Adventure in the Mountains of Croatia, Part 3
by Kelli Hedding, Copyright May 15, 2008, all rights reserved. 355 views
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| From Misc Images |
Wanderings in the Night
Noodles slid off the spoon and into my bed.
“Judit!!” I exclaimed. “Stop being such a pig. After all you ate earlier this evening you should be the least hungry of the three of us!”
The three of us girls had made up our beds and were eating noodles we had cooked over Hansi’s little gas stove. We had no bowls for the noodles; all we had was the pot we had cooked them in. My bedroll was in the middle so naturally the pot was in my lap; not a good place when three hungry girls are attacking a pot of slippery noodles. After finishing our meal we all snuggled into our sleeping bags – I with the run-away noodles - and fell asleep.
If some small animal had peered down on us in the night from the cliff above he would have discovered three girls side-by-side tucked away at the foot of the rocky face away from the cliff’s edge. He might have run away to tell his friends as raindrops started to patter on his little head.
I pulled my sleeping bag over my head as raindrops started hitting my face.
“Go away,” I said, “You’re just pretending; you’re not really going to rain.”
I would have rolled over and gone back to sleep but Judit was too much of a realist. She insisted that we try and find a covered place in case it started to pour. Glancing at my watch I noticed that it was 2 am.
I did not want to get up but Judit insisted. We packed up our gear within 5 minutes and climbed up a crack in the cliff face behind us. I did not want to open my eyes and I stumbled along behind Judit and Maggie trying to act like a responsible adult.
After exploring for only a few minutes we found a most remarkable picnic area on the far side of the mountain. It had concrete picnic tables set in concrete wells choked with trees and underbrush. There was just enough room under one of the picnic tables for the three of us to sleep. We had an all-purpose German army canvas borrowed from Hansi. Using sticks and rocks we were able to make a little tent over one side of the picnic table to keep our heads dry.
After we had set up our make shift tent we looked up at the sky. Most of the clouds had rolled away and we could see the stars.
“Let’s go back!” I said, “I told you it was only pretending!”
After a little discussion we decided to go back to our precipice; if it started pouring down rain we knew were we could go.
Back on our little precipice Judit and Maggie wanted to bed down closer to the cliff edge and argued over who would get to sleep near the edge - I was perfectly content to cuddle up between them and promptly fell asleep while they were still talking.
Four hours later we were awakened by another pitter-patter on our faces - this time a little more insistent. None of us said a word; we simply packed up our stuff and moved again. We were soon fast asleep again under the concrete picnic table hoping that the spiders would find somewhere else to sleep for the rest of the night.
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