Haircut
This day would turn out to be as a great day. I set off early, around 7 am, and remembered that I had to get a haircut. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to have a very pleasant experience for a low cost, you gotta come here: I paid 10 Kunas, granted, I am not a very hairy guy, but that translated to just over a Euro. And it was a very friendly lady, while she did not speak the language, we still communicated seamlessly. Well, now 12 years later, there is no more Kuna and I have even less hair.
In the town of Ogulin, I learnt a lesson, which I will now share with you: don't go shopping when you're hungry. I did exactly that and it wasn't a good idea. It was a nice and shiny Billa and I somehow forgot that I was on a bike and, in addition, I already made some purchases early in the morning. There was a school class visiting the town, it has a nice castle, but instead they amused themselves watching me trying, in vain, to fit the things in my already swollen bike bags. The solution was simply to eat most of the goodies I had purchased.
The caretaker at the castle recommended a road, where I felt like in Biker's Paradise, no traffic, nice views, rolling hills and it took me all the way to Slunj, a town only 30 km's short of yet another national park, the Plitvice Lakes. WOW, WOW, WOW. Imagine this: you have a big lake at the top and then one below it and one below it and...it goes on. Now these lakes are connected with waterfalls and are so pristine, surrounded by mountains. Sometimes you go to a place, thinking, "yeah, it was nice, whatever", but this is really one-of-a-kind. There are paths of wooden platforms, which take you right over the lake almost into the waterfalls. There is even a boat cruise included in your admission...and as if I hadn't had enough of sports, I rented a boat (this was at 7 pm, so was all alone) on one of the many lakes. I must admit I do not recall rowing on the lake, 12 years later. Hello, brain, wake up!
It was once again getting dark (weird, that happens almost every evening) and I still felt like riding on, so I did...a few kilometers up, then a nice roll downhill, right into the next country, Bosnia-Hercegovina. They looked somewhat puzzled at the biker crossing at 10 pm, but they still let me in. The first thing I noticed was a tall tower and it wasn't a church...but a mosque and yes, the muezzin started praying (hint: I was in a Muslim area - the country itself being a mix of Muslims, Orthodox Christians and Catholics). Some other first (or almost-first) impressions: they have a bunch of bakery stands next to the road open late in the evening selling burek and bread, the Mercedes riding through town by about 200 km/h (my parents get this as well, so I won't mention how close it went by), the TV set on a hillside surrounded by 20 people (there is the Eurocup going on - but this was in 2012 - today there are probably more TV sets than people) and the cemeteries with a half moon, not the cross, over the graves.
I got to the town of Bihac, with free Wifi in town (however, I was unable to make it work). Finding an accommodation was easy: I stopped at a cafe, the waiter there called someone, who picked me up by car and led me to a small, but very nice hotel. I went to bed only around half past one, and had a really good night`s sleep, in anticipation of new adventures !