Only one problem....

Second day of hiking In Croatia is finished and I can’t complain about the nature. It is absolutely beautiful. It is a mixture of raw rocks and wonderful forests, with beautiful views in all directions.

Yesterday’s hike was in the Velika ravine. The sun was shining and we hiked up around 500 m to a hut, where we had lunch under trees in the shadows. It was a beautiful tour with great views, but it took place in a well-organized national park. That means that the trail (road?) up was quite wide and well taken care of. I call these kinds of trails for hiking highways. They need to have these highways since there are a lot of people visiting the parks. But it makes the hike a bit boring. I prefer the real trail hikes.

Most of the people visiting the park know what they are doing, but you also meet quite a lot of people hiking in city sandals without water. Every time I met these people I feel sorry for them. They usually have a look on their face saying “please take me out of here”. The key thing to enjoy hiking is to be prepared for the situation. Bad shoes and no water is not the way to enjoy a hike on a hot day on steep trails (even if they are more like roads than trails).

Today’s hike took place in the national park Velebit, but this tour was rawer. We used a narrow forest trail up to the rough rocks on top of the mountain. We were almost climbing uphill in some places and when we went downhill we really had to watch our step, since it was steep and slippery. We were lucky with the weather, since it was supposed to rain, but we had just cloudy skies and the perfect temperature for a hike. This was the kind of hike I like with beautiful scenery and greats trails. There was only one problem……

The group is older than me. I’m still not sure when it comes to number of years, but they have an older attitude to hiking. They like it slow. I’m not the person that likes powerwalking when hiking, but I like to get some pulse - at least in the uphill. But this group likes to take it easy and have a lot of rests. It is actually the slowest group I have ever hiked in.  Well – maybe the Cuba hiking group was worse, but there, at least, I could together with a couple of friends hike ahead of the group. Here I’m not allowed to hike faster than the guide in front and he is walking as slow as the group wants. I’m not sure how to handle this the rest of the week. I have a feeling it will drive me nuts.

I have to say that I didn’t know what to expect from the food and wine in Croatia, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The food taste great and the wine is quite OK considering I haven’t drank the expensive stuff (they don’t sell that per glass). The only thing that has been disappointing is the desserts. Not that I usually eat and like sweet things, but these were not even fun to taste. Well – you can’t win them all.

The group!

Rough cliffs and trees makes a beautiful combo

Even when it is cloudy it is beautiful.