Road to Plitvice

We intended to leave before lunch and eat in the Plitvice National Park (the bus from Zagreb to the lakes takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes)... but due to some complications (our "ride" fell asleep and we decided to take the bus that left around 12h40) we got there later... muuuuuuch later:
We were tired, and fell asleep in the trip... but I had the alarm clock set to ring after 2 hours (so that we could have about 10 minutes to wake up), and we actually even woke up earlier than the clock. We were awake for about 15 minutes or more when we stopped in the middle of nowhere... And João found out we had passed our stop. The guy that checks the tickets told us we were sleeping (yeah, thanks a lot for noticing and not awaking!) so we got out in that station and just waited for the next bus...that was due in about one hour. nice...



There was nothing there except for a not-so-inspired painting of the waterfalls as an advertising, and a coffee/restaurant for the travelers to have something before heading to the road again. On the way to the toilets you could see a lot of stuffed animals like foxes and rabits and deers and rabits (all sort of animals from that area) that were put in a way so that they would be drinking beer and playing cards! I wish I had taken a picture, put I was too pissed off to think about it, I suppose (I hate wasting time...).



So, we just walked around that area... the mountain was quite impressive, and the sense of space and abandon caused a strong impression on me. Aaaand, they had bears enclosed in the back of the restaurant (I wonder if they were kept as pets??).



When the other bus finally got there we found out we had to wait (yet again...) for about 30 minutes, since it was their "stop in the middle of the trip for eating"... oh well.



We eventually hoped on (and spent more money to go back...) and arrived at Plitvice at nightfall.
The owner of the Hostel went to pick us up (the house was pretty close, but his english was not that good and he was having trouble explaining the directions over the phone). The room was actually quite good: really warm and comfortable, and with a private bathroom.
And then we found out we almost had no money. João payed with euros, but we didn't have cash to return. How nice! And you know what? The next cash machine was 2 kilometers away. Aaaand, there was no bus going there, or cab, or any means of transportation. Aaaand (yes, it gets better!) it was already night, dead cold, and the only way of getting money was by foot, walking along the road (kind of like a highway). There was really not much light but we headed to the cash machine anyway. And you know what? There were traffic signs for the drivers to be careful with eventual bears. How cute! And my backpack had two big smelly sandwiches! Cool!
Basically we just walked for about one hour, telling stories of people being chased by bears, and people that got bitten by bears... and I even had time for "noivado do sepulcro", 'though I couldn't remember every word. It was actually quite fun. The return took us less time (we were hungry and the road was going down, so it helped). We had dinner at the (only) local restaurant and decided we were going to buy the tickets for the park around 7h a.m.,in order to have some quality time there before going back to Zagreb to take the train back to Budapest...

oh well, tomorrow I will show you Plitvice, because right now I have some homework for Processing to do.
See you tomorrow!