And then the Bastard shot me, in Dubrovnik

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If the flood hadn’t taken out the Internet Café at the bottom of the main strip in Lapad, I would not have met Jerney, and he would not have told me about Prevlaka Park, and I would not have these bruises on my thigh. Such is the nature of the cosmos. Located on a peninsular about an hour’s drive from Dubrovnik, Prevlaka was a nice little village opposite Montenegro. When the Serb-led Yugoslavian Army invaded, they kicked everyone out and turned it into a military base. When NATO came in, they kicked out the Serbs and handed it over to the UN. Three years ago, the UN handed it back to the Croats, and today you can go shoot your buddies up with paint, ride an ATV on a terrain park, take a sweet little train and free-climb the walls of the old HQ. Again, the cosmos. Excitedly taking Jerney up on an offer to check the place out (and borrow his car in the process), I recruited some Belgian kids and we drove through gorgeous countryside and along the breathtaking coastline. I was anxious to do battle with Phillipe, because I was curious to see how long it would take him to surrender. He is, after all, French. Meanwhile, we both decided to play three games: Deathmatch (in which we all hunt each other), Capture the Flag (in which we must obtain the opponents position) and Hunt the Belgians (in which we would hunt the Belgians). On arrival, we met our host Pero, who conformed to the Croatian tradition of producing teenagers with the wit of seasoned adults. After kicking up some dust on the ATV (all-terrain-vehicle, aka, four-wheel-motorcycle-thingie), we got kitted out in camouflage, Darth Vader masks and our intimidating, gas-powered guns. I felt like I had just joined a Michigan Militia, ready to hunt deer with fully automatic bazookas through the urban jungles of Flint. The little paint bullets explode on impact (key word, impact), which feels like an unexpected jab of a thick needle. So I was thrilled to find I had somehow got behind the enemy and could pepper them with blue paintballs as they stood helplessly against the wall, pinned down by my platoon-buddy Pero. It was satisfying, in that bizarre boys-with-toys kind of way, to finally unleash some violence. By the time I had emptied my cartridge, the wall could have been sold as a long-lost Jackson Pollock. And Phillipe was rightly pissed, which is why he took such joy shooting the crap out of me a few games later. Meanwhile, Melissa from Brouge overheated from all the gear and hyperventilated, and we had a genuine medical emergency on our hands. After calming her down, I sent her to China Beach for a little R&R. We finished the day by the clear Adriatic, looking out onto Montenegro, watching 16-year-old Pero do backflips into shallow water, just like his Brazilian peers did backflips off sand dunes. It was a grand day out, and certainly gave me a hands-on understanding of war (war, war, what is it good for?), strategy, and why Belgium is not famous for its warriors. Later that day, I lost another battle, this time with a beard trimmer. I was trying to take something off the sides, as you do, and accidentally carved a hole in my head. Now I sport a bizarre Mohawk-priest-muppet hairdo, which is just the kind of thing you might get away with in Europe, or, at the very least, Albania.

Untouched islands sparkle off Dubrovnik like glitter on the eyes of a rave fairy, so the impossibly good-looking folks at Adria Adventures took me sea-kayaking to explore one of them. My guide, Matko, explained that the island of Lokrum is haunted, in that anyone who has tried to buy it mysteriously dies soon after, and even the Serbs had failed to set it alight with tracer bullets during the war, as they had done to the surrounding countryside. The single Irish women in the group were too busy staring at Matko, a professional waterpolo player, to notice. I rowed around the island, finding caves and nooks, letting the sun beat down, discovering my own Sirens of the Sea who sent me paddling with alarming speed. Adria offers 5 day trips to several islands, and if you’re a single women, or just into kayaking, I would highly recommend looking them up should you find yourself in the area. If you’re a guy, have fun dealing with Ivana.

And so Croatia comes to a close, the Dalmatian Coast fulfilling my every expectation as just an all-round magnificent part of the world to visit. As I was warned, it has become heavily touristy and the prices reflect this. One canned local beer was $5 just outside the walls of the Old Town, but then again, the view was priceless. Drunk English lads, who as a rule lack manners, were too numerous to make my clubbing nights memorable, as were the jet-set crews on their space-ship yachts. But if you’re looking for Europe’s charm with a Mediterranean coastline, find it in Croatia. In May or September, when the war is over and the armies of tourists finally go home.

Dubrovnik
Croatia

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