DONKEYS!!!!!

GUESS WHAT WE DID TODAY!!!!!

Okay, I'll tell you because I can't wait because it was too much fun::: we went on a donkey safari!!!!

"Safari" is actually kind of a silly word for it, actually. We asked Dragan (hostel owner) if we could have the day off, or at least do our work early in the morning (I think Steve woke up at 6am... ugh.), so that we could go on this donkey safari lunch tour thing. We were picked up a about 9:30am by some dude with an earring who didn't speak much English, and were driven to Zrnovo, which was about fifteen minutes by car from the hostel. From there, we were put on DONKEYS!!!!!!

Yep, donkeys. The guy who picked us up (who we later found out was named Darjo) led our donkeys to the beginning of a trail through the woods and off we went on an hour-long ride to Pavja Luka, which is a little bay on the other side of the island. You can see a little bit of the trek here.

I thought the donkey ride was super fun, even though Steve's donkey, Andrea (who we nicknamed Porsche) kept stopping to eat, and when she did, my donkey Gabby (nicknamed Ferrari) would trot up trying to get in front. Every time Gabby/Ferrari got close, Andrea/Porsche would instantly speed up again. Hilarious. Darjo followed behind on foot, urging the donkeys along whenever they slowed down too much. I was laughing pretty much the entire time because the donkeys were walking along the outer edge of the stony trails (aka, right next to tree branches which kept stabbing me in the arms) instead of the treeless but rocky center of the path. Sillyness. Steve, on the other hand, did not like that the donkey saddles had no stirrups and he couldn't shift very easily to get more comfortable.

But after an hour of riding through the woods that dipped into the valley entrance of Pavja Luka, we were rewarded with greetings (in English!) from Jimmy, a local who would be cooking us Croatian barbeque. We were each immediately handed a beer and given directions to the beach, which was a five minute walk from the house patio. This is what we saw.

After swimming around in this quiet, perfect cove for about an hour, we headed back to Jimmy's house for food. OH, THE FOOD! It has been so long since we had anything that was properly barbecued!!!!

The ground meat "fingers" are called cevapcici, a standard Croatian food, and next to the cevapcici are grilled squids!!! We also had grilled vegetables, tomato and onion salad, bread, and beer. After Steve and I had pretty much polished off all that food in those pictures by ourselves (Jimmy, Darjo, and the other house guests had their own platters), Darjo (who we found out is a chef at a local restaurant) came by plopped grilled pork belly onto our plates.

We seriously ate nonstop for like two hours.

Then we went back to the beach!!!

I know, I know... You aren't supposed to swim immediately after eating. But how could anything like the possibility of drowning ruin such a perfect day?

Darjo had to take the donkeys back earlier than we wanted to leave, so Jimmy offered to drive us back into town so we could stay longer, which was very nice of him. On the way into town he was telling us that on that half of the island, there were only about 600 people in the four biggest towns (villages, really) and that everyone knew everyone. Case in point: he dropped us off at Dragan's hostel and started chatting with the neighbor across the street.

I wish I could better describe how perfect this day was. It was seriously the single best day of vacation we've had on this entire trip so far.

The donkey ride? Surprisingly way more fun than I anticipated. The donkeys were cute and very calm, and the trail was beautiful, and I couldn't stop smiling.

The food? Reminded me of our barbeque. Do you have any idea how much I've missed that? My dad is the barbeque master. So to have familiar tastes like smoke and charred meat back in my mouth.... Well, like I said, we ate pretty much nonstop for two hours.

The company (Jimmy, Darjo, other house guests)? Lots of fun, even though Jimmy was the only one who really spoke English. It was a lot of laughing, a lot of charades, and a lot of random singing.

I could get used to days like this. It was the quintessential vacation day.