Rijeka and Cres, Croatia

After Lokve, still reeling from all the money spent on the house we slept in but thankful for all the help that the school director gave to us, we headed out to Rijeka. Rijeka is a port town, and it is the port that the Mihelcic family sailed out of on their way to the US. It was a fairly quick 30-minute trip down the mountains to a surprisingly beautiful town right down on the water. The buildings were all old and there was a pedestrian street with stores on it. There was even a castle up on the hill so it was very picturesque.

We were staying with some Couchsurfers who were living right in the middle of the city, right off the pedestrian street. We took it as a good sign that the apartment was right below the Romanian Consulate. Our host greeted us in her underwear and we had a long conversation with her and her boyfriend but she stayed in her underwear. I wrote it off to it being hot out. She turned out to be excellent and also eventually put some clothes on. She was just a little eccentric which is something that we can deal with. There were about 9 other Couchsurfers staying there as well so we were lucky to get a bed to ourselves. There were three Mexican girls, a Slovakian couple, a guy from Israel, a Spanish girl and two guys from Zagreb (Croatia).

It was like a hostel. A free hostel. We took some trips around town, met with some more CSers, and we also went to a beach. It was a rocky beach but it was good nonetheless. We read our books while the other guys swam in the sea. All of the Couchsurfers were pretty young. I was the oldest one in the group, clocking in at 29 years. They liked to stay up late and hang out. At first we thought this would be annoying but we were able to sleep in and they were all pretty respectful so it wasn’t a big deal.

We asked everyone for advice for our next trip. Everyone suggested going to see one of the islands nearby or going out to the Dalmatian coast in the south. Lots of people said we should go and see Bosnia. When we asked more about the southern coast it was apparent that it would be remarkably expensive. It would be even more expensive than the rest of Croatia which is kind of stiff. We planned to scratch seeing the south in favor of going to one of the islands for a couple days and then down to Bosnia for a day. We were in a time crunch at this point in time because we had to be back in Romania to take care of business.

When we asked how much accommodation costs on the island of Cres, it was not surprisingly expensive, especially since they charge by person and not by room. The Couchsurfers suggested that we do some “wild camping”, i.e. “homeless camping”. They suggested a great spot that was about a mile away from the center of town on Cres. The weather was perfect at the time being so we figured we would just take our sleeping bag and sleep either in the woods or on the beach with no tent. This is technically illegal, but nobody is checking so we figured we would take the risk. We took only what we needed for 2 nights and left everything else with our CS hosts.

We had to take a ferry out to Cres. They only had transport once a day so once we were out there, we were out there. The water was very calm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a nice trip. When we got to Cres, we followed the Couchsurfers’ directions and took a left at the marina and headed down the beach. We came across some old camping pads by a dumpster and since we were doing the whole homeless thing we figured we would go all-out and pick up the pads and take them with us since we didn’t know what we would be sleeping on. Don’t worry, we smelled them first and they didn’t smell like homeless or like urine.

By now it was starting to get dark and we were in a hurry to find a spot. All the places on the beach looked a little suspicious so we headed up to the woods across from the beach. On the way over I thought I saw an old man with no pants and just a t-shirt on. I blocked it out of my mind, figuring that he was just confused, or I was, and then I went and found our spot. I smelled around to make sure that it wasn’t a make-shift bathroom because if I had to go I would probably go there. It seemed ok so we laid down our homeless pads for our “wild camping”.

Like I said, the weather was great and we were glad we had our homeless pads because we only had one sleeping bag. When we woke up the next morning, we went down to the beach. I should have heeded the warning sign of the old man with no pants on the night before because when we got to the beach, every old person or any other person who should have had clothes on, didn’t. That’s right. We were at the nude beach. It was totally nasty and now I am aware of what geriatric doctors go through on a daily basis and I have a significantly greater amount of respect for them.

Luckily the entire island wasn’t naked. We had to walk down the beach to get back to sanity. We basically put our horse-blinders on and walked past the nude families of naked mom and dad complete with pre-pubescent boy and girl, past the naked fat lady bending over to collect sea shells. It was not pleasant. I just wanted to come back during the night time when my eyes had recovered and it was too chilly for nakedness.

Since the accommodation was free, we were able to spend our money at restaurants and buy souvenirs for future Couchsurfing hosts. We also hung out at clothes-only beach which was really nice. The whole place was packed with Germans who I am told own pretty much the whole beach and the Croatians don’t have enough money to buy them out. Obviously it is the place to go if you are German-speaking because half the signs were in German. We didn’t hear any English the whole time we were there.

We went back to Rijeka after 2 nights at Cres. We wanted to go to Bosnia but there was no reliable transportation out there on the day we needed to leave. We also found out that our Rijeka Couchsurfers’ landlord came over and kicked them out of their apartment. Something about a missing TV. I was a little worried about getting my bag back. Since we only took what we needed to the island, the rest of our stuff was floating around Rijeka somewhere. I got in contact with the Couchsurfers and they said that my bag was at someone’s parents’ house and it was safe. We returned to Rijeka and hung out some more with the friendly relocated Coushsurfers, I got my bag back and we got on the bus and headed back east to Belgrade.