Crew ride to Hvar

Kiran was in a much better mood this morning. Twelve hours of sleep can do that for anybody. Our plans for riding in the early morning cool to the next town of Hvar would not be - but no matter, I was glad we had slept well.

While hanging out in the square of Petra Hektorivica, a great writer and son of the island, I saw two riders on a tandem bike. Here were Marcus and Marianne, the friendly couple I had met at the Mad-Max hostel in Rijeka. We sit down to chat about our trips, and Kiran takes a liking to them.

They're surprised and pleased to hear that I had cracked the code of how to take bicycles on the passenger only catamarans further south, and avoid returning to Split. So that meant they were also going to ride to Hvar port and we decided to ride as a crew. This pleased Kiran very much, the social boy rider.

Hvar port was on the other side of the hill, so we decided to traverse it in the evening. Our route brought us to a 2 km long tunnel that had only a single lane, not great for bicycles. We attached lamps and reflectors on ourselves and got ready to traverse the tunnel. It turned out to be easy enough with the few cars even crossing to the opposite lane to overtake. Kiran's nervousness turned into happiness as we zipped through the tunnel as a tight convoy of colorful and decorated bicyclists.

A picturesque but also blinding downhill brought us to Hvar. We left M & M at their campsite. Kiran was a bit bummed and asked if we would meet again. "Maybe the road brings us together, it's already happened once" I said to him as we rode to our room in Hvar. He enjoyed riding as a crew and these travel encounters.

We went for a night walk to look at the port lights, and were totally unready for the buzz of activity in the center of this quiet town. Full of fancy clubs and scantily dressed and drunk pizza-wielding British tourists, I felt like I had stepped into an alternate dimension. With my single t-shirt and shorts, I was simultaneously under and over dressed for this bacchanalia. We took the way back through the labyrinth of stone stairs and tiny alleys back to our dimension of tired and well-earned sleep.Read more