Though we found Borik the year before, we didn't want to go there because we wanted to see more of the coast. Going the north way would be too difficult, driving all the way from Rijeka, in the narrow space between the Velebit mountain and the coast, with the cliff being on our right side (one wrong move and you may be flying over), and there was no direct road to mid-coast, so we decided to take it from the lower end, through Bosnia. Of course we had some ćevapčići at Mrkva's on Baš Čaršija in Sarajevo, stopped south of Mostar on Buna, camped there again.
Went to Podgora, where the camp was on terraces, all of them almost bare stone, but all facing the shore. No shade but, hey, we came for some tan, right? Well, it was nice until the first serious wind. Dad had to pick a few larger stones and lay them around the tent, and then zigzag the nylon rope (which he otherwise used to tie the roofpack) across the tent lest it fly off. (or was that a year ago?)
We packed in the morning and made the next camp in one of the Kaštela. There are seven of them, and they are the string of villages on the coast WNW of Split. I think we were in Kaštel Gomilica (little heap castle). I got a serious sunburn, which mom said should be eased by spreading yogurt (croatian solid yogurt, not our liquid one). It did work, the burn has stopped, but I spent the time playing solitaire, and it shrunk my skin meanwhile. Just stretching my legs to get up was painful, specially below the knees. I got up somehow - can't stay like that, can I? - and washed it off in the sea. But twenty minutes after I got dry it started again, skin has soaked a lot of it. So I had to repeat a few times.
There I was translating for a couple of guys; one of them was hitting a really beautiful german girl... I don't know whether he had any success. She was laughing at all the right places, but I'm not sure she liked the guy. I'll never know.
Eventually we got tired with the shit literally* floating from the ships, the water was often dirty, so we went to Borik, giving up on the investigations.
(I first wrote this as happening in 1970, wrong.)(or not... I moved this into 1971 but then it does fit better into 1970)
Meanwhile, in a papirus boat, Thor Heyerdahl crossed from Marocco to Barbados. So if he could do it, then ancient Egyptians could as well. In current Egypt, the Asuan dam is finished. It will take six years to fill the lake.
About this time we established a rite, to set up the return so that we'd be home by dusk. It meant another nighting by Mostar, packing early in the morning and then scram, as fast as fića coul pull under full load, so that by dusk we'd pass Čenta. There we'd by a watermellon, sometimes two. The next day a detailed unpacking would ensue, putting everything back in its place. Some things had to be put into laundry, some had to be cleaned, lest something happens to them durint ghe eleven months they're stored until next use. Meanwhile, the watermellon would be cooled, not by dipping into the well (as described under august 1960.), the well is a cesspit now. It would be placed in a bucket under the garden tap, which would be open just enough to release the thinnest possible stream of water, which would uniformly cover the whole surface of the mellon. The ideal temperature was thus achieved - not too cold as it would have been from the fridge, which never had enough space for it anyway.
The mellon would be served after lunch, and then there'd be a siesta, which my [folks] practiced every summer day after lunch, who'd ever do anything else during the swelter. I wouldn't join them, ever since obdanište I lost the knack and affinity to sleep during the day (because there I had to, or at least had to pretend), and this way I had the whole house to myself, on the condition of not disturbing anyone's sleep. So I'd read whatever I'd find, wasted time this way or that, played in the yard.
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* notice how I took the word 'literally' literally literally.
25-VII-2016 - 29-VII-2026