Everyone's talking about Croatia. 'It's SO summer 2006', they say. Fabulously clear blue water, lazy days filled with sunshine, seafood, yachts and chilled beers in beautiful walled old towns. Unfortunately, this means that literally everyone is there. On arrival in Dubrovnik I was greeted with two sights that were enough to cause any backpacker to shudder with fear and revulsion. First, a hulking white cruise liner crammed with Yank coffin-dodgers with greenbacks to burn. Then, perhaps worse, a Contiki bus overflowing with leering, drunk-at-lunch Aussie revelers and their hair-straightened, short-skirted eighteen year old hussies. I'd arrived too late, damn it, five or six years too late! Suffering anti-Contiki/cruise boat blues I convinced myself that real backpackers don't catch buses or book hostels and bravely undertook the vertical cliff hike to the hostel in the midday
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