Biking Around Again

The Promised Land.  Oranges and lemons.  Grapes and grapefruit.   Olives and palm trees.  Kiwis and pomegranates.  Wine and olive oil.  Rain instead of snow.  Mostar was close.  Dalmacija was the real deal.  We may not have found the Mediterranean, but we found the Mediterranean climate.  The Adriatic is, apparently, close enough.

The road to the promised land, in this case, followed the beautiful, blue Neretva River.  We found the Neretva at Konjic and spent another frozen night just downstream.  A fantastic gorge brought us to Mostar and our first taste of things to come.  Women sold oranges by the side of the road, and I saw my first palm tree of the trip.  Late afternoon a day later, a bit lost, crossing back and forth over the Neretva River, a woman gave us a small bag of kiwis from the large bag she had just picked.  We found the border in the morning, entered Croatia, and spent two nights camped at the edge of a mandarin orange orchard in the Neretva delta.

Torrential rain trapped us in the tent for two days, but we were warm and dry and thrilled with the endless supply of fresh oranges.  Promised land indeed.  It was probably snowing up in the mountains in Bosnia.  We were also blissfully unaware of how poorly “waterproof” the bags that remained on our bikes were.

Happy Thanksgiving and bags of wet books and wet clothes.  We celebrated the holiday by crossing yet another border, getting a fancy room for the night in Neum, and making a yummy pasta dinner.  Is this really far enough south?  Will winter catch up again?  Stay tuned.

Bundling up for another descent:

Continue reading →