Croatia – June 2017

Disclaimer: The first half of my Croatia blog deals – in debatably unnecessary and gratuitous levels of detail – with two bouts of illness of rather sensitive areas, brought about or exacerbated by walking in hot climates.  If you think that you might be sickened or offended by reading such material, then you are welcome to skip to the text after Return to the Wild, by which time all the distress is over and done with.  I included them because they dominated my life for 2-3 weeks, and if you are planning a walk, or have similar symptoms to me, then perhaps my experiences can help you to avoid the nasty situation I found myself in….

Plitvice Lakes (Jezera), problems downstairs

I neglected to mention in my Bosnian blog post, as it mainly came to affect my time in Croatia, that on my planned last night in Bosnia, for the second time since setting off from Istanbul, I was laid low with the shits.  I was forced to spend a day in the hostel; feverish, and needing quick access to the toilet; I was in no condition to leave.  Using previous experiences of food poisoning as a guide, I assumed that it would be a 24-hr thing, and so the next day I set off for the Croatian border, a mere 10 km away.  I had ambitious plans of making it to the Croatian coast in 4 days, at which time I had to break the walk attend a family gathering.   I felt far from 100%, but reasoned that that was just residual weakness left over from the fury of the day before.  I believed the disease to be vanquished, and so I set off confidently enough.  I made it to the border without any trouble, the crossing was smooth and entirely uneventful and by early afternoon I was in Croatia.  I made it to the first village I could see on my map, only to find that 40% of the buildings are vacant and crumbling, and many were pockmarked with bullet holes; there wasn’t a soul to be seen.  The signs outside one of the buildings indicate that it used to be a bar, but it had evidently been closed a long time (1).  I wasn’t surprised or shocked – as it was a depressingly familiar scene from Bosnia.  I could see that it was another 10 km on a lonely jeep track through thick woodland to the main visitor centre of the Plitvice Lakes (Jezera) National Park.  At this point my bowels reminded me that they weren’t done with me yet.  I began to feel feverish again, with cold sweats, cramps, and a difficulty to concentrate.  Luckily the thick forest by the track and total lack of people meant there was no chance of anyone seeing me as I periodically tensed up and ran for cover into the woods, fumbling with my belt whilst running, with a curious tight buttocked gait.  I realised with hindsight that I had been foolish to set off on such a hot day across unknown countryside, whilst there was a risk I was still sick.

So, weakened and feverish, I finally came to the end of my jeep track, crossed a huge car park, and entered the main reception area of the national park.  Since starting the walk in January, I had become accustomed to being a lone foreigner amongst locals, with the exception of whilst in major cities.  Now I was confronted by hundreds of my fellow travellers, compressed into a small space, people from literally all over the world.  The culture shock was intense.  I heard a myriad of different languages, and Cripes, there were even native English speakers!  I worked out that the last time I had conversed at length with a native English speaker was the night I spent with Lee and Mel at Melania guest house (2) in the Rhodopi mountains of Bulgaria, 3 and a half months ago (!).  Now whilst I had some had conversations with Balkan locals whose English was excellent during those months, the majority were stumbling halting ones using my hands, my rudimentary German, and google translate.  I do love these conversations, but the novel prospect of chatting away for hours in my own language, without a partial language barrier hindering comprehension, was a sweet one.  I hitched a lift to the nearest campsite, managed to get a little cabin to sleep in, and sonically located a Kiwi couple, sat on their porch a few cabins away from mine, chatting with an American.  I dropped off my stuff and then sidled over – “hello?  Do you mind if I join you? It’s been a while since I’ve chatted with native English speakers…”.  In my delight at the change in fluency of conversation, I stayed up late with them, and had a couple of shandies, my diseased state be damned.

I headed for bed at around midnight, and tried to go to sleep.  My stomach was churning, growling, and angry – I had knowingly gambled with my health this day, with a long walk in the heat of the day, followed by staying up late into the night chatting, and I had lost.   It turns out I don’t have superhuman powers of healing, I got precious little sleep that night, and was dogged by ill health for the next 2-3 weeks.

The next day, I ended up dosing up on generic Imodium, and visiting the Plitvice Lakes. They are a breathtakingly beautiful cascade of terraced lakes separated by fragile travertine limestone dams (3).  The water is crystal clear, and is of constantly changing colour from blues to greens, depending on the time of day, and the varying dissolved chemical content.  I got some nice snaps of the water and the waterfalls, but ultimately my enjoyment of them was limited by my miserable state.  The toilets were few and far between, there were thousands of people crammed on to the wooden walk ways, and I was terrified of having an uncontainable emergency.  Thankfully I made it through the park and out the other side without disgracing myself.  Out the other side of the park, found a cheap guesthouse, and slept for 11 hours.  The next day I figured that I must be better after so much restorative sleep, and walked on another 20 km across a land much scarred by the fighting of the Croatian war of independence in the early 1990s.  I reached the town of Otočac by lunch time, 40 km from my target – the town of Senj on the coast.  I was feeling better, and felt that after everything, I might be able to make it to my destination after all.  A victory for the force of will, over physical and mental discomfort.  I felt so good, I ate an entire large pizza, and drank a litre of fizzy water.  I immediately regretted it, and started feeling awful again.  I was too sick to camp, and found a cheap guest house a few kms out of town.  I felt steadily worse and worse on the brief walk, and by the time I got there, took the room straight away without seeing it, ran upstairs and locked the door, and then had the novel and exciting experience of evacuating large quantities of fluid from both ends, almost simultaneously.

I gave up trying to walk to Senj, finally accepting that I was too sick, and it was too far. The next day I walked the few kms back to Otočac, and started a 3-day journey (using motorised transport) to visit my family in the south of France.  Thankfully, during those three days my intestinal problems gradually cleared up, so that by the time I arrived, I was cured – of the shits.  But my extended illness, and my misguided attempts to push onwards, walking for long periods through on swelteringly hot days, with a weakened immune system, left me with a nasty little hanger on.

Itchy and Scratchy

The week in France with my family was very pleasant.  Part of me would have liked to be disciplined, and not to have broken my walk on any account whatsoever, but I felt that this gathering was too important to miss.  Whilst clear of intestinal problems, I soon realised that something else was amiss.  I had a persistent itch, focussed around my most sensitive parts.  I redoubled my personal hygiene regime, trimmed my ‘foliage’, made sure to wear loose fitting clothing, and kept downstairs scrupulously dry.  But to no avail, the itch wasn’t budging, and was even starting to affect my sleep.  I did my research, and nailed the likely culprit.  The condition is called “Jock Itch”, its caused by a fungal or yeast infection of the skin, anyone can get it but it is especially common amongst long distance hikers in hot climates.  The risk factors include: male genitalia (tick), heat (tick), excess sweating (tick), exercise (tick), weakened immune system(tick), obesity (cross, walking all day, every day is pretty good for avoiding this one).  With so many boxes ticked by walking long distance, it’s a miracle this was my first – and so far, only – outbreak.  The cure is just the liberal application of a topical anti-fungal like Canesten, coupled with good hygiene.  Not very dramatic.

The problem was, I only started my treatment a day or two before leaving France and heading back to Otočac in Croatia to resume walking.   The Canesten hadn’t been given enough time to work its magic before I set off walking again towards Senj and the coast.  I’d partly got into this problem by walking when sick, when I really should have just sat in one place until I was sure I was better.  I should have known better by this stage, but sometimes you have to get burned, repeatedly, before you learn.  My parts were still itchy, but I was confident the Canestan was nuking everything. So, I set off from Otočac on a cloudy day.  My route carried me up and up over a mountain pass, skirting alongside the Velebit National Park.  The karst scenery was beautiful: huge scarp slopes, fragrant coniferous forests, sink holes, etc.  But my mind was fixed firmly on crotch and crack; they were extremely sensitive, and the discomfort grew throughout the day.  I tried every possible underwear/shorts/trouser combination, but nothing made much difference.  I stopped for the night in a charming farm stay in the village of Krasno Polje – camping was out of the question until I was cured of this crotch rot – having access to a shower and being able to wash clothes being of paramount importance.

The next day my foolish behaviour finally brought me to my knees.  During the night I was meticulous in my washing, and canestan application.  But it was not enough when pitted against an existing infection, and the perfect growth conditions created by walking.  It was only 30 km to Senj, and it was downhill, even at a slow pace it should be a doddle.  I set off at 6 am, it was 7 deg, with a stiff breeze, excellent I thought – this should minimise sweat production.  The first few hours everything indeed seemed to be going alright, moderate pain, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.  At 1000 I stopped and had a rest in some shade.  I had emerged from the mountain pass, onto an epic (I don’t use that adjective lightly) view of the Bay of Kvarner, and the islands contained within it.  My mind was mainly on the growing discomfort downstairs, however. I liberally applied Canesten and anti-chafe cream.  My testicles started burning intensely, but bearably.  After a few minutes gritting my teeth I gathered my thoughts and pressed on.   By 1300 I was 5 km out from Senj, the pain had become almost unbearable. I snuck off the track I was on to have good look at what was going on.  It didn’t make for pleasant viewing.  All the skin on my testicles had cracked and was coming off.  The cracks in the skin went so deep I could see pin pricks of blood oozing out.  I reapplied the Canesten and Anti-chafe, this time the burning sensation was accompanied by sharp stabbing pain so intense it made me catch my breath.    I started walking, but after 5 m had a sharp stabbing pain in my testicles, it felt like a little devilish familiar had installed himself in my undercrackers, and had jabbed my testicles with a red-hot sewing needle.  I gasped and pressed on, I was so close…but that familiar kept up his work, gradually increasing in frequency and intensity.   That last 5 km into Senj was the most painful 5 km I have walked in my life.  At one point the path disappeared, I had to do some bushwhacking, and for a heart stopping moment thought I would have to retrace my steps.  By the last km, every other step was agony, I kept checking the distance left to go, and it seemed to be decreasing far, far too slowly.  I would not have been able to continue much longer – it was lucky I wasn’t in lonelier surroundings.

I plonked myself down at a restaurant in anguish, but when sat still the pain receded significantly.  So I had lunch, and looked (on my phone!) for the cheapest accommodation I could find, I didn’t think I would be going anywhere for a while.  The apartment owner was in the centre of the town already and gave me a lift to his apartment.  The 100-m walk from the restaurant to his car was almost more than I could take, quite what he made of my jerky cowboy waddle, punctuated by sharp intakes of breath and involuntary spasms, I have no idea, but he did not pass comment.  I took the room without a thought, there was no way I would be able to handle looking around for another.  Once the landlord was out of the room I stripped off and jumped into the shower.  A searing pain burst through my head when I soaped my undercarriage, and I was temporarily unable to breath or move; but I had to cleanse for the healing to begin.  I turned the shower off, very slowly edged over the bed and gingerly lowered myself down on to it.  I had another good look at my plums when I got out of the shower, and they really did look like plums, they were an angry colour of purple/red and completely raw and gently bleeding, the top one or two layers of skin had cracked and fallen off, that would account for the pain then – I was soaping raw flayed flesh

I wish now that I had taken a picture of them as a present to share with any reader who has got this far, they looked absolutely horrific.  The infection was also on my upper thighs, and around my crack, but it was the nadgers which looked and felt the worst.  I ended up spending 5 nights in Senj, most which was spent lying naked on the bed in a darkened room with my legs splayed, periodically rubbing Canesten onto my jingle bells and environs.  Any movement for the first two days was excruciating, the pain gradually subsiding thereafter.

So, what is the moral from this whole sorry story, especially for hikers, but useful for everybody else as well.  Listen to your body, it is a sophisticated machine, and will tell you when it is NOT OK.  You can often push through even quite high levels of discomfort, and sometimes you will get away with it.  Sometimes, however, you will be compounding the damage, which could lead to something much worse than the minor discomfort you started with, and to lengthy downtime.   Health warning signs ignored can be dangerous for us all, in any walk of life.  I walked with diarrhoea instead of stopping and recovering, and I paid with 2-3 weeks of ill health and discomfort, which could have been cleared up in 2-3 days if I’d just sat still and allowed my body to heal.  There is always a reason not to listen to your body, in my case I wanted to press on even when I was clearly diseased, because I had a rendezvous with my dad to make in Slovenia.  I needed to cover the distance rapidly, but by pushing my body when it needed time to recover, I ended up immobilised for a long period in an expensive tourist town, and only just made the meeting in Slovenia by the skin of my teeth.

Return to the wild

I had planned to get a ferry from Senj across to the Island of Krk, and to walk from the South tip to the North, where there is a bridge connecting the island to the mainland.   Close inspection of weather forecasts, and accommodation options suggested that this might be a bad idea.  Down here at sea level, it was generally 35+ deg during the days, and 30+ deg during the night.  So even if I became fully nocturnal and walked through the night and slept through the day, I still would still have to walk in uncomfortable heat, and in camp unbearable day time temperatures (it’s an expensive touristy island so camping necessary).  Sleeping out in 35 deg heat, seemed like a good way to rapidly succumb to a fresh bout of crotch rot, so I had a rethink.  Senj backs on to a steep slope which rises straight up to a limestone plateau around 800-1000 m above sea level.  That means up to 5 deg cooler temperatures due to the usual lapse rate of the earth’s atmosphere; living outside all the time, has impressed upon me that 5 deg is a massive difference.  25 deg at night and 30 deg during the day, is a lot more manageable than 5 deg hotter for each.

I set off at 0400 to make the most of the coolest part of the day, and headed straight up to the plateau. My leg muscles were fresh after the 5 days enforced rest, and walking felt a breeze.  The plateau top was a different world from the coast down below, covered in villas, restaurants and tourist developments as it is.  Up on top the few scraggly villages are mainly deserted, the remaining inhabitants well and truly into their sunset years. The ground alternates between bleached bare limestone and a patchy thin soil.  The plants are tough, and thorny, adapted to the harsh, desiccated conditions.  There are no convenient foot paths, and I had a long way to go, so I was stuck on the asphalt. Thankfully the traffic was vanishingly scarce.   After 6 hours on the plateau, I climbed up to a mountain pass, and abruptly the vegetation changed to thick forest – on one side of the pass, scrubby thorns and dry grass, on the other thick full verdant forest.  The change was dramatic and sets me off wondering about what atmospheric or geologic phenomena must be the cause.

After some more kms the forest opened-up into a large bowl surrounded by mountains, the mountains covered in primeval looking forest of beech and fir, and the floor of the bowl by hay meadows, it’s a beautiful spot.   I found a room at the Apartments Šumski Kutak in the village of Lič, with Goran and his family proving hospitable hosts.  I decided to rest the following day just to be on the safe side with my nads.  Goran invited me to share the Sunday BBQ with the family, it’s a fun day, and Goran makes some mean Ćevapčići (grilled meat balls).  After leaving Lič, it took me a further 3 days trekking through the forested interior of a very hidden and tucked away corner of Croatia to get to the Slovenian border.  I passed logging villages, the rusting remains of iron mines almost swallowed by the forest, and the most magical pixie fairy river I have ever seen.  The source of the Kupa river is a 50 m wide pool surrounded on three sides by cliffs, where the fairy river emerges from deep underground.  Divers who have probed the aquatic shafts from which the river wells up, have got 87 m down before being blocked by fallen trees and debris.  The water is totally free from sediment, and thus completely clear, with a bluish tinge.  It is also very cold, which gives it its magic, as the surface of the water is so cold, it chills the air immediately above it, the moisture in the air condenses, and forms a swirling mist covering the surface of the river.  Coupled with the deep valley and the thick forest all around, it is not hard to imagine you have been transported into a fantasy world.  I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes, and hoped with all my might, but no actual fairies, or other magical beings, were forthcoming.

Conclusion – Extraordinary natural riches, countless tourists, EU membership, yet same Balkan worries

Croatia it has a lot going for it, it has extraordinary natural beauty – with almost 2000 km of spectacular mainland coastline, hundreds of islands, warm clear seas, dramatic karst landforms, mystically beautiful lakes and rivers, and high limestone mountains cloaked in dense woodland – millions of foreign tourists annually, a GDP per person two and a half times greater than that of neighbouring Bosnia, and EU membership giving its people a freedom of movement the Bosnians and Serbs can only dream about.  Yet when I got away from the tourist honeypots, and talked to the locals, their gripes were strikingly similar to those I had been hearing since arriving in Bulgaria (In Turkey, the general level of English was not high enough out in the countryside to have deep chats about the state of the country).  People complained about the high levels of corruption, the atrocious public sector pay, the grip of the church on education policy, and of nasty nationalist political parties stifling debate on systemic reform.  I was surprised and dismayed to find this, I had an image in my mind’s eye of Croatia as being at a much more advanced state of development than the countries I had recently passed through; and consequently, that the population would be much happier with their lot.  It got me wondering about politics, how to make people happier, and democracies stronger.

The inference that I got from the dissatisfaction of the Croatians despite high wealth relative to their neighbours, is that the absolute wealth of a country, above a certain level where basic needs are met, has much less bearing on the contentedness of the people, compared with the perceived justice and fairness of the society.  Croatia was the richest country I had passed through on the walk so far, and yet the people I spoke to, ordinary people living in the countryside, felt poor, marginalised, and angry.  People who are pissed off with perceived injustice in society are fertile ground for the messages of populists, of the fringe left and right.  These populists frequently seek power with fiery rhetoric, and unsustainable long-term policies, which will reward their supporters in the short term but harm the country in the long term.  Notable examples of populists elected due to widespread feelings of perceived societal injustice and corruption of the “elite” include: Trump, Chavez in Venezuela, the Nazi party in Germany, the incumbant “Law and Order” party in Poland, and the incumbent Fidesz party in Hungary.  These politicians or parties, once elected, all sought/seek to undermine democratic norms, and weaken the democracies of their countries to sustain their own voter base and power.

The current growth of populist politics world-wide, due to perceived and real societal injustice, should be a significant cause for concern to all who care about the strength of democracy, world prosperity, and societal cohesion.  Politicians elected using “us versus them” rhetoric are dangerous and should be feared.  The number one cause of perceived societal injustice in the Balkans, is the gross corruption of their political elites.  The elites seem incapable of reforming themselves, are rarely held to account, and manage to stay in power using divisive nationalist rhetoric and control of the media.  They ultimately do not represent the interests of the people whom they govern, and threaten the cohesion of the European Union (EU).  I reckon that the answer is that greater, not less, power should be invested within the EU.  It may be grossly unrealistic, but I feel that the setting up of a well-resourced, supranational EU anti-corruption body, which has real power to punish offenders, and an ability to force compliance amongst member countries, would have broad backing amongst the majority of the people in the EU, if perhaps not of the majority of political parties in many countries.  Such a body, if effective, would serve to strengthen the cohesion of the EU, discourage politicians who are politics largely for personal gain, ultimately resulting in better policy, reduced injustice, and greater resilience of countries to populist demagogues of the left and right.  To combat populism world-wide, including in the UK, will require bold policy decisions seeking to bring the people within countries, and between countries, together.  I have lots of ideas for this, but this isn’t the right place for that discussion.

A small favour: I am using my walk to raise money for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF – a global secular humanitarian charity).  These blog posts take me a very long time to write, if you enjoy reading them, and wish to support the author you can donate to MSF via my fundraising page: https://justgiving.com/fundraising/wanderingpaddy .  I am within a whisker of the half way mark of an ambitious target, donations of any amount are much appreciated.

Addenda

(1)   This village was deep within the break-away Serbian Croat region (Known as the Republika Srpska Krajina(RSK)) during the Croatian War of independence from Yugolsavia which ran from 1991 until 1995, and it had evidently suffered during the war, and the violent destruction of the RSK at the hands of the Croat military in 1995.

(2)   See Bulgaria Blog post part II

(3)   An underground karst river emerges into the top lake, saturated with carbon dioxide, and calcium bicarbonate.  The water is cold when it reaches the first lake, and upon emerging it gradually starts to warm.  As it warms, the waters capacity to carry carbon dioxide (its solubility) decreases, and the carbon dioxide degasses.  This raises the pH of the water, which, in turn, lowers the solubility of the calcium bicarbonate.  The waters become supersaturated in calcium bicarbonate, which then begins to spontaneously precipitate as calcium carbonate.  The degassing and precipitation is aided by turbulent flow, for example at natural thresholds of flow.   Precipitation is greatest at the tops of barriers to flow, creating the travertine dams, and leading to their rapid growth (1cm per year has been measured).  This rapid sedimentation means that the Plitvice Lakes are a constantly changing phenomena, 100 years from today, the configuration of the lakes will look dramatically different from today.