Croatia Part 6

It was my sixth day in a foreign country and already I was feeling the mental strain of traveling. The immeasurable amount of fun was getting to me, it seemed. But I mustered up some strength after the late night (Spring and I went swimming) and got ready for a day of hiking in Paklenica Park. The terrain was mountainous, and the sheer volume of rock that stretched above our group pretty much blew my mind. People were rock climbing all around us. It reminded me of our rock-climbing unit in gym, where we used the handholds on the wall and had a touch a buzzer at the top of a twenty foot cliff for extra points. I couldn't make it to the top of those without feeling a bit faint, and this looked even more dangerous.

The hike up was beautiful and nicely challenging. At the top of the mountain we had food cooked "under the bell" for us, which means that it looked like it was covered with a huge pile of ash. In reality, the hot coals were sitting on top of the lid of a pot, which contained our food.

After we hiked down the mountain, everyone in our group decided to go to Zadar, a city that was not included in our tour. Our guide, because he's awesome, wanted to take us there to see the sunset and some sea organs.

In Zadar, palm trees flourished and the streets were white cobblestone. Roman ruins also littered the city (making me think of my latin-loving prom date). They were out for anyone to tough, climb on, whatever, which struck me as kind of odd, because if there were Roman Ruins in America we would put them in a glass box, cover the glass box in flaming poisonous spikes, and charge people twenty dollars to see them.

Zadar is by the sea as well, which frothed and foamed as seas are wont to do.

Our guide showed us the sea organs, which made noises like people blowing on the tops of many different bottles. The organs work when the sea goes and and down and pushes air through the pipes, making a sound. Around there was also this ritual of the "greetings to the sun." There are light representations of planets built flat into the ground that light up when the sun goes down. The sun one was huge, and apparently people go to it to dance.

Zadar ended up being my favorite place on the entire trip. It was beautiful, and it had the free beach air without being swarmed by annoying blonde girls with Valley-girl accents. The rest of my group didn't seem to share my sentiments, maybe because they were hungry for most of the trip.