Croatia Part Two: The National Parks

If you think the water at the coast is beautiful, well, you're no fool. But it has nothing on the water flowing through Croatia's rainforest-like national parks.

It took everything Charlie and I had not to jump into it (which apparently you could do up until 2006--sorry Charlie, we're a little late). Here was the plan: pick up a car, drive to Krka, check it out, find our lodging by blind luck, sleep; then spend a whole day at Plitvice, get back to our lodging, sleep a second night, go on a long run, and finally drive back to Split. And that is what we stuck to. I'll take you through each part: Krka.

Krka was amazing. We started our tour a kilometer above one of its scenic rivers. Then we walked a two kilometer loop, first down and then up the falls.

At the midpoint, I took more pictures than at any other point on the trip.

It was incredible.

Just layer upon layer of falling water. Go ahead, count the layers. 7 or 8, at least.

We met up with our colleague's family agian at that same midpoint, and took the second half of the loop up with them.

Wonderful. We swam in a freezing lake,

I rescued Charlie's Croc, while he warmed up--oh, and Suzy jumped about a mile in the air, a little later, when she squatted and nearly peed on a big snake. (Suzy hates snakes more than DeStefanos fear sharks.) Anyway, Suzy had a surprise in store for us after Krka. For our lodging during this part of the trip, she booked a tree house,

which apparently also had a small pool and a hot tub--or as I came to call it, a lukewarm tub.

It was great.

We all bunked up in a single room, next to another tree house with a friendly polyglot Belgian family staying in it. More about them in a bit, but we made dinner, ate, and went to bed early that first night. Why? Because Plitvice is the most popular park in Croatia, and Suzy realized we needed to try to beat the crowds. At first, I didn't know how right she was. By midday, I realized how fortunate we were for her great planning. Look at this picture.

We took it, thinking it would show you how clear the water was. The fish would hang out right at the top of a fall, swimming against the current of course, suspended in paradise unawares--to much too great a degree, at least. I thought about their state, but not for long, because the next thing I knew, I found myself waiting on this pathway for what felt like hours.

By then, though, we had seen the best parts of the park, and were actually just on our way back to the car. Thanks to Suzy, the incredible path we followed looked usually like this,

and we could stop to take pictures like this,

and this,

and like that,

not to mention pictures like these,

without feeling guilty for pausing.

Howsoever it was, first or last, freely moving like the water or bottled up in bubbling courtesy, our three made the most of it, and again showed Suzy and me what great travel partners they are. Of course, we had to show them how to strike a pose, European-style.

But what a day. Plitvice, on top of Krka, will stay with me forever.

I think I love waterfalls because they remind me that life moves. Like Suzy. What are any of these pictures, even the best of them, or of any of our thoughts, if they do not always reveal movement--if they do not recall in similitude of some memory lost somewhere the energy spent or spending, the rush, the sound and smell and sweep of first experience. Croatia pulsates, and that's its joy. It invites us to partake...

Aware or not, paradise is still paradise... Another night at the tree house, where Scout and Charlie were bossed around by two younger Belgian girls, who were first described to us as shy (--no, not shy at all!), and where Suzy and I declined the invitation to barbeque with their parents that night, because we embarrassingly only had canned lintels, canned corn, and two packs of instant rice to offer. Yeah, I think all five of us spent some time that night imagining how good Belgian barbecue was. Anyway, when morning came, unable to find a running path online, Suzy and I made our own path.

Suzy was pretty sure a pissed off pissed-on snake lurked around every corner, but she persevered. Actually, by the end of the run, we found this little sign pointing the way to another national park, our third.

I'm guessing it was still in planning, as we did not approach anything like an entrance before we had to turn around. We saw this sign, which was a mile or two up an endless dirt road. I can't read it,

but I feel pretty confident it says: "Keep Moving, You Two." And so we did. And so we do.

We turned around and headed back to the tree house, where we packed up our stuff and headed back down to Split... To be honest, Croatia took a while for us. Or I suppose it's more accurate to say, we took a while for Croatia, but we did get there, at last, and, along with many before us, we too fell head over heels for it. What a place, and what a way to start our second year in Europe.