Croatian Blues...

CROATIA… DAY 0.

We are in a small town in Croatia, near the Hungarian border. According to a few locals, the Information Office is a joke and it does not exist because anyways "there are never tourists here". The town has an old factory and a lot of small modern buildings in the center. No hotels, no camping, no pensions, they said, because anyways "there are never tourists here". So we asked at the gas station and ended up negotiating the price of a nice room on top of a bar. Hamburger night today, plus Saturday night party right downstairs and two people here who happened to never be in a town or a city in any weekend night all over the trip, can you believe it?! So we are going to shower and nap a bit and then we will go downstairs and party a little bit to get rid of the heat inside our heads :)

Where are you from, they wanna know. It is a couple of guys who have not gone back home after last night's party (it was 19h when this happened) and who apologize to us for being drunk and they say we are crazy and amazing for biking all the way… And so we say we come from Belgium  and they ask if Maria has black relatives :) We say it is because of the sun and Spain and they seem satisfied and sort of apologize again…

CROATIA, DAY -1.

We say minus 1 because we are getting closer to the end of our trip  and we don't want it to end, so we try to regress in time. Or something like this.

Its really cool how people live our trip with us without actually being here, like Max who is sending spies to see if we aren't cheating but who is also nice enough to look for places for us where we can stay. For only meeting him once and briefly sharing a dance floor and a few beers it feels like we have known him for years… thanks man!
There is a big response when we send our SOSes to the world when we need a shower or a place to crash. We never really get to any of them because of destiny, I guess, but there really kind trying to help us.

People are nice to us, it is always very good when they say hello from their cars or from the side of the road, where they sit at the shade and sometimes make the "you are crazy" sign with a kind smile. We are sentimental, true, now the end is near. Maybe we'll do a chapter two here, as we really wonder why do we have to come back if we actually have nothing of the things people normally return to… No plants to water or a rent to pay. Cosma Dog is there and she could easily be brought by Belgians coming to Lost Theory. So all we need, have and want is by us and our bicycles. If there is a chapter two, it might take us into Bosnia, Serbia and Rumania, which are very nearby and therefore too tempting to be skipped…

We find ourselves in this forgotten part of Croatia it seems and so this kid in this bar we are @ now affirmed, although we cannot understand why. It is beautiful here and people are far more friendly then at the coastline.

A lot of houses here still have the bullet holes in them, like a monument, not to forget what really happened here.
In these part they don't see to many tourists that are from outside the country so they told us, so they flip, they don't understand what we are doing here, on bicycles coming from Belgium and for what, a festival, electronic music... Don't you have that in Belgium or Spain also?

They are happy to see us anyway, no matter the reasons. We are here, enjoying their country and the area where they live, where they spend their lives and find their loves and basically will end their lives and they are very proud to show, share and explain it all to us.

These are our first days and impressions of Croatia, having a ball in the numerous mountains and the heat is crazy. Somehow this piece between the Hungarian and the Bosnian border seems to be the most untouched and the paths and villages feel authentic and undiscovered, which makes a big contrast with other parts of the route. Just beautiful here, it makes us want to make the trip a bit longer as the end is just 220 kms away… although jumping in the sea before the festival begins does not sound too bad either...
 

We are having quit a few people coming to Lost Theory that we have met along the way and we are thinking about making a special psycycle camp on the festival together with some vikings and psywalkers maybe :)

A couple of days ago we saw an article about a couple who did the experiment of handcuffing together during 48 hours and they talked about it like if it was something amazing… This trip we are taking proves much more, we think. For us it has been quite smooth and easy, we are quite surprised ourselves, but still we are able to count a few potentially challenging situations as it is about living moment by moment without having any control on rain, unexpected closed campings, tiredness enlarging the smallest disagreement and so on… 48 hours together? Try 3 months of biking, lol :)

Thinking about the return is not easy. This hobo-on-a-bicycle life is far too nice and easy, simple, basic, relaxing and inspiring. 

We will post this entry like this, because otherwise you will never end reading it :)
 

Some pictures of the last days :)