The sun seeks refuge,
Ensconced in the misty dawn,
Not ready to wake.
We weren't ready to wake, either. Our campsite, as we were told by Aleksander and Azra, was really, really spectacular. We slept in, unhurried because we were nowhere near people and knew we wouldn't be bothered, and we enjoyed our müsli and yogurt breakfast. We were sad that we didn't see our Australian friend, but we still might run into him along the way.
We loaded our junk and hopped back down to the road, carefully navigating the stones and branches spread across the path. It was about a 30km ride to Dubrovnik, during which we were treated to more and more of the lovely views of the Dalmatians found along this coast. I ran into Evan's back wheel during our ride and pulled/strained/in some way injured my upper back, neck, and right shoulder. Hopefully that clears up shortly.
We arrived in the city and cursed the damn road, though. Instead of being sensible and going down into the city, it winds up the mountain a good 200m and all the way around the city before presenting an exit to get down. It's going to suck to try to leave.
But we made it to town and parked ourselves in a café with wifi to try to find some kind of acceptable accommodations (and to upload lovely pictures for you lovely people). Two cappuccinos and a lot of information later, we settled on the youth hostel in town which listed its prices (on Hostelworld) as 110HRK, or about $20, per person per night.
On our way there, we were intercepted by yet another cyclist, a man from London who is cycling across to Australia, maybe, or perhaps to somewhere else, depending on how he feels. He asked us if we had any place to stay, and we said that we were going to check out the hostel, but he told us he'd tried there and they were asking 127HRK instead of the advertised 110, and also that he had found an apartment for just 90HRK for one person for one night that was nice and not far away and included a private kitchen and shower.
Well, that's good. We followed him to this place and made a deal with the owner for 160HRK for the two of us for one night. Yay! It was about 13h, and we were told that we should come back around 15h or 16h after the room was cleaned and ready. We swapped information with the cyclist, whose name was Simon (you can find his blog at http://awheeljourney.blogspot.com), and headed to the grocery store to get some food with our last kuna. We walked out with enough food for dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next day, as well as a couple of Karlovačkos--the beer common in the south of Croatia--to pass the time while we wait for our room to be cleaned. We also still had around 40HRK left. We sat outside the grocery store, watching people come and go, and another traveller walked up to us, this one bearing a backpack and no bicycle. We chatted with him for a while and learned that he was heading in the same direction as we, except by bus and train.
Our waiting done, we headed back to the apartment, where everything was ready. We ate our lunch of leftovers, washed our clothes and hung them out to dry, were given some delicious fresh mandarin oranges from the tree growing in the apartment complex's garden, and headed into the old city for some exploring.
On the way, we ran again into that backpacker. We stopped to talk again; he's from New Orleans, now living in Colorado. We swapped info with him, too, and went our separate ways.
The old city of Dubrovnik provided many of the things that most old cities provide: a lot of cool-looking things built by people a long time ago that cost a significant amount to see. We had gotten a map from the tourism office before that had lines indicating the paths of several tours that they offered, so we wandered along these paths, hoping to learn something without paying their exorbitant fees. As it was, Evan invented a tour for me that was equally as informative as the regular tour, although admittedly none of the information was probably correct. No matter. Wikipedia will fix us up later.
We returned to our apartment later, ready for some food. It was a treat to eat a dinner with butter, and we are prepared now to go to bed satisfied. Mmmm... plus we have food for tomorrow's lunch, which makes life even better. :D