Day 37 - Podaca to Slano

Ian, Maz, and me had some very tasty porridge breakfast together with all the fruits we had available (figs, pomegranate, banana) and chocolate. We decided to cycle together until Ploče, from there theybwould cycle inlands while I decided to stay on the coast. It was a lot of up and down in the first 20km and I felt my legs being really sore from the previous climbs on Hvar island. 😅 Before we split ways, we stopped at a nice lookout point onto a freshwater lake to take a picture together. 😊 From Ploče it was a short flat ride along the sea, before the road went inlands again and up the hills. The "backcountry" was very different to the coast with a lot of farming going on and it was really green even though there was a draught. To be honest, it was really exhausting climbing the second mountain that day. When I had a break, a German guy (Leo) on a road bike stopped for a chat. He is also going to Istanbul, but taking the inlands route via North Macedonia. Also he's travelling really light-weighted and doing around 150km a day. I told him to go ahead and not wait for me.😂
Funnily I soon met him again at the border to Bosia and Herzegovina, where he had to unpack all his bags and was beimg searched. They let me pass without issues at the border and I cycled into the only city of this country located on the coast called Neum. On the way I met another bikepacker from Serbia who was going the other way, Nikola, we also had a chat for some minutes and Leo caught up again but kept going after a few minutes. 😅 With my phone in flight mode I cycled through Neum and had a quick stop at the supermarket for some lunch. Unfortunately, I had no clue about their currency, I just payed but later found out that it was super cheap! 😁👌
Just around 5km past Neum on top of a hill I was back at the border to Croatia. The border check point didn't look like anyone was there, so I slowly cycled through it until someone suddenly screemed "stop" at me. 😅 There was an officer sitting in the last little house, I couldn't see her since the blinds were down in the window. Being a little annoyed by me, she quickly scanned my passport and said "you can go". 😅 I still had another 26km to go until Slano and it was quite late already. The road was amazing though, winding along the coast with doable ups and downs. Just 15km before Slano, I suddenly saw that my front tyre is really low on air. Confused I stopped and searched for a damage on the outer tube but couldn't find one. So I decided to pump it up again instead of exchanging it, which I had to do every 5km. I wanted to check on it properly once I was at the campground. With a really flat front tyre I rolled onto the campground and was lucky to get a really nice spot very close to the beach. It even allowed me to set up my hammock. ;)) I set up my tent and went for a swim and a shower. I was too tired to check on the tyre and decided to do that in the morning. I then walked into the little town to a tiny and expensive grocery store where I bought some groceries for pasta. I was starving when I cooked almost 400g or pasta, thinking I would eat it all. 😅 I had a nice conversation with a German guy after dinner and finally went to sleep in the tent around midnight.Read more