by Kyle James
Zagreb, Croatia
I woke up to Ash excitedly getting ready in the corner of the room. By the look of what step she was on in the getting-ready process (her hair), I could tell she had been up for a while. Ash was elated because today was a designated “shopping day.”
Zagreb has a long shopping promenade throughout the downtown city center. Ash was going to get her hands dirty at Zara and Forever 21, while I found a coffee shop to get some work done.
I spent the rest of the afternoon planning our travel to the Dalmatian Islands while Ash bought Dalmatian rompers. Zagreb was a perfect pit stop, and although it didn’t have the glam and glitz of Paris or Vienna, it was a great place to relax without the abundance of FOMO prizes around town.
7/14/15
Zagreb, Croatia → Kolocep, Croatia
Another swing and a miss in the sleep department. These brick pillows were not getting the job done; I woke up frequently with a throbbing neck. Before I knew it, the sun was coming up, and I had run out of time to lie awake in bed worrying about not sleeping. Natalija would be waiting outside in half an hour to take us to the airport.
We arrived at the airport and hugged Natalija good-bye, thanking her for the wonderful apartment and hospitality. She had picked us up and dropped us off from the train station and airport. Without her, we would have spent substantially more time and money.
When it was time to board our aircraft to the southern coast of Croatia, we headed out to the tarmac. The plane was so small, I felt like a celebrity getting into my own private jet.
As we taxied to the runway, I told Ash that these planes always have the worst turbulence. She listened intently as I expressed my concerns. Normally, she tells me I am overreacting, but this time she—Nope, never mind, she was already fast asleep.
It was a surprisingly smooth flight, and by the time we got to our cruising altitude, we had started our descent into Dubrovnik. I wanted to lean out the window and gaze at the coastline, but I couldn’t move with Ash sleeping on my shoulder. We soon landed in Dubrovnik.
When we stepped off the plane, it felt like the tarmac was being cooked by the Adriatic sun. Ash and I both paused at the bottom of the plane steps and stared at the unbelievable mountainous landscape surrounding us. I realized I hadn’t seen mountains since we’d left Denver. I missed those lumps of earth.
It wasn’t hard to find the bus to Dubrovnik; there was only one bus outside of the terminal, and everyone who wasn’t paying to take a taxi was boarding it. We rode along the western coast of Croatia and circled down a mountainside. I instantly recognized the setting of King’s Landing from Game of Thrones. HBO filmed the show here in the midst of the clay-topped buildings in the seaside village.
Our bus careened down the single road leading into the fortress town. We exited the bus at the port but had no idea how to get to Kolocep from there. I had tried to figure this out in the Zagreb coffee shop, but the ferry websites were about as up-to-date as MySpace.
Eventually, we found the ferry going to Kolocep. We sat on the back as it slowly filled up with other travelers. The ferry pulled out of the port and slowly headed to Kolocep, the first of the three Elaphiti Islands. We looked back on the beautiful town of Dubrovnik in our wake, and it made me truly grateful. Grateful to be in the Adriatic Sea, grateful to be with my woman on a boat, and grateful that we did not book Airbnbs in Dubrovnik because—holy shit, there were people everywhere.
After only thirty minutes of smooth sailing, the ferry curled around the wilderness of the island to the small port of Kolocep. We stepped off the ferry onto a single concrete dock. The island only had 120 residents, and there were no roads, cars, or civilization aside from two small villages. This was the precise level of remoteness we were looking for after spending a month in the saturated cities of Central Europe.
Our Airbnb host’s niece, Dolores, was waiting for us on the dock. She found us immediately because I’d told her I had a beard. I knew my beard game was strong at this point when people could pick me out of a crowd.
We followed Dolores as she led us to our house for the next week. She gave us a brief tour as we walked along the clear blue water. “This is the only market on the island, and it is owned by my grandmother,” she said, pointing to a small mini-mart. We continued walking and came to the two restaurants on the island. Both were dockside cafés with bars attached. Then we moved along the beach outside of the large island resort and reached the stone steps—all 150 of them—that led us to our Airbnb.
After traveling by a small car to Zagreb, a prop plane to Dubrovnik, a crowded bus from the airport, and a Croatian ferry, we had reached our last task before we could finally rest. The mountainside staircase was by far the most exhausting part of the day. We were out of calories and were clearly dehydrated. I was already dreading trying to get my soaked shirt off my skin. It would be like trying to peel a green banana.
Our place was near perfect, and the view from our porch was breathtaking. The 150-step staircase, although strenuous to climb, had nestled us in the heavens of Kolocep. We looked down at the dozens of white sailboats resting in the cove the color of a robin’s egg. The gentle rolling hills of the island created a perfect backdrop. After taking pictures of the view that wasn’t going anywhere, we decided to go grab some groceries for the week before the market closed.
When we emerged from the glorified pantry with our groceries, the sun was setting over the cove, and the sky looked like a watercolor painting. I quickly lunged for the eggs we’d bought, anticipating Ash dropping them upon seeing the sunset. She is a sucker for sunsets. The pink, purple, and orange colors collided with the water, and the explosion of the reflection hit the sailboats with color flak.
We spent the remainder of the evening sitting on a bench by the water and watching as the sun disappeared, leaving only the black silhouette of the mountains around us. The blazing Mediterranean temperature fell with the sun. Aside from Kraków, Kolocep was our first real “discovery” while traveling. What I mean is that we were not planning on coming here when we left the US. We had never even heard of Kolocep. We read reviews on Croatia and found islands strictly by searching on Airbnb. We put in our criteria of own apartment, AC, Wi-Fi, and places under seventy dollars. We found islands near Dubrovnik, and after careful research, chose three of them, Kolocep being the first. It had not been easy to get here, but the trip to paradise had only cost us a total of 212 dollars. We’d wrapped up our time in Central Europe significantly under our transportation budget. We accomplished this by taking BlaBlaCars and FlixBus, and using public transportation as opposed to taxis and Ubers. We definitely weren’t backpackers yet, but I would say we’d graduated from being rookies.
7/15/15
Kolocep, Croatia
I woke up to the smell of good eggs and bad coffee. Nobody wants to smell bad coffee, but I definitely prefer that combination to no coffee. Ash was up at the crack of dawn, sitting on the porch and taking in the view of the sea.
We ate on the porch before walking down the stone steps to the sound of children playing in the water, and cicadas arguing among the trees. The small village on the island of Kolocep already felt like home to us, and we waved to a smiling Dolores as she enjoyed an ice cream cone from her grandmother’s market. We strolled into the market, and Dolores’s grandmother unleashed an arm-opening welcome to us, knowing we would be regulars for the next week. This was what we were after: feeling like locals in a peaceful place on the water where humans lived simpler lives.
We left the market armed with the essentials: water and Ožujsko, the most popular Croatian beer. Next we went to check out renting a kayak, and I approached the woman sitting next to the kayaks on the beach. She looked up, smiled, and said, “Dolores told me you two were interested in kayaking!” The woman told us her name was Narissa.
She gave us the rundown of the two-seater kayak and told us we had until roughly 5:00 p.m. to return it. I was confused at the casualness of this transaction. There was no paperwo
rk, no deposit, and no lack of trust.
“We won’t have our phones, so keeping track of time will be tough. We will try to get back by 5:00 p.m., but what if we are a little late?” I asked honestly.
“No worries,” Narissa said, smiling. “I will be around, and besides, I know where you guys live.”
I pushed the big green kayak into the shallows, jumped in, and we set off into the cove. Ash sat in the front, and I manned the ship from the stern (yes, I had to look up which end was the stern). As we cruised out of earshot of the kids playing, I looked down and saw each individual spike on the black urchins below us as though the seabed were mere inches, and not twenty feet, away.
We hugged the coastline to observe the flora and fauna along the island, and scanned the shore as if we were going to see dinosaurs.
“Ash, look, a Pancakeasaurus,” I whispered, pointing at an older naked woman perched on a rock.
Narissa had told us about the nude beach around the corner of the cove, but we didn’t anticipate seeing anyone this close. There were more participants than we had expected. We tried to avoid eye contact and continued paddling. Normally, if we saw someone onshore, we would smile and wave, but when they were nude, we treated them like outcasts. What can I say? I guess we were prejudiced.
We had been paddling for an hour or so when we decided to find rocks to jump off of into the sea to let our muscles cool down. We executed a semi-controlled crash into one of the very few smooth rocks on the coastline. This was our first interaction with the rocks of Croatia. They are as sharp and unforgiving as Judge Judy.
We spent half an hour climbing onto rocks and avoiding sea urchins (the one true nemesis of the Adriatic Sea), and jumped into the crystal-clear water. Ash decided she wanted to join the nudist movement and freed herself of the restriction of her bathing suit. As you can imagine, I had no reservations to this.
Back in the kayak, Ash eventually stopped stopped paddling to fully take in the rocky coast. I didn’t want to tell her, but my arms and shoulders were nearly numb as I slowly propelled us through the sea. We had reached the western side of the island that faced across the Adriatic to Italy. The current was a little stronger on the side that faced the deep sea, but we quickly wrapped around the corner and came to what would be known for the rest of the week as our “playground,” an oasis of crystal-clear pools with not one boat in sight. We docked the boat in an area of the island where we could stand and overlook the pool. Again, when I say docked, I mean we chaotically crashed the boat into rocks, screaming at each other to try to steady the watercraft enough to get out.
We sat on the rocks and drank a beer each, occasionally dipping into the salty water to heal our cut-up feet. The water in the Adriatic was saltier than McDonald’s fries; in fact, the locals told us that the water was so salty in Kolocep that there was very little marine life. I think Croatia is such a hidden gem that the fish don’t even know about it.
After gaining enough liquid courage from our two-liter Ožujskos, we climbed to the top of the rock, twenty feet above the small pool, and analyzed the depth of the sea below. It was definitely deep enough, but the fact that we had not yet done it was the scary part. Ash and I agreed that if we were going to jump, we would do it together. On the count of three, we would jump and face the unknown pool below. Twice the countdown made it to two … and Ash shook her hands and bounced up and down, saying, “No, no, no, not yet!”
Jumping for the first time was scary. I wasn’t afraid of landing on anything. The water below was clearly twenty feet deep. I also wasn’t afraid of drowning; I am not a great swimmer, but I am a magnificent water-treader. What scared me was the fall itself: I was afraid of jumping, because as soon as I left the familiarity of the rock, I was no longer in control. I couldn’t decide that I preferred the comfort of the rock halfway to the sea and turn back. It was all or nothing. Gravity would take over, and whether I was ready or not, I would be seeing the rock from a different perspective.
Finally we agreed this was it. I counted down: three, two, one. Despite the fear of the unknown, I decided I had spent enough time on this rock, and jumped. When gravity introduced me to the Adriatic, she welcomed me with open arms. But I’d left the spiky rocks with just enough time to turn in the air to see Ash standing apologetically on the rocks, ashamed at herself for not jumping, before I hit the water.
“What took you so long?” Ash asked upon my arrival to the surface.
“I should be asking you the same question,” I replied, salty about her breach of contract. I scrambled onto the rocks and climbed up to the jumping spot. She was still too scared, and decided she just didn’t want to jump yet. It was pretty high, and I didn’t blame her. Suddenly I heard voices coming from around the cove. I realized Ash was still topless. It had been hours now, and I had simply grown accustomed to her bare breasts. I spotted a boat full of people, and said, “Hey, Ash! Look there are some people over—”
Splash.
“Ash?” I turned and saw a cloud of bubbles below.
Fear was another reason to jump. I won’t beat around the metaphorical bush here. We jumped because of the fear of life ending and us not enjoying it to the fullest. We jumped because of the fear of being stuck in the same situation each and every day. We jumped because the routine was eating away at our happiness. Just because the rock was comfortable, didn’t mean it wasn’t worth jumping to find out what the water was like. In this case, Ash jumped because there was a group of people on a small boat in the pool adjacent to us, and although she was supportive of the “Free the Nips” campaign … she wasn’t ready to run for office.
Our next stop was the blue cave. We saw boats in the area we were told to go to, and started the long trek across the bay. We followed as a guide dove into the water and swam into what seemed like a one-foot-by-one-foot gap in the wall. There is no way that is an entrance to a cave, I thought, watching as the guide disappeared. I was up next, and I got closer to the entrance, but the waves propelled me up against the wall. I ducked under at the last second to avoid hitting my head on the spiky rocks, and after a quick plunge through, emerged into what looked like the exotic club in Amsterdam.
The first thing I noticed was the water temperature; it was significantly colder than the water outside. The small bit of sunlight entering the slit in the wall turned the entire cave a blue that resonated off the moist walls. I could not believe how large the cave was, its ceilings as high as fifteen feet. The bottom was covered in soft, smooth sand, unlike the bottom of the pools outside. I quickly turned around to see Ash’s priceless reaction as she surfaced into the oasis. “Shut the fuck up,” she spit out through salty water. I apologized for the ugly words that had been ejected out of the beautiful mouth of my girlfriend, but the Croatian guide just laughed. I think he had seen this reaction before. I still couldn’t believe that small hole had led us to this paradise … but you know what they say: never judge a cave by its entrance.
After floating in the blue cave and taking enough pictures/videos with the GoPro to last a lifetime, we decided it was time to get moving to make our 5:00 p.m. kayak deadline with Narissa. We were not sure how much farther it was to finish the circle of the island, but we could see Dubrovnik from our watercraft, so we knew we were on the east side. We paddled for thirty minutes and soaked in the seawater with each splash from our oars. I spotted a massive table-like rock jutting out over the sea. It resembled an Olympic diving platform. I steered us toward the platform to check it out.
Once we made land, we scaled the rocks to the natural diving platform, and I carefully stepped to the ledge to peer over the edge. Oh, hell no. To be as frank as possible, the water was uncomfortably far away. After making her way to the top, Ash joined me at the edge, and she, too, had no intention of ever leaving this platform.
The dark-blue water had to have been fifty feet deep, as we could not even see to the bottom through the clear water. There was no concern of hitting anything but water. We were just worried about how hard
that water would feel. Ash told me to go first. No chance, woman. We were either jumping together or we weren’t jumping at all.
At this point, we had stood up there and looked into the abyss below for far too long. That is why roller coasters are great. The time spent terrified on the opening hill is finite, and then the drop comes whether you are ready or not. We decided to chalk it up as a loss and began the difficult descent down the rocks. As we started retreating, the words of Clemence, our Airbnb host in Paris, popped into my head. She’d told us we were welcome to sit on the rooftop balcony as long as we were “not afraid of the fall.” We had to do it; we had to jump. We could not be afraid of the fall.
Ash agreed with me: if we didn’t jump, we would regret not having had the courage. We stepped up to the edge, secured our footing, held hands, and on the count of three, left the rock. As soon as we were airborne, I realized we had just made a huge mistake.
We immediately released our hands as a reflex of unequivocal fear. We were still rising in the air from our initial jump, and I saw Ash began to drop. Apparently, she does not have the hops I do. Adrenaline shot through my veins like electricity as the fight-or-flight hormone took over. It was really more of a fight-the-flight situation as I flailed my arms in a failed attempt to try to either fly or grab on to something. With no luck from either scenario, I began my descent.
The feeling of my stomach hitting my throat felt like I was missing organs in my chest cavity. After a full second of free fall, I blacked out. I had been trying to analyze the severity of my current situation and was experiencing a sensory overload. With both adrenaline and fear taking over, there was no room on my plate for “analysis.” My brain shut down like an old Windows computer with too many programs running, and I hit the water. Unfortunately for me, in my blacked-out state, I had missed the announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our final descent into the Adriatic, please make sure your legs are straight and your arms are at your sides, with your body in the upright position. Close your eyes, and be sure your bathing suit is securely fastened. Thank you for flying Kyle Air.
