Bohemian Trek, drugs and rock n roll...I'll skip on the drugs, Thanks

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Bohemian Adventure, but a shady beginning.

I woke up feeling like death warmed up, realised I had absolutely no recollection of anything of my previous night on the Split pub crawl and wondered how I had gotten back to the hostel. As I began to get ready, tried to shower and began to feel worse and worse, I decided to wake my roomies to find out what happened. We went to the first venue, had 2/3 drinks and got a free t-shirt which I tied to my bag. That is the last thing I remember, I can recall nothing of what happened next. According to my roomies when I asked them in the morning, it then got weird. I was suddenly paralytic drunk, couldn't walk or talk straight and only barely made it to the next venue where I collapsed on a chair outside. Given that the four of us had consumed the same amount of alcohol (not much) and they were all ok, it was very odd. My roomies saw a guy who worked at the hostel in the bar and he luckily decided to walk me back to my room and put me in my bed. I remembered nothing and wow did I feel like week old road kill. The girls came home later, found me falling off the top bunk and put me in the bed underneath...none of which I remember.

After a shower I researched drugs for memory loss and came to the conclusion it was probably rohypnol, the date rape drug. Very very bad, I was very very lucky to have friends and a great hostel worker that looked after me. I had to be at the tour pick up point at 9am that morning and the usual 5 minute walk took me 25mins in my still very sick state. I spoke to no one as I felt all to fragile, but did overhear that there was another girl from another tour who didn't arrive and her friends said her mobile was off. I found out a few weeks later from the other tour guide, she had also been on the pub crawl, had also been drugged and had unfortunately woken up in a hotel with a man who had turned her phone off. I was so thankful and so very lucky that my story had a different ending to hers. For my first tour day I did nothing but sleep on the bus til our service stop where I got some water and sat outside to get some fresh air. Two local Croatian men sat down beside me and said "hello, foreign? Yes?" I nodded. Their next question? "Sex, yes?" My answer would need many asterisks, but they were lucky there was no long blunt objects nearby. I walked back to the bus to ask my tour guide if there was anything I could do to for the sake of my health as I was worried about the drugs in my system and I was still feeling awful some 5 hours later. Water and sleep was her answer but she said it happened quite frequently around pub crawls etc. We got to Pag, she luckily gave me a single room (Thank you Carla, you are the best) where I slept until dinner, grabbed some food with the group for an hour and then went back to bed.

I awoke an almost normal person next morning but sworn off drinking with strangers. We were off early to catch a ferry off the island of Pag and had a beautiful coastal drive up to Slovenia. There was a sign for deer on one of the highways but some clever grafiti artist had added a tiny Santa Clause to be riding on the back of the deer. Funny! Border crossing was quite abrupt, Croatia is quite rocky and trees are sparse to the almost immediate contrast of Slovenia's rainforests and green wilderness. I was very happy to be amongst the greenery. A maccas stop and then onto Lubjijana, the capital where we had a few hours to grab lunch, see the Sunday markets and I watched a girl (possibly) shoplift a necklace. I couldn't be sure but she was looking at it, then it was gone and she was walking away from the stall super fast and chatting nervously. Hmmm. I bought some delicate vintage lace off a seller in the markets, decided the men were much better looking in Slovenia then Croatia and made our way back to the bus to head off to Lake Bled. Our group had free time so we walked around the beautiful lake, had some ice cream, had a group dinner and then an early night as the next day we had all signed up for an adventure sport excursion.

Our excuraion was called 'Big day out in bled' and we began at an unbackpacker hour of 8am, but to make up for this, we had Dimetrie, a most beautiful Belgium man who now lived in Bled (with his wife and children :-( bugger, haha). Our first stop was a photo opp with Goldhorn the goat and a frolic in the icy river. I loved the legend of goldhorn so I included it below, read or not as you choose but it is a famous Slovenian fairytale which I found interesting.

The Tale Of Goldhorn ( http://www.summitpost.org/the-tale-of-goldhorn/175952)

The Valley of Triglav lakes and Komna plateau were once a heaven in mountains, inhabited by gracious nymphs, White women. But nobody was allowed to approach their domicile. Intrudors were chased away by stone avalanches, triggered by white goats, who lived on ridges above Trenta valley. They were led by Goldhorn. If somebody would hurt him, from his blood a miraculous balzam would grow, called the Triglav flower, and when the wounded Goldhorn would eat it, even only one single leaf, he would instantly recover. His golden horns wre the key of big treasures, which were on Bogatin mountain guarded by a multi-headed snake. The only mortal, who was able to climb on the highest summits of Trenta mountain area, was the son of a beautiful widow – the Trenta Hunter, to which, according to the legend, at his birth craddle White women were present. So he was under their special protection.

To his sweethart, the landlord's daughter, far around famous by her beauty and virtue, the Hunter was bringing into her tavern on the confluence of Koritnica and Soca river, besides quarry also wonderful flowers from mountain summits. But through Soca valley also Italian merchants were transporting Venetian goods, stopping by in that famous inn.One Sunday, when winter was coming to an end, Italian merchants came into the tavern, carrying rich goods from Venice. One of them, a wealthy and young gentleman, was trying to seduce the girl with gold and promises. He was putting on her fingers golden rings, a pearl necklace around her neck and he commanded musicians to play for a dance. When Trenta Hunter approached, inviting his sweethart for a dance her eyes reproached him. The Hunter, hurt by such behavior, went away. On his way off, the Green Hunter joined him. He was known in the valley to bring into troubles many decent young guys. So, he was the one, who proposed to the Trenta Hunter to kill Goldhorn, take his golden horns and with their help all the treasures of Bogatin mountain.

On the very same night they went on mountains and the very next morning they were after the wonderful animal. Boy's bullet hit Goldhorn, heavilly wounded the animal creeped on a narrow ledge, high above abysses, which finished with an inclimbable vertical wall. The Green Hunter was pushing forward. But then the boy saw on the dangerous ledge, between ice and snow the most beautiful flowers - Triglav flowers, and among them also edelweiss, which before he was often picking up to prepare medicine for his mother's eyes. The memory on his mother was warning him to stop chasing Goldhorn and to pick up only Triglav flowers, but the Green Hunter was pushing on, to kill Goldhorn before he eats miraculous Triglav flowers, grown out of his blood, and recovers. But in the meantime Goldhorn already strenghtened by the miraculous balsam and, stimulated, he already raged by the narrow ledge towards the two hunters. His golden horns were shining in the bright sun, more prodiguously than ever before. Blinded by them Trenta Hunter looked down into the bottomless precipice, staggered, lost the ground beneath his feet and fell into the abyss.

Meanwhile the girl was bitterly sorry how she treated him. She was sadly waiting for her lover to return. But only when waves of Soca river, started to rise because of a melting snow, they brought the dead body of Trenta Hunter down. In the summertime, shepherds found a deserted, rocky landscape instead of blooming pastures, because Goldhorn rooted them up in his wrath. Even today you can see on the rocky ground the traces of his horns. The White women left the place forever.





Next up was a drive up the narrow mountain roads to where we hiked to the lookout and saw the mountains that encircled the area. There is even a face of a woman that can be seen in one mountain. There was also a left over, now unused nazi war bunker, which was previously used to carry equipment in a sky rail across the mountains. Our guide showed us where thw troups had lined the mountains in those days, very sobering. We had a quick stop to walk up to a waterfall, refil our bottles and off to lunch. The locals were overly friendly, so it was a nice change to be greeted with a Ciao from strangers in the street.

Our next adventure was rafting with another gorgeous man, Fabien from Sri Lanka. I grabbed my girl friends and led them away from the less beautiful rafting guides, and lo and behold as we were standing right next to muscle man, Fabien....guess who our guide was?! Haha :-) Luckily we were in wetsuits as the water was icy. Fabien's English was interesting, but then again, the girls and I were overawed by his other features. Haha UNTIL....he upended the boat on a rock and drowned us in the ice cold water. When we tried to get back in...he says "no....just enjoy its refreshing qualities". Hypothermia not fun. Haha He let us back in eventually and we continued downstream. A few more "accidental" falling out incidents and we got used to the freezing temperatures and we had to jump out to tow the boat in. I am sorry to admit there was some shameful giggling happening from all the girls when we got back to the bus to change into our clothes and he also stripped off. Ahh the joys of travelling.

We said bye to Fabien and hello to Dimetrie to go and visit another waterfall, a 12m bridge jump and lastly load our car onto a train which went through the tunnels in the mountains where we played silly games of "what can we do in the tunnels" hold our breath? Grab eachother....scream. Etc We were all quite exhausted so we grabbed pizza for dinner and had a few quiet drinks in George's bar before calling it a night.

We had the next morning to walk to the castle which overlooks the lake with Adam and Nicole, Adam made a coin with a hammer and we also met Heather who managed to TWICE fall over the SAME umbrella stand. We grabbed groceries for lunch and headed off to Salzburg which had luckily put on a coat of sunshine (unlike last time I was here) so I went for a walk in town and helped the girls choose their new diryndals for Octoberfest. We all boarded our bus to head to the schnapps farm where the owner was a long term busabout friend. We began with cider, then a round of wine, and a few rounds of flavoured schnapps before we staggered inside to have ribs for dinner, and of course, more schnapps. As you may imagine after the dinner table was cleared we decided we needed dancing space....so the chairs and tables were an obvious choice after so many rounds of schnapps. Adam and I found the door to the cellar and checked it out, before the owner came back and gave us a tour down there anyway. Afterwards the owner organised a game of slaps round the enormous table, which our bus driver won. He was sober, I think that helped. We all piled on the (now) party bus for singing and dancing in the isles all the way home. Except for the sudden red light when Lukas put the brakes on and everyone in the isles fell to the front of the bus...haha whoops, bruises but no serious injuries had by all.

Next morning was an early chekout at 9am with many many sore heads, we went for a walk into town in the rain, saw a local demonstration with performers dressed in traditional costumes with swords. A long drive to Cesky Krumlov where we had Carla's tour and dinner in a brewery followed by a trip to the local bars where we could not buy any alcohol above 20% as Czech Republic had a major problem with poisoning of alcohol with deadly toxins and some people had died. Adam, Nicole, Carla and I had a few very quiet drinks and walked home in the cold.

Yet another early leave time and we arrived in Prague for an orientaion walk with Carla. Afterwards the girls and I left for a look through the vintage boutiques I had mapped out, I bought a cute vintage jacket in the first shop, the second place had closed but the final shop was yhe Utopia of vintage shops. Cute music, central location, almost looked like we were disapearing into a bomb shelter. We spent about an hour and all bought something we had fallen in love with. For me it was an acordian pleat floral 50's dress and leather bag, Heather got a jacket and Frances bought a vest. We grabbed crepes at the local market before heading back to the hostel to check in and head out for bowling, dinner and a last round of schnapps/slaps with the bottle of schnaps Carla had bought us. Only problem was we were sitting on picnic tables outside the hostel covered by tarps which had filled with rain water. This was all ok till some bright spark thought it was better to push the water out. Haha So ensued us all getting wet in very cold temperatures outside....lucky we still had the schnapps! A good end to a very scary beginning! :-)

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