Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Caves, underwear soiling, and midnight swims

Day 4 - I will just stop telling you about any of our meals unless they are spectacular or somehow significant and we will pick up the story when our heroes arrive at the Skocjan Jama through which the river Reka flows. The river gets formed from the melting of a snow cap named Lednik. In case you didn't pick up on this yet, the Slovenian people are not the most imaginative namers in the world. I have never been in a cave and Mike told me that this experience has ruined any hope of me liking any other cave, since this one was spectacular and nothing will be on the same scale. Rather than talking about it just click here for some pictures. According to wikipedia: "Due to its exceptional significance, Skocjan Caves was entered on UNESCO's list of natural and cultural world heritage sites in 1986". We were told that this is the larges cave in the world, but Wikipedia maintains that it's one of the largest underground canyons in the world. Just a little something extra in case anyone is interested.

We booked the trip through the caves and the surrounding park which was also amazing. We saw some beautiful caverns, and waterfalls, and krapiva that was Russian style. After this trip I am convinced that Slovenia has some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. I know that some will disagree, but it puts Switzerland to shame. I am again a little lost because nothing that I will say will describe the beauty of the nature that we saw. You will just have to go there and see for yourself.

On our way back I was determined to find the way to the hostel that was described by google and got us into a bit of an adventure. I don't know if you had ever driven through Italian towns, but if you haven't the streets are ridiculously narrow, the turns are sharp, and the speed that the other drivers travel at is quite excessive. We got on to a street that we thought was one way until we saw a car coming straight for us. Mike tried to pull our car over as far as was humanly possible and in the process we slashed our front passanger tire and dented the rim. We managed to roll the car down the hill a little bit so that no one hits us, and then I, yes I (with an assist from Jessica Ogulnik), changed the tire. There will be proof somewhere on facebook at a later date :). The spare was a little flat so Mike continued to navigate the mean streets of Trieste for another 15-20 minutes until we found a gas station. By the time we got there I believe that everyone needed a fresh pair of underwear. Oh yeah.

The gas station attendant told us that there is a tire shop that might still be open (it was after 6pm) and gave us a general direction to drive in. We actually found the tiny shop and it was still open. I wonder why our vacation luck is always so good, and my general luck is always so bad.... The owner took a shot, hammered out our rim, and changed and balanced our tire all for the bargain price of 100 Euros. All in all not too bad. While this was going on Jessica, Olichka and I went to a nearby cafe and each got a glass of wine. Oh Italy, how I love you!!!

In the evening we repeated last nights programme of eating crazy amounts of delicous food followed by walking the streets of the city. I have to say that Italians know their seafood and they know if well. We had actopus again for dinner and again it was grilled just right, not too tough, and spiced to perfection. Bellisomo!

Upon arrival to the hostel Mike and I decided to skinny dip in the ocean. It was much colder than we through so we were the only ones that went for the actual swimming while the rest of the people stayed on the pier. Note to self - never go skinny dipping next to 3 photographers who have their cameras with them. Although they promised not to look while we were getting in (and I think they might have even kept that promise) once we were in the water all bets were off. Yanik got so brazen as to tell us where to be and to come closer as he was photographing us. Olichka did not tell us to pose, but managed to take quite a few pictures herself. Major gratitude is sent to Jessica Ogulnik who did not take any pictures of her naked friends, although she didn't discourage the other two villains nearly enough.

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