Day 4 – Excursion to Kravica Falls and Mostar
4th Jan, 2023
As agreed with our host, today we have to be at the taxi rank outside Pile Gate at 8 am. A few minutes before 8 am, in fact, as the taxi can’t stop there for more than 3 mins. Early starts not our favorite, but we do.
Our driver, a pleasant young guy. introduces himself as Marco, and we set off. He is very talkative, and during the day, we learn a lot about him, his family, the regions we are driving through, interesting and funny anecdotes, as well as some history.
We hear about nearby “hidden” towns where the rich and famous from Hollywood holiday. Zaton – good for families thanks to its sandy beach, shallow waters, and tiled path for disabled access. Slano, we hear, used to have salt mines, but now a tourist resort beach like everything else on the Adriatic coast.
Pretty little Ston
We are headed to Ston, a quaint little town in Croatia enroute. It is described as a mini-Dubrovnik, which makes me wonder why we are going there. Marco gives us a choice: do we want to see the Kravica water falls, or explore Ston? He seems to want us to go to Ston, as he piles many disadvantages of the water falls: the tickets are expensive, you have to walk a lot down and uphill, etc. I kind of start feeling that maybe we should just give in to his advice. But luckily, the B is made of sterner stuff: he firmly but politely says we will go see the water falls.
Ston is on the way anyway, so we stop for 15 mins to stretch our legs and make a few pics of this pretty place. Its walls are supposed to be the longest fortification wall after the Great Wall of China.
The Chinese-built bridge
As we drive off, Marco starts ranting about a road the Chinese built. After some clever questioning, I understand that the Croatian government gave a road and bridge building contract to a Chinese company. This is just the beginning of the end, he warns us. He sounds like a nationalistic sort of chap: he dislikes goods imported from the EU, and the Euro itself. He calls the imported EU vegetables a pile of junk. According to Marco, grocery stores have lowered their standards by selling them. This concept seems to tie in with the scarcity of aubergine we noticed in restaurants the last two days: if many Croatians were against imported vegetables, that would explain why off-season vegetable dishes are not available now.
I say Marco rants, but not really. He is quite a pleasant companion, very informative and entertaining. And a very confident and safe driver too. Soon we are driving over the Chinese-built road. It looks spanking new: apparently it was opened for traffic just a few months ago, in Sep 2022, and has barely seen any use. We reach one end of the Chinese bridge (which is officially called Peljesac Bridge), and stop at a view point and rest area.
The BBC reports about its opening (27th Jul 2022):
Hailed as one of the biggest moments in Croatian history, a long-awaited bridge has opened that links southern coastal areas to the rest of the country.
Until now, Croatians had to cross land belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The 2.4km (1.5-mile) Peljesac bridge was built by China but largely funded by the European Union.
Celebrations took place throughout the day, with 250 runners crossing the bridge and small boats with Croatian flags sailing beneath the six pylons.
It looks spectacular on this winter morning, with bits of morning mist clinging to the mountains behind. There is no one else there in the rest area but us and a few Adriaticats. I don’t miss the opportunity to pet and croon to them.
This bridge eliminates the ridiculous 2 border crossings with Bosnia to go from one place within Croatia to another! Marco explains how this can be a 3 hour wait at each border crossing in the high season. We thankfully drive across the bridge.
Crossing into Bosnia Herzegovina
We ask Marco why there is an intervening piece of Bosnia jutting into Croatia – it seems so illogical to have divided up the erstwhile Yugoslavia in this way. He readily explains: they wanted to give a piece (albeit tiny!) of the coast to Bosnia, which otherwise, would be completely land-locked. Also, he says, the coast and beach that belongs to Bosnia, provides a safe beach for its Muslim women – they are modest and shy and prefer a secluded beach. (I don’t understand why a Bosnian beach is more preferred by Muslim women, but the rest of the argument I get).
Onwards. In about an hour, we cross the Croatian-Bosnian border, at a sleepy non-descript little town called Metkovic on the Croatian side. Again we feel as though we have severely outsmarted the summer crowds by doing this trip in winter, and hence not having to queue up at this border crossing for hours! But, there’s always a but, we are told that today a thick fog envelops Mostar. Marco’s girlfriend, who is from Mostar, though living now in Croatia, has heard from her relatives about the fog. Winter fog is typical for the valleys of River Neretva, such as the one where Mostar is situated, surrounded by high hills.
Kravica waterfall
The above-mentioned fog is already making its appearance along the fields in the middle distance. In 45 mins from the border, we arrive at the Kravica waterfall (pronounced kra-vitt-ssa).
At the ticket counter, B pays with his distinctive orange ING bank card. The ticket agent infers that we are from Holland, and shows off a bit of his Dutch. I feel a bit proud that ING is recognized in remote corners of the world. We are the second visitors of the day. We stroll down at a leisurely pace, take misty photos all around, hearing the roar of the waterfalls getting louder and louder. We turn around a bend, there it is! The magnificent falls. Truly as spectacular as they advertise in all the travel websites. Our first glimpse is through the mist, all the more special and beautiful in a different way.
The waterfall consists of a semi-circular amphitheater of cliffs, about 25 meters high, over which the waters of the Trebižat River cascade. Unlike other falls, the water does not fall into a deep pool, but a friendly shallow one, where in summer, people can bathe and play. Reminds me of Kuttraalam falls in South India (see Tamil Nadu tourism info), the first ever waterfalls I have seen and bathed under as a child during a family vacation.
We just wander around the edge of the pool, and follow the river down for a short while. The mist clears slowly, and when we turn back towards the falls, we get clearer views with the morning sun rays slanting in.
On a whim, as we walk out, I compliment the ticket agent for the beautiful falls his country has to offer – he grins in delight.
Mostar
The whole stop at the falls is just over an hour. We drive on towards Mostar, in my mind, the prize of the day. We roll into a quiet open parking lot in Mostar, next to a church with a tall tower (built, it seems, to rival the minarets of the mosques on the other side of the river!) This is a town deeply divided by religion. It has seen bloodshed and destruction in the name of these religious divisions.
It is past noon. Marco solicitously walks with us into the old town, keeping up his running commentary about the town, its history, its people, everything. He studied here in Mostar. Guess what he majored in? Tourism studies! The irony was not lost on him that they do not offer that study in Dubrovnik, the capital of tourism! He says everything – studies, living, food – is way cheaper in Mostar (and Bosnia) compared to Dubrovnik.
He recommends a restaurant he knows well for our lunch – and even reserves a table for us. Guess he has a little deal with the restaurant to bring his “bakras*” to this place. The important business of lunch settled, we walk on to the bridge. The prize we came to see!
*Bakra means goat in Hindi, and is used here to mean persons who are helpless innocents – “sacrificial lambs” in a way.
It is underwhelming. I have a sense of anti-climax. I mean, it’s old and nice and all, but… where are the brilliant views?! Not only all the tourist websites on Mostar have mind-blowing photos, but also that YouTube cliff diving video showed it at its best. Built from a single stone, they said. Great views they said. It’s special they said. Lies, all lies. (Well, okay, the bridge has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, and the original single stone construction is gone for centuries now). And the damn pics are all from summer.
We walk on the cobbled street leading to the bridge. The bridge is paved with slippery smooth white limestone, with horizontal thresholds at intervals for better grip. This is the most crowded place we experience during this holiday: we join some 10’s of tourists that are milling about on the bridge, taking photos, while locals walk past deftly avoiding us.
Soon we get back to the restaurant to have lunch. Marco leaves us here with a time fixed for our return to the car. It is a sort of middle-eastern cuisine, very similar to the Turkish fare you get in Amsterdam. I order a sort of vegetable stew over rice, but find that the Bosnian version of this dish has a very different fat rice. Not as tasty as the type you get in Amsterdam, and by virtue of that, I’d say healthier. So far haven’t had much luck with tasty veg meals.
After lunch we walk down to the river below the bridge, and get some decent pics of the bridge, and a few hardy mallard ducks swimming there. We get back on the bridge, and walk to the other side. More local market. I buy a cheap memorabilia magnet of the bridge. The whole place has a Middle Eastern feel to it (not surprising, this side of the bridge is the Muslim side). Those glass-mosaic lamps, mosaic design dishes, a few mosques dotting the landscape, also the prayer sounds from them.
Though it’s not even 3 pm, the sun is behind the hills now. No more photo opps today. After getting home I regret not asking Marco to take us to the next bridge, from which the views of Mostar old bridge would have definitely been better than from being right on it.
On the drive home, I snooze for the most part. When I awake, a glorious sunset is going on to our right, over the sea. Marco greets me with, “Good morning! Did you have a nice sleep?” We resume our chatter for the rest of the way. I invite him to visit India if he can – I think he’ll like it. He says, “Yes, it’s one of my dreams! I have many dreams… we’ll see…” I hope he can and does.
This evening, I want pizza. No experiments. Oliva turns out to be a good pizza restaurant, they even have an artichoke pizza (aubergine is too much of a stretch). Finally a nice dinner! Back in our apartment, we decide to watch more of the Red Bull cliff diving: Mostar 2019, and on to other exotic and adventurous locations in Spain and Lebanon. In all, we are very happy with the day trip. True that the bridge didn’t wow me in real life, but we watched the best shots of it through these videos!