Mongoose in disguise
As I was saying in the last post, the island of Mljet is one of the many National Parks dotted around Croatia (seriously, read the last post – I really did say that).. We arrived on the Island after about an hour on a Catamaran style boat from Dubrovnik’s Gruz Port. We stared blankly at everyone getting off the boat into their pre-arranged transport which seemed to lead to the only sane place on the island, over in Pomena. We watched as they all drove off, leaving us to stand by the roadside wondering how we were going to get to the same place. We stared blankly as the bus driver told us to get off the bus, and that he wasn’t going to Pomena, despite having “Sobra to Pomena” clearly written across the front of his bus. We stood wide-mouthed as his bus headed off into Pomena. So, we grabbed a shot of coffee over at the local café and used all of my charm, good-looks and wit to ask the bar-maid when the next bus to Pomena would be dropping by. “WHAT!?” she abruptly replied. “No bus here, car hire down the road”. Bugger.
And that’s when we started to fear for our lives…
Car hire doesn’t mean the same as it does in the UK. Car hire in the UK means getting a car. A complete one. It often has handling, safety records, and brakes. Mini BRUM (the leaflet implies you can check them out at www.mljet.hr) doesn’t necessarily regard that as too high on their list. They do have cars to rent that are furry. Oh yes, Innocent vans, eat your heart out. Our Fiat 126 convertible Roadstar Bugy is in fact very similar to the Fiat 126 Classic also on offer. The difference is that the roof has been sawn off with a very blunt blade.
It is green though.
So, using this monster of a car, we have spent the day speeding through the mountains along coastal roads, and past lakes to arrive safely in one piece at Pomena. I fell in love with Pomena instantly. It wasn’t just that I wanted to leap out of the car, kiss the ground, hug the nearest person and scream to the heavens how glad I was to still be alive. Our hotel is great, they have a room for us, this one even has things like introduction packs that explain how the mini-bar works, or reminding us that there’s a phone in the room. I know that should be sort of standard, but there was no such luxury at 1* Hotel Zupa. Locks that feel like they won’t come away in your hand, air conditioning that has a “low fan” setting that doesn’t sound like the inside of a 747, a shower that looks like it might stay up on its own with no need for bluetack, and a view, oh my god, what a view. Looking out across the bay to the island of Pomestak – our window has a great position in the hotel and onto the street below. You might be mistaken for thinking being above the kitchen isn’t great but leaning out looking at the sea with the smell of fresh cooked sea food on the barbeque is very rewarding.
This is a National Park right? We were promised mongoose, because they were all bought here to kill all of the poisonous snakes. Well, the mongoose must have been hunted as well – by eagles perhaps. Old woman also swallowed an eagle-eating animal like a rhino to catch the eagle, because we haven’t seen any of them either. Nor Rhinos. It’s either that, or the mongoose have become rather smart and hired a bunch of cat costumes from the local dress-n-go (throws off the eagles, see). Since we’ve been here. I’ve counted 9 cats, hundreds of butterflies, and one big grasshopper. No mongoose.
Maybe tomorrow once we have hired some bikes, we can cover more ground and find the areas with the eagles, giraffes, rhinos and mongoose. For now, we’ve been sitting between two big lakes Veliko Jezero, and Malo Jezero. I won’t tell you what that means, but I will give you a hint – one of them is large. And the other is quite small…
