We have left Dubrovnik... we have left our touring group. After 2 days of walking the wall... dodging the boat people.. sipping coffee in the alleys... looking at churches... but mostly looking at people, we finally called it a day. We were not tired of the experience... there is something hypnotic about the place... even the cruise boat people started to look human... but new adventures called... time to get back on the road again.
We caught a 3 PM bus up the coast to the island of Korcula. We have had Croatian islands recommended as a holiday destination... and Korcula has been recommended as one of the nicer of these. As we have already experienced, the best things often arise from unplanned circumstances.
Take for example our entry into Korcula... another example of bus drivers belonging to a separate species of hominids. Our bus came upon roadworks and waited for the temporary traffic lights to turn green. On the change of lights, we crept forward around a hairpin bend. Half the road we were turning into was closed. We got halfway around the corner, only to find that oncoming traffic had occupied our lane of road. OK, have you got the picture? The question now is, "How do you resolve the issue?" Should our big 50 seater bus reverse back through the hairpin bend... or should the oncoming traffic reverse back and let us through. Croatian drivers break road rules as naturally as breaking wind... so road rules are of no use in such cases. The lady driving the vehicle at the front of the oncoming stream waved her hands, opened the window and explained (we think) that she could do nothing because cars behind her had locked her in. Our driver called out advice... and just to make sure it was clearly understood, increased the volume to maximum. The lady could do no more than shrug her shoulders. That, apparently, was a mistake. Our driver jumped out of his seat and raced to the offending car. He swung open the door. (I thought" Crikey, that lady won't need to buy mascara for a while.") He pulled her out of the drivers seat... jumped in, started the car and raced on the inside of the hairpin corner. Once onto clear road, he jumped out of the car and started racing towards the next car in the queue. The message didn't take long to get through. The next guy, gunned his engine and followed the car tracks set by our driver... as did all other vehicles in the queue. What a hero... hearts swooned in every young girl on the bus.
As for Korcula... it rivals Dubrovnik in some ways. It is much smaller... hasn't had billions of UNESCO's money spent on it... so it doesn't glisten so brightly in the sunshine. But it appears to have suffered little damage in the Balkans War... it isn't over-commercialised... it has a quiet confidence... a softer gentler countenance. And it was the birthplace of Marco Polo... no matter what those Italians tell you.
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