I grabbed a bus from Dubrovnik at 9am, hoping to escape the
cruise ship crush that occurs in the small city, and to arrive in Zagreb while
it was still light.
The landscape reminded me of driving through parts of
Arizona, mountains looming off in the distance, but a bit greener. There were
no signs of wildlife, despite the periodic warning signs for bear crossings at
tunnel entrances…didn’t notice any road kill either, and very few houses in
view after we left the coastal highway. Eventually we passed through a ridge of
mountains, one of the tunnels was something like seven kilometers long. (Sveti
Rok).
I saw a Burger King billboard quite a distance south of
Zagreb, and KFC too, miraculously no McDonalds, though I’m sure they’re here
somewhere.
About thirty miles from our destination, a massive traffic
jam due to construction, turned the highway into a 90-minute crawl which more
closely resembled a parking lot. So much for arriving during daylight. It was
kind of comical as one teenager in the lane next to the bus started riding
seated on the roof of his Range Rover, with his legs dangling inside the
sunroof. Another woman jumped hurriedly out the car in front of the bus, to
give her pathetic nervous little yipping fur ball a chance to stretch its tiny legs, and
no doubt relieve its equally tiny bladder.
The funniest scene was watching a car get pushed by two
young men in the breakdown lane, we had passed them just as we started to slow
for the stopped traffic. They left us in the dust, as they pushed for another
half-mile or so to the exit. (I remember days like that, and am so glad I
didn’t choose to rent a car.)
Since I hadn’t yet made a reservation for a place to stay, I
decided to press on and catch another bus from Zagreb to Ljubljana, Slovenia
and see the sites of Zagreb on my way back through Croatia. It’s only another
two hours, so I’ll end up arriving around 1 AM, but luckily, it’s pretty warm
for early October, and I won’t freeze spending most of the night in the bus
station. Hopefully, there will be some 24-hour wi-fi café!
No comments:
Post a Comment