Nov. 19, 2010

Walked to pick up the car from Katerina and Maja's, set off to Komen for some errands and internet. Library opened at 11, so internet for another day. Picked up some groceries and 4m lengths of gutter and downspout for rainwater collection at the old house for some horses. With the pipes jutting out of the back of the car, returned, attatched a trailer to the car and hauled some timbers from the old house down to the wood pile next to the tipi. Stopping this task on account of the tires ripping up the sodden earth, we put up the gutter, fed the downspout into a plasic reservoir, and called it a day. Drove back to Komen to eat our own seperate large ham/artichoke/mushroom pizzas with an egg. Devouring mine, and feeling quite satisfied, returned to read in the tipi and then headed to bed.

Nov. 18, 2010

Raked some leaves for an hour or so before breakfast. Blue sky overhead and still the sun found a way to stay hidden in the clouds rimming the horizon. Ate me plenty of bread, butter, and jam. Mitja arrived and we set to work clearing a path to an abandoned house for the horses to use as shelter. Satisfying, consuming work with machete, axe, chain saw, and back. Worked for a late lunch- mixed greens salad with beans and pasta with squash/mushroom sauce. Spent an hour cleaning greasy, accumulated dishes, then finished clearing the path. Spent most of the time removing the final huge stone from a gap made in the rock wall. Maja and their friend, Rajko came and joined us for tea around the fire. Accompanied Mitja to Ninjitsu practice in Sezana. I did warmups with the class, my unshowered, muddy self losing the snap in my pants midway through a round of leapfrog. Not wanting to stand out even more so by having my unchowered, muddy self lose my pants, I wisely retired to the bench to take sagely observence of this hallowed art.

Nov. 17, 2010

Laid down layers of shit, dirt, and leaves for a raised garded bed that should keep warm through winter. Mitja left to stay the night at Maja's after lunch. Made another unsuccessful trip down to Gorjansko for internet. Unplugged and plugged back in server to no avail. Exhausting my ace in the hole, I walked back in the rain, read some about tipi construction, and called it a night.

Nov. 16, 2010

Shoveled, hearty breakfast, got to work clearing and putting up fence in the field. Mila, Maja's dog gave birth to 8 puppies. Cleared a way for an entrance for a wagon into the field, came back, moved some logs. Mitja went to gather mushrooms, came back with them and a snake. Without head it writhed. Without skin, it writhed even more. A disturbing sight. Fried it up with onions, ate with mushrooms + rice. No discernable snake flavor, only onions. Chewy with many small bones. The rains came, and the afternoon/evening was spent dodging drops in the damp tipi.

Nov. 15, 2010

Woke up, got to shit-shovelin'. Breakfast and a walk throuigh the woods with Mitja, observing desirable land features. Found a small cave, checked it out. Come back, chopped up branches from the trees cleared yesterday. Tiring work with the machete. Ate lunch, walked down to the internet again. Worked. Sam(son), the guy sitting next to me, was from the next village over and was ten time world breakdancing champion. Teaches kids now, but quite the interesting personality to find in Gorjansko. Returned, hacked up the rest of the branches in the pile, hung out/ate dinner in tipi.

Nov. 14, 2010

Mladenand co. leave in the morning, returning the quiet. Mitja and I clear some trees and shrubs blocking the winter sun from the garden. So many thorns. The sun came out for about 5 minutes, its last brief appearance being thursday. Hands get worked using machete. Garden salad and spaghetti with sauce for lunch. Maja came with the car and we, with Max, drive 20 minutes to the coast in Italy. No border control. Walked the quay overlooking the misty Adiatic, absent of a horizon. Stop at a cafe so that Maja and Mitja can translate a letter they wrote to a women living in Buenos Aires and owns a house in Nadrozica which they would like to purchase. Talk to a German travelling through with his 2 month old dog. He recommends Ljubljana as well as Macedonia. Leave the cafe, drive to a nearby village still on the Italian side for an osmica. Osmica is when a house cooks food and invites people for cheap, delicious food for 8 consecutive days. A popular tradition in the Kras region of Slovenia and Italy. Italian law forbids serving hot food at osmica, and so we ate salami, prosciutto, bacon, and a warn, tender meat that was like roast beef but better and probably pig. It was perhaps the best prepared meat I have had, and with some local Kras wine, the evening was quite enjoyable. Mitja and I shared 1L of wine, while Maja, being the DD and a vegetarian was perhaps left a bit bereft of the reverie, picked from a bag of semi-rotten chestnuts, but seemed content enough in conversation. Even Max, who had deftly planted himself outside the kitchen door was enjoying scraps of the meat and making several friends.

Nov. 13, 2010

Shit shoveling. Breakfast. Mitja's girlfriend, Maja, comes. An eco-villager-to-be, Mladan, visits with his 3 boys. We rake leaves for fertilizer. Mladan wears no shoes, his boys seem like they've never heard the word, 'no'. Maja makes a delicious sour cabbage stew accompanied by some grain casserole stuff Mladan brought. Ate far too much, wander down to Gorjansko to check email. Internet down, get lost on the way back. Spread a few more leaves over the soil as it gets dark. Sit around the fire in the tipi with Mitja, Mladen and sons as they play the bongos and digereedoo. Ate roasted chestnuts for the first time.

Nov. 12, 2010

Cloudy morning. Hark! and behond, there are some deer in the next field doing a spot-on Man-Bear-Pig voice. Another crisis averted. Turns out I have some dry oats left, so I down some handfulls and get to walking. Coming into a small village, I grab some grapes off a vine that are on their way out anyway, and ingest. An old man getting into his car in the middle of the village starts speaking to me. I walk over to see what he wants, and I gather that he is offering me a ride, unprompted. So I say I'm going to Homen, he nods, moves his roll and can of sardines off the passenger's seat and off we go. Momentarily wondering why an old man would be so kind as to offer a foreign-looking wayfarer like myself access into his car, I was cut off by that familiar odor emanating from his mouth as he asked me if I speak German for the third time in two minutes: he was chock-full of alcohol. Slurring and stammering his words, or all-together stopping mid-sentence, I confidently countered his unintelligible Slovenian with my severely broken Serbian, and thus we had our conversation as he managed the curvy roads with surprising skill, which was the only condition I cared about. Arriving at another small village that was technically closer but divergent from the main road to Komen, Old Man pointed down the road, gave a few hand signals, trailed off in his speech, and off I went. After several dead-end turns I exited the village and found I still had a ways to go. Luckily caught a ride at a crossroads the rest of the way. In Komen, got directions to Nadrozica: left, then left at Night Rider bar. Damn-good directions. An hour more walking, and I had arrived; the only tipi in a town of about 6 people isn't hard to find. Apparently, Mitja was expecting me a week later, but he said it was no problem and he and his bear-dog, Max, greeted me kindly. The tipi was legit and I would have my own trailer to sleep in. Three horeses, plenty of land and copious amounts of delicious fresh organic food. Planted a few fruit trees, ate salad and rice for lunch, and then accompanied him while he gave riding lessons in the field. At night, made a fire in the tipi, drank some tea, and otherwise relaxed, glad to have found the place.

Nov. 11, 2010

Set up last night atop the mountain upon ground that was bubbling and gurgling from the water flowing just below it. Located a relatively stable spot as the clouds dispersed and revealed the brilliant night sky. Fell asleep warm and dry. Then came the rain, wind, thunder, and encompassing lightning. Followed by awesomely-loud bursts, the lightening lit up the bivy sac until sound and sight became one. This was a bad spot to be, worrying about being fried inside this stupid bag or having it lose static friction and toboggen me down the hill I was resting. Losing resolve upon a seemingly-near miss of a haymaker, I decided to make a dash for a nearby gas station only to find the zipper stuck. Just what I need at the height of panic. Spending 2-3 minutes getting it free, I pop my head out and feel no drops. Also, its suddenly completely quiet. And would you look at that, the clouds parted, as if God were saying, "Nah, just fuckin' with ya." So I watch the stupid stars as I wait for my resting heart beat to return, zip up again just in time to hear one more rumble in the distance, and am permitted to sleep the rest of the night through.

Wake up, eat the last two bruised bananas and a particularly-shitty apple and post up next to the gas station. Slovenian police patrol #2 stops, radios in, and moves on. Eventually, a young graphic designer chick takes me down the mountain into central Komen. Suggests a good place to try to catch a ride. A seemingly-good spot, but after about 3 hours I am fed up and worrying about making it to Nadrozica in time, so I inquire about the train to Sezana. Only 4.50 euros, and well worth it. The ride rolled up a beautiful mountain, pocked with rustic villages overlooking the Adriatic. Rather glad to be reading alone in the train car enjoying the scenery instead of suffering the walk. Changing trains in Divaca, I make it to Sezana in an hour or so. Internally commending the Slovenian rail system, I obtain directions through town and to Komen. On the home-ish stretch with plenty of time left, I walk a few kilometers out of town and treat myself to setting up camp with daylight to spare. Find a nice open field, and with a clear sky, chance it and forego the bivy. Track the satellites arcing overhead as well as about ten shooting stars, including a particularly brilliant one, leaivng a tail. The dew quickly blankets everything but oh well, still warm and dry inside my bag. Am awoken to an unfamilar animal sound that my delerious, night-paranoid mind quickly determines could only be produced by a fisher cat or Man-Bear-Pig. Shine my flashlight in its direciton, make some grunt-squeals of my own, and the beast recedes into the night.

Nov. 10, 2010

Took my sweet time getting up this morning with the steady fall of rain on the bivy. Finally emerged around 10 to a clearing sky. Dried all my shit in the sun, packed up, and headed to center Novigrad to exchange some money and have a coffee. Got some food at the supermarket, headed out of town to hitch a ride to Buje; an old town on a hill. Walked down into the valley and the border, taking my spot again amongst the cars. This time, I was John Wayne for some reason, and after a bit of questioning, I was into Slovenia. Cop stopped me within sight of the border control, and after checking my passport, told me Sezana was past Kopur, which was just up the hill. Fucking mountain. My headlight blinking in the back, I stumbled up the endless snaking road toward the faint lights at the top. Got fed up with an annoying blister on my foot and gave it a slice. Precipitation increased and my pace slowed. Pupils got quite a workout going from darkness to blinding headlights. One car passing another coming downhill came way too close and I assume scared the shit out of both of us. Topping the hill into Kopur, I convinced myself that I deserved a beer and hot plate of food, after the 20 km or so walk.

Nov. 9, 2010

Woke up sore, poorly rested. Head out. Buy sandwich and much-needed water at a gas station. Try for a ride, but no luck. Get stopped 3 times by police in about a 2-mile stretch. 4th time total thus far. They feel the need to radio-in my passport information each time only to hand it back with a 'hvala' and drive off. Legs not cooperating today. A couple of hours and they are spent. Rest at an on-ramp. Within 5 minutes, find a ride with a logging trucker. We talk about Serbia, NATO, USA, Detroit, etc. Not exactly sure what about, but it was a steady conversation. Drops me off about 160 km shy of Zagreb. Legs now stiff from brief inactivity, I plod along for an hour or so, getting no rides, until I get to a gas station and see Isidora's brother, Alexa, waiting for me. He had spotted me on the way to Rijeka and now I had a familiar ride almost all the way to Slovenia. Being a horrible co-pilot, I slept half of the way. We parted ways outside Rijeka, and within 10 minutes, a guy named Bojan gave me a lift to Novigrad, in the N.W. corner of Croatia on the Adriatic. He showed me a spot in town where I could camp for the night, and I dozed off under so,e evergreens and a clear sky.