Island Hopping

Due to our unfortunate timing we missed out on the opportunity to go on the busabout island hopping cruise due to being fully booked months in advance. So…. what do these creative travellers do when faced with such hardship and first world problems? We make a plan and we do it for a tenth of the price. We would stay in Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik and do some sort of island hopping adventure from each.

So there we were in Split, hot and bothered after our bus ride from Plitvice. Immediately the atmosphere had changed. We hopped out of the bus to large crowds of young travellers filling up the streets. Bars and coffee shops lined the pavements and music could be heard everywhere. Beautiful people lined the streets in boardies and bikinis.

We started attempting to interpret our very well written yet incredibly uninformative directions to get to our hostel, Crow Paradise Green Hostel. On the way we headed past the palace walls, harbour boardwalk and fruit and clothing markets until eventually getting to the park mentioned in the directions. Here we could see these young comrades of ours passed out on matresses and strange sleeping devices all over the grass with the previous night’s music still playing on the small stage. The Ultrafest afterparties were officially beginning that day.

After a few locals helped us with directions we finally found our hostel down a small alleyway. This is probably the dodgiest little hostel entrance ever as it consisted of a little green gate attached to an old rickety building with drunk old ladies roaming the alley. A little worried, we walked in, between the washing lines to a small reception and were completely surprised. Large Apple computer desktops with high tech receptionists were ready and waiting to help us out.

We still hadn’t become wise to the fact that everything in Croatia operates in cash, probably the reason why the hostel can afford to be so High Tech, so we headed to the nearest ATM. Finally we had paid and were ready to go. Our receptionist, let’s call him Dave due to my poor memory, showed us to our hostel. Dave led us back through the alleys and around a couple of blocks pointing out bottle stores and grocery stores until arriving at what looked like a run down little apartment block. Still not sure what to think of this situation we went with it anyway.

We walked up a couple of flights of stairs and opened the door only to be greeted with a fantastic surprise. This was probably the cleanest and most well equipped hostel so far on this trip. They had created an apartment vibe with three dorm rooms sharing a kitchen, toilets, showers and an epic balcony. Every room was four or five sleeper and opened into the common area. The common area had large floor to ceiling high mirrors so you could stare at yourself and boost your ego a bit.

Every bedroom had its own laptop to share as well as an aircon and a flat screen TV equipped with showbox. For anyone who doesn’t know what this is, it is a movie and tv series streaming setup that is in a grey area of being legal or supporting piracy. Very strange but suits us well. Here we met our roommates Mat and Flo that are somewhere between dating and being friends. Still not sure.

After having a lunch time snack at our dining room table, hell yeah, we headed out to see the city of Split. We headed to the port to book our ferries to Hvar and then to Dubrovnik. This was pretty easy as we already knew which ferry company was the quickest and cheapest – Jadrolina to get from Split to Hvar and Kaptain Luka to get from Hvar to Dubrovnik. Just beware that Hvar to Dubrovnik does not operate everyday and it has only one ferry on the days it does operate. We were just a little lucky that our days and accommodation lined up.

Anyway, back to Split. Split is by no means the most beautiful city in Croatia but it has become known as the party city of Croatia and the dock for all major island hopping yachts and yacht companies. This has transformed the city into a young adult’s paradise where the most beautiful of the beautiful hang out. Every beach is filled, every boardwalk is vibrant and busy and every night is a jam. We walked along one of the many boardwalks going East until our legs started to feel like jelly before heading back. We even dipped our toes in the extremely busy Croatian sandy beach that basically felt like mud and slush. The only thing Croatia hasn’t got going for it is beautiful sandy beaches.

We headed back and grabbed some groceries to finally make a good old fasioned Croatian home cooked meal. At last…. we had a kitchen. We prepared our rolled meat known as Cevapi in Croatia with veggies, some pasta as a side and some gravy. The Cevapi is basically a spiced minced meat that is rolled up to look like a sausage without its casing. This is delicious. We then grabbed a bottle of wine and some beer and joined our roommates for a drink.

As the evening progressed and epic stories were shared, ideas started flowing about the eveninegs festivities. At the perfect time Ultraman formally known as Cameron had an idea. Just a bit of backing, Ultraman had achieved this name after attending Ultrafest in Split over the last three days and had described it using every adjective in the English language… awesome, epic, amazing, crazy, fantastic…

He had come across a few spots that he advised us to check out and joined us for the evening. After a crowd started to gather and the hour was nigh, we headed out to our first bar in the old palace. This is a watering hole for backpackers from around the world. The name has already been forgotten. After building up a bit more of a crowd we headed out to another spot near the marina, of which the name has also disappeared from our recovering minds.

Here there was a stage with some serious electro and trance music rocking our worlds. It was amazing. Various pop up parties had formed all over Split, celebrating the end of Ultrafest in the most debaucherous manner possible. At some stage during this mess of festivities we made our way back to bed, minus one member, in the comfort of Crow Paradise.

Needless to say, no alarm was set and we would wake up when we wake up.

We managed to surface from our beds round 13:00 with barely enough energy to brush our teeth without our heads hurting. Today would be a bit of a slow day. We chilled out, ate breakfast and  showered at a snail’s pace while our heads calmed down. We then put on MTV and watched some strange teen reality show, because thats what ‘Music’ TV has become, while reorganising our bags. Our excuse was to ‘miss the heat of the day’ before heading out to check out Split.

Eventually round 16:00 we headed out to see the palace of old town. The palace, as far as we are aware, is an old Roman retirement palace where the only Emperor of Rome died of old age. He spent his retirement in Split. It is a medieval palace made up of small winding and dead-end streets, weaving around a central cathedral on a property of about  two acres. It has large underground vaulted rooms that have now been claimed as a market, primarily for tourists. The strange little streets have now become home to restaurants that have taken over the steps as seating space for their guests, and tourist information offices forming the foundation of many of the small buildings. It is quite quaint passing through this area. We then meandered in through the old town towards the viewpoint in the Marjan park. This walk took us through squares and plazas until we hit the suburbs of Split. First it was the small medieval homes that had beautiful small gardens and seemed to continue up the sides of these stone houses and along pergolas and fences. Then we seemed to reach the rich newer suburbs, sporting large roads and properties with Mercedes, Audis and BMWs. Here we found ourselves continuing up large hills towards the mountainous Marjan park. Once we reached the viewpoint we realised just how big Split is and how it seems to be surrounded by mountains, oceans and islands in the distance. This busy little city looks far more beautiful from afar.

After taking advantage of some photo oportunities we decided to head up another hill in hope of finding something exciting. This consisted of a break at almost every bench wwr could find to chill out and admire the view. Or just give our jelly legs a break. Eventually we made it to our summit base camp. Here we found a viewpoint looking over the ocean, a tiny little church and loads of locals running around this park with their pets and young kids. Here we chilled out for a bit and decided to skip the summit for once on this trip and feed our hungry stomachs.

On a positive note, due to the previous night’s alcohol being cheaper than food and causing us to wake up late and not being able to stomach an early breakfast, we somehow found ourselves back on budget due to not needing to buy lunch. How often can you actually say that a night out drinking and partying can save your budget.

We headed down to the the Western boardwalk heading East to check out Split from a different angle. Here we found many small boat yards, and once again loads of bars and restaurants reminding me of the V & A Waterfront in Cape Town. It was a little classier and looked fantastic as the sun was setting. Nevertheless we finally made it home to our little Crows nest and chilled out in our airconditioned room.

We cooked an exact repeat of the previous night’s dinner before heading to bed. It was an early morning and ferries needed catching.

We woke up bright and early and headed out to the port. We arrived 45 minutes early and let me tell you… it was definitely the right move. We arrived with about ten people queuing up in front of us and after about 15 minutes the pier was teaming with people, half of which would not have a seat on the ferry. We were catching a catamaran ferry to Hvar due to the shallow waters. Only passenger ferries could make the journey. Jadrolina was the ferry to take as it is very cheap and incredibly fast. The entire ferry would lift up in the front as if it were a small speed boat.

The massive engines took the catamaran to speeds faster than any small boat or jetski. It really was a great experience with a window seat to watch the many large and small islands we passed on the way to Hvar.

We arrived in Hvar round 12 and headed for our hostel in hopes of an early check in. Helvetica Hostel is a family run hostel with hostel rooms and apartments. We had an apartment which was glorious. Our host checked us in early and walked us over to the apartment about 5 minutes walk and an infinite number of stairs later. We found ourselves in a small family home on the edge of the old town city wall.

Here we walked down a path with a view of both the wall and the newer suburbs.

This path was filled with olive trees used for olive oil and lavender bushes creating a fantastic scent to surround the house. Here we were introduced to the hostel owner’s family and taken to the apartment round the back. The apartment was still being cleaned, but we dropped off our bags anyway.

First up in Hvar was a brief exploration of the old town and its winding medieval streets.

It’s important to note that large portions of Croatia have Venetian influence due to being part of the Venetian empire. A large number of islands are filled with the same speckled tiled rooves, colourful houses and small maze-like streets. We headed towards the tour company we had heard about and to confirm and pay for our three caves tour for the next day. All in all we were accustoming ourselves to the ins and outs of the city and how everything operates.

After a bit of exploration we headed over to the apartment to unpack a little, settle in and check it out. We were loaded with a few creature comforts – air conditioner, WiFi, large bed, kitchen, private bathroom and a television. Even though everything was in Hrvatski (Croatian), French, Turkish and German it didn’t matter. We chilled out for ten minutes basking in the sounds of some Croatian soapie like true TV addicts.

Finally the hunger set in and we went in search of a good affordable restaurant. It was time to scour the back allies of Hvar. After a while we arrived at a restaurant that boasted a beautiful garden and terrace at the far end of a fishnet-lined corridor.

We entered through and were immediately convinced. The garden wrapped up onto a pergola providing shade. Grapes hung from the creeping vines making it feel like we were sitting in a vineyard in the middle of the city. Orange trees burst out of the paved surface with fresh oranges growing on them. The greenery lowered the temperature, cooling us down immediatly.

More importantly, the price was affordable. For 200kn I was able to have half a kilogram of calamari with a large portion of fries and two drinks and Steph managed to have a large pork schnitzel with fries with one drink. It was a good positive start to our stay in Hvar.

After lunch we did a bit of grocery shopping with the intention of testing our fully equipped kitchen that evening. Feeling a little tired by the extreme heat, we headed back to the apartment for a bit of a nap in our icy cold room. This ended up being a TV and Skype session instead.

With our energy back we tasked our bodies to another energy sucking stair climbing activity to reach the castle at the top of the hill. As we wandered through the park we started catching glimpses of Hvar and its many surrounding islands. It was an exciting experience as we ascended further.

Once at the top we realised that all our money was safe at home and therefore had no means of entering the castle. This was probably for the better as the park provides you with almost the exact same view that the castle offers. So we sat and enjoyed this for a while, counting how many islands we could see in the distance.

After a while we decided it was time to indulge in some creative cooking. We headed back to our apartment and started cooking. The final concoction was a pasta al dente with chicken breast and a pesto-mushroom reduction. This was topped off with some local beer and some British cider. A chilled out evening leaving our stomachs full and our hearts happy. We were ready for bed and ready for the next day’s excursion.

We woke up incredibly excited and readied ourselves for a full day of island hopping with Iliro’s Three Cave Tour through Atlas Tours. This took up our full budget but was totally worth it. It included three caves, the island of Vis and Bisevo as well as the most famous fishing village in Croatia known as Komiža. We headed down to meet our guides and were split up into groups. We hopped onto our small rubber duck with barely enough space for the nine of us and headed out of the harbour at high speed. Well… as high speed as the little 100cc engine could take us without burning out.

The first half hour of the tour was at a flat out pace passing numerous small islands. Some with one restaurant and nothing else. Some with only eight residents and some with eight hundred. It was a beautiful high speed trip. Eventually we stopped somewhere between Vis and Hvar. It was a point of complete nothingness where all you could see was the vastness of the ocean spreading in every direction. It really struck at the right note.

Here we had a quick breakdown as to how the islands were formed from tectonic plates smashing into each other.

As the smashed plates spiked out of the water, portions of the plates crashed back down leaving sheer cliff faces that extend out over the water. Due to many years of being battered by the wind, these cliff faces have eroded to created a beautiful pattern of streaky lines pulled across the surface.

After giving us a moment we headed towards the Green Cave – the first cave on our tour.

The Green Cave is a swimmable cave that appears to be green due to the angle of the sun’s penetration and the depth of the water.

The colour of any ocean is dependent on its depth. Deep blue oceans are far deeper than green oceans. We snorkelled around and dived out of the boat a couple of times while trying to see the green hue. To be honest, we didn’t see it. When we swam under water we could see a magnificent blue. The hole at the top of the cave let a steady stream of direct light through the water, drawing us to the speckled colour of the rocks below. Here you could feel the divine power of nature’s beauty. But sadly it was time to leave our little hideout.

We headed out at high speed once again, enjoying the soothing wind blowing all drops of water off our wet skin. Now we started to feel a layer of salt plastered to our faces and tangling our hair up into dreadlocks. Our tour guide explained that the Mediterranean is one of the saltiest oceans in the world as well as one of the shallowest and warmest. It made sense but it did mean needing a shower after every swim.

We arrived at the Blue Cave which had a dock filled with boats and a queue an hour long, so we moved on with the intention of coming back later. So we headed around the island and landed at our first unofficial stop. A small little alcove appeared in front of us, appearing as ordinary as any other Croatian island alcove. This one however had a little secret.

A small underwater cave that required you to swim under the entrance and chill out in your own space. Here the water was just shallow enough to stand and get to know the rest of our boat mates a little better. We chilled out here for a while chatting in our own little bubble before moving on to our first official stop.

A small sandy beach, one of the few in Croatia. Once again the beach appeared to be mud rather than the beautiful South African sand we are used to… Spoilt. The beach sat in a small bay with the only residents in the area being the beach side restaurant. Here you could sit under a small leafy canopy and enjoy the view out over the beach and the small bay. We were far too young and free for such a quaint little spot so we headed straight for the beach. Here we laid out our Barcelona blanket and made ourselves at home. After a quick dip we grabbed the last night’s leftovers and had an early lunch. We chilled out for a while and basted our bodies in sun cream. Eventually we made it into the water and really started to appreciate the splendour of such a clear and shallow water.

Here you can see the glistening of the sun’s reflection waving across the sea bed. It really is quite spectacular. Time closed in on us quickly and it was time to go. We hopped on our boat and sped out of the bay. We then made our way to a beautifully deep alcove with some natural granny pools for the non-swimmers and small cliff jumps for some family fun. Here we messed around and got to know each other a little better. It was hard to believe how close you could be to land and how deep the ocean floor could be at the same time. 

We soon headed off to check out a few small caves before hitting the great Monk Seal Cave.

It was far larger than the previous caves stretching three hundred meters into the island. It is thusly named due to it being the home to a large Monk seal for many years. We headed inside on the boat and turned around the corner. The light was gone and it took a while for our eyes to adjust to the nothingness. Our skipper cut the engine and let us bask in the sound of a slow dripping of water in what seemed to be a vast expanse of darkness. After giving us a moment once again we headed to the misty rays protruding through the cave’s entrance. It was now time for another break.

We headed for Komiža, a small fishing village on the island. It is the most famous fishing village in Croatia. It has eight hundred inhabitants living in a very Venetian-styled village.

Every one of these inhabitants has their own small boat and fishes for a living. So you can be sure that any seafood you order in this village would be freshly caught.

The day had passed quickly and it was finally time to head for the most anticipated event of the day…. the Blue Cave. We weren’t sure what to expect as the Green Cave had been somewhat disappointing compared to the epic photographs we had seen prior. The Blue Cave forms part of a government-run national park. You cannot enter with your own boat or on your own accord. In fact, you wouldn’t really know where the entrance is as a first timer. We exited our our rubber duck, purchased our tickets and hopped into our government financed boat that put in perspective that most governments do things on the cheap wherever possible. The boat looked barely maintained and the engine vibrated the entire boat with a heavy gutteral sound embedding itself deep in our eardrums.

The boat rounded a corner and headed directly for a crack in the cliff face. A crack so small I wouldn’t have attempted it paddling a surf board…. or so it seemed. It was just large enough for the boat to squeeze through with our heads tucked between our knees. Our minds were blown.

The water in this cave resembles a blue that is hard to describe or even capture in a photograph. It is somewhere between a light sky blue and a dark ocean blue with a neon glow that lights up the whole cave. Sun enters into the cave through an underwater entrance. The rays bounce off the ocean bed and reflect up into the cave, making the surface of the water glow as it does. It’s really quite stunning.

We soon headed out and hopped back onto our boat. One last spot was on the agenda…. the famous Vis Cove Beach. The island seems to have a triangular pizza slice cut out of it. You enter a cove that slowly narrows towards a rocky outcrop near its tip. As you move through the cove you start to realise that beyond the narrow rocky outcrop lies a small rocky beach, seemingly hidden from the rest of the world…. except for the many superyachts chilling outside in the bay.

Once we moved through the outcrop the cove opened up and a small beach-shack type reataurant opened up, serving cold beer and snacks. We had the last swim of the day before hopping on our ride and heading back home.

The boat whisped across the misty ocean, passing islands that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. We arrived back in Hvar a little drained and tired after a full day in the sun and salty seas. We decided to go simple and easy for dinner. We grabbed a pizza from Feta Pizzaria and walked down to the small park at the dock, and by small I mean a patch of grass with a couple of trees and four benches.

Here we feasted for the evening while getting excited for for the next day’s ferry ride to Dubrovnik with Kaptain Luka.