Pag

Pag stood out in my mind as stark beauty. I remember that when I was there it reminded me of the Pakistan desert. Geo brings me 70 kilometer from where the ferry will erupt me on its bleak bare flanks while he himself drives on for 300 more kilometers. Not exactly ‘exploring in each others vicinity’ but I desperately want to be on Pag while Geo does not. The island with no trees I so much look forward to. The island existing of fences. Two things my mind mixed up and made its own Pag in my recollection. A week later, when Geo picks me up and we drive away from the peninsula in to the hills I meet with surroundings I much rather had wanted to be in.

But the thing is: I am afraid of bears and so Pag does deliver. I rejoice in the unexpected turns, wrong directions, heavy rainfall and successful freedom camping. On an island like Pag these are no small tokens.

Dribbling around on the ferry it is easy to see who is excited and who is not. There seems to be no end to my energy when I enter Pag. In full adoration mode I absorb it all, the nakedness around me, the stark emptiness and the stony beauty that made up for years without it. Like a dried up butter-bean that comes to life after soaking a fortnight I simply feel alive. Very alive when I count my options of sleeping unseen somewhere on the main road, Novalja already in view with several big works going on in the vicinity of where I am. The ferry spews out another load of holiday makers, motorbikers and coaches, flying past my kickbike propped against a wobbly kickstand, shaking like a reed in the storm. If my kickbike falls over a car will smash most of my stuff and I can call Geo to collect all of what’s left.

The memory returning when my eyes meet with the once been before situation, I remember one can not camp when not trespassing. The island of Pag exist of plots divided by hand-built stone walls to keep the sheep in. The hills facing the mainland seem to be barren while the rest is covered in pines, oaks, olive and walnut trees. All is fenced, mostly by sturdy white rocks, as far as the eye can tell, into stocky determined walls. That means the land belongs to someone. To many someones.

And what do you do when have land on Pag to raise your sheep but a son who rather fancies a sitting job, a computer job, an engineering job, whatever job yet anything but the owner of livestock of sheep?

The most popular choice of Pag seems to be selling it to developers. Developers really know a thing of two what to do with barren land. Developers are masterminds of the opposition of self sustainability and thus the island is a heaven for those who like holiday homes, rental homes, fancy homes and all sort of homes. All homes except mobile homes. But before I see the island that has become a party island, I was dropped at Gospić.

After a day drive Geo let me off somewhere quiet and I am further dictated by a self shepherding dog who looks after a group of cows and me. Next morning I awake on an uneven foggy patch and much against my habit I start to kick right away. First passing two men in Mercedes who are peeing publicly, not expectant of an early riser erupting from a misty field. I will be heading towards a pass before I can sail down and much to my surprise I am able to kick nicely most of the day. Once the climb start it is only 5 kilometers and I happily push on. Vegetation brings the smell of pine resin, rocks become visible and are white as if bleached. I like the mediterranean feel and the abundance of forest below me. The road is quiet enough to my liking (but not to some grumpy old man who makes heated hand signals from behind his car steering wheel that I am in the way of his climb).

Once on the plateau I settle in Baške Oštarije (900 meter altitude), white washed peaks are to my right, the prospect of beauty, of overwhelming natural, wide spread views that will be feeding the soul, is filling me. I longed so tremendous much to this, to an opposite of Hungarian forest without a view, that I feel I could kick away from my garden for much longer.

‘Which language do you speak?’ asks the young man with sharp cut short beard, neck tattoos and a leg that doesn’t bend quite well. He is passing my tent while driving a huge caterpillar machine. ‘English’, I reply. It is not a problem that I have set up my camp out-of-view-of-almost-everyone and having a camp fire going ‘but we need to finish our job and uhm, I think you are not in the way. We will be done soon, it won’t take too long’. The young man is a lumberjack and together with his colleague they cut beech trees with chainsaws. Smacking to the sloping forest floor, perhaps 100 meter away from where I sit, hauled off with their big yellow machine. I could resist asking whether there are bears here.

As long as I use my own garden veggies I can eat tasty enough, after that it becomes awful again. The huge downside of camping & touring: bad food = constipation.

To be seen before I go to sleep, and after I have confirmed to do so, is an unfortunate scenario. Going to sleep now is not without worries. Every leaf that falls on the tent cloth sounds like a bullet. Out of all sounds that I hear which one is the bear? Does a bear bark? Then a sudden dog alike howling back and forth makes me realize it must be wolves. But I am not afraid of wolves because of wolves I haven’t seen videos. And what must I now do when a bear comes laying on me?

After a nice talk with the lumberjacks from Bosnia I start the descent to Karlobag. Energized, though not by sleep, I savor where I am. A most heavenly, utterly beautiful, clear skied and calm road. Down twenty kilometer of pretty pines leaning along the grain of wind, bare white rocks and deep below the prospect of Pag, a barren island. My long longed for portion of desert is within reach. The kickbike’s brake pads should have been outfitted with new ones, but I forgot about it. Now a 20 kilometer downhill makes my hands stiff but my heart warm as the rims where upon the brake pads shave off their rubber.

Down in Karlobag it feels way too touristy for me and I can not do anything other than speed on, together with hordes of motorbikes with their awful sounds and mobile homes who considerately give me a wide berth. Along the coast I kick to the ferry landing. ‘It is 60 kilometers without supermarkets,’ tells a young German cyclist who passes me and I have to smile about his innocence, as it never is what people or Google tell you.

Beauty pushes me. I am beaming. A smile settles on my face when I enter the ferry, pretty much as if I am a simpleton. No one else is beaming, except one flabby guy who’s doing minimalist bike-packing. Motorbikers come over to check out my electric footbike, except that the electric part is in my legs. Electric legs that has to push the kickbike over the first hump of Pag, towards Novalja. It all goes almost effortless as the excitement and the happiness of where I am is literally pushing me, like gasoline does to a motor. I greet an old grumpy man, who is checking on his sheep, but he is not interested in tourists greeting him. I see a mobile home like ours trying to find a place for the night into the vast open rocky landscape, where the old grumpy man his sheep roam. I know I have to do better: I must camp out of view.

Out of view I hear a farmer supplementing his sheep with pellets and I feel uneasy trespassing so boldly. I have the impression I can be categorized as a jet skier: highly annoying tourist. Mobile homes probably are under this tab as well, as out of the uncountable many laws and prohibitions, a mobile home is often depicted on the many signs. Novalja has it’s own tourist doctor and the town carries a sign to be clothed instead of walking around in bikini. Most places are closed for the winter. Elderly people stroll leisurely around, not far from their mobile homes. There’s not one tap anywhere for the public to draw water. Not at cemeteries. Not at churches. Not at squares. I have to keep a very watchful eye and only succeed once, at a private holiday apartment complex that has an open gate and a tap that gives water. I have the impression the locals are fed up with tourists. All I see are tired faces, grumpy expressions and no greetings whatsoever. ‘Be the change’, and I start to greet each and every one clearly, outspoken and pronounced ‘Gwala’. No one greets me back. Perhaps because I pronounce the word for ‘thank you’ more like koala?

Hoping for that unpaved weather beaten path running the length of the island, white compact gravel, lined by barren emptiness on both sides, I kick disillusioned over a tarmac road with several turn offs and lined by a stone wall to keep sheep in place. Countless mobile homes pass me, one German couple asks whether they should load my odd looking vehicle into their home, or at least my luggage. I get soaked by a serious downpour but warm ocean rain is rather good. When I reach Lun, at the end of the island, I learn there is no private beach for me to sleep on. I turn back the same minute that I came.

I am not disappointed. The previous camp spot was of such an unexpected treasure that I was only hoping to repeat it. While I stood in line waiting to let the local race cyclists pass undisturbed on my way to Lun, I thought myself a sort of cyclist too, and dodged the line. There I went wrong and instead got the best camp spot since years (however much signs telling me not to camp nor make fires).

I go in search for bleached gravel roads bringing me the desolate rockiness I am in search for. Direction Kolan brings me wetlands, reeds and mud. To get closer to where I want to be I realize I can’t because the barren rocks are always facing the main land, and once there roads lead to the tip of each island, thus a dead end. In trying to get to lonesome beaches I hit closed fences. Maneuvering around a hill and avoiding the main road is meeting with collapsed land and the end of a quiet path. There is no way around it but the main road.

Finding places to camp is not easy with the multitude of signs and prohibitions but I go as far into a quebrada until I can go no further. A path without a ban and a field without a closed gate is my place for the night but leave upon first light as not to bother anyone. Next morning I meet with a shepherd on the path while having breakfast.

A plot leveled, all the rocks on a huge heap and a sea view, the benefits of a future luxury building on a former sheep enclosure.

It dawns on me that the nature on Pag feels as a fairground attraction. You may look but you have to pay for it. You have to pay to get access to what you seek. It’s more of a pretty picture where nothing is allowed. Not that that restricts me, attempts only get neck breaking, impossible or impassable.

Now that I have figured out where the beauty really is on Pag I am determined to get there. Pushing the kickbike over the busy main road does not affect my mood. The feelings are subtle. The ocean atmosphere, the dark blue with its magnetic power. On the other side the rural hardworking farmers feeling. The touristic asphalt where fences keep the entries to small strips of beach to themselves.

When I finally reach that whitish gravel road, pushing the kickbike past holiday homes and closed down seasonal establishments and past elderly tourists on bicycles, laughing about my vehicle and past grumpy faces tired of tourism and past men with tiny dogs and past luxury yachts, I feel where I belong. But the sword of happiness is one with a double edge because I don’t feel I am doing the real thing. I have deliberately sought this very spot, away from the direction I need to go. I see the beauty of where I am yet it feels I try to copy something of the past. Cycling through the Atacama brought me daily excitement of where I was and the places I slept. I do feel this excitement sprouting up being on the barren rocky hill surrounded by sheep, I see the impressiveness of where I am yet the sparks stop soon, as if the flint is only a useless stone. Are it the menopausal hormones? Am I tired? Or both?

I am here. Now what? The wind is too strong. The tent pitched on a walking route. As if a cake is put in front of me, a cake made with unrefined sugar yet having diabetes. Or being a leashed thorough bred. I see the Atacama. I see desert. I see what my eyes and mind and heart want. My memories are anchored. I feel the natural beauty of where I am and yet I can not grasp it. I can’t get a hold of it. Because I won’t ride the waves? Because I have a home? Because the hormones are not in check? Because Geo is coming to fetch me? Because I want to be in a real desert and stay a lot longer? Pag is small. A week is not a year. A concentrated version is not a sum of the best moments in a whole year.

Once in my tent I feel the safety of my home, deciding not to cook as the food is so terribly awful!

Then the digits show 10.00 AM and it seems my magical hour start. I load the kickbike and happily move on. I feel an instant bolt of excitement. As if my flint is far from an ordinary stone. There is always this excitement to see for myself what is further down the road, what lays beyond where I am.

I discover that it is only nice to be in a desert because you are passing through. Not to seek patches that remind me of it, away from the general route, solely to camp in it. Now I see desert landscape but am on the main road busy with traffic. The route out of Pag is boring and uneventful. I have to keep a close watch to traffic speeding past and oncoming overtaking vehicles. Then a yellow van approaches, turns and picks me up. Reunited with Geo the smell of wet plastic shoes and fire smoke fills the interior, something Geo is not keen on. We stop for a quick wash at the back of the van, which takes me nearly an hour and continue towards Bosnia. Only then nature starts to truly appeal to me. There’s a wildness coming up, one of unchecked and unfenced openness. A massive bowl starts to form below us when we climb over the natural mountainous border, things look old, dilapidated, forgotten and of an other era. We are far from touristy nature that seems to cater to commercial ends.

Once in Bihac where dogs are stray we eat roasted lamb and park the van at some quiet parking lot. A quiet parking lot it is but when I erect my tent the owner of the house comes to see what we are up to. Having had to flee the war, she and Geo talk amicably in German and welcomes us to stay. Next early morning, uprooted from my routine, we get a coffee in a large hall filled with cigarette smoke. People make ready to go to work, each single one dressed in black, all heads turned to the one dressed in colors and non smoking, an air of contentment, fulfilled by sleeping on a beach with emerald bathing water, a little dome home and enough energy to propel non-electric bicycles that are not quite that.

Middle of October 2023. About 180 kilometer in 7 days, average almost 25 kilometers a day. I know where I want to go next, and what kind of new pouch comes forth soon.