factory buildings, etc. were often to be seen.

I think this region gets rather brownish hot in summer, here it is still juicy green. But you can tell that the grass is different from the grass at home.

This road stretched for some kilometres and seldom a car came along. A good place to cook dinner. The rain cloud did not miraculously reach me and I could cook and eat in peace.
You can still see through the green again and again the rocks, but also different smaller animals, colorful butterflies etc..

The city of Slunj is rather a little touristic. This is due to the few waterfalls and the wooden houses by the waterfalls. It’s a beautiful sight. A South Korean woman had to be photographed with me.

Then my path got really hard. On this and the next day there were between 20 and 30 km of sandy gravel road, with thick stones and up to 15 cm deep water grooves. Again and again it went down and up, down and up. So push and go down with 12 km/h, because you always had to avoid something.
On this way small villages or simply empty standing houses were to be found again and again. Sometimes there was just a house to live in. Again and again one heard chickens, saw donkeys, sheep, cows.

At one village I found a beautiful little meadow with a simply great view, wow! Better luck than sense. I cooked something warm, had bread with it, watched the sunset and enjoyed the peace. At night this silence is really great, you just don’t hear anything. While the most unusual bird songs can be heard in the morning.

In the morning the tent was packed dry and we walked a few more kilometers along this ghastly path. Unfortunately, I once drove into such a water groove and already I lay in the bushes. Fortunately without thorns.

Then finally asphalt, several houses stood there. Often without fences, with chickens again and other animals. Just like when I was a young.

It went on over the city of Glina, which shocked me a little bit: There were so many abandoned and neglected houses there, a truly terrible sight. But I think that was just an exception. Because I’ve never seen anything like it before. The next city Petrinja offered again a completely different picture.

Nevertheless, I also found a warning regarding expressions. The only time so far,

In the city of Sisak I experienced live music and in the park an event for children, there was a lot going on there. But I had to go on, because the sleeping facilities there were too expensive. Just to come somewhere in the evening, to do something and to go away again in the morning and pay 30 – 40 EUR for it, is not worth the money to me.

However, I was looking for a place to sleep. I found something at a bar, I was allowed to spend the night in the garden.
I ordered cevapcici in a kind of bread roll, ate bread with cheese in the tent and set up my bed.

While in the evening the visitors in the pub were still singing Croatian songs, I was lying in the tent around 10 pm. The songs sounded a little Arabic. It wasn’t the singing skills of the people, not even the alcohol they drank, I think the music is partly influenced by that in the Balkans.

I slept well, packed everything up in the morning and left shortly after 09:00 o’clock. The first maybe 20 km passed like in flight, I even drove over 20 km/h. There was hardly any wind, little traffic, great road, everything was great.

But I slowly became weaker, the sultry heat made me so uncomfortable that I had to take small breaks again and again.
Then the same picture followed for about 30 km: partly houses without fences, chickens, sometimes families sat at the grill, sometimes a neglected house. There was no shade, the only way to rest was a glass bus stop. It’s not tingly at over 30 degrees Celsius. One village after the other, no road turned off, only a main road where these little houses were, over and over again. Even the birds got on my nerves, sometimes a car came. Otherwise only these houses, then push again, because it went up and down, up and down more often, while 5 km further left was a flat valley. Houses and up and down, plus this heat without a break. I have nothing against heat, but sometimes when you are annoyed by something, something that has nothing to do with it also annoys you. I finally wanted to see something other than these houses. When one village ended, the next came right after it.

After 150 km, probably only 30 km, I finally turned off towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. I wanted to go to the border town of Gradiška because I wanted to stay there in a hostel for 2 days. After a few km I wanted to pee and was unfortunately attacked by mosquitoes while peeing. There were so many, they were everywhere. Brakes were added. I was kicking, bouncing, all kinds of things. I jumped on my bike and was allowed to escape with the bike at about 25 km/h, but brakes are incredibly fast. There was always another one. I wasn’t allowed to pee myself 😀

After another 10 km I finally reached my destination. I had my first stamp in my passport, saw the queue to the border in the other direction, a pretty young lady helped me to the hostel and I was finally there! For 22 EUR for 2 days in a very nice hostel, nothing can go wrong. By the way, I did over 90 km that day.
First impression, only of the town Gradiška, a few prefabricated houses, also beautiful newer houses, a little older and empty, good pavements, bad pavements, something of everything. But the people very nice, really.

I itch in many places because I am stabbed and have a permanent appetite, I could eat and eat. I had a good breakfast, then lunch, another bar of chocolate and after 1 hour I want to eat again. I don’t know how much I burn a day, but I don’t think I can eat that much a day. I can’t believe how much sport you have to do to get rid of the little bacon I had. Another month or so and then it becomes critical for me, then my bacon is probably gone!