Slap Means Waterfall in Croatian

We woke up early, downed my 100th Nescafe coffee for this trip, ate the last of our nutella, some day old bread, a peach and an apple, and headed out to the national park. Plicvize Lakes, is a national park made up of numerous tiered lakes which all empty into one another as the elevation changes over the course of some 10KM or more. The lakes themselves are terraces made in nearly discrete pools of water, due to the high calcium content of the water, the lakes have hard travertine like bottoms, and empty into one another over these travertine ridges, resulting in some quite beautiful and numerous waterfalls. Sounds great right?

So we get to the park quite early, and head over to the ticket office to buy our tickets, and figure out where to get the tram. The park is organized in a series of tours, which can be as strenuous (walking the entire day around all of the lakes – around 10-12 hours) to a day on a tram (literally taking a tram or ferry to each of the lakes). We weren’t sure what to expect, and the first ten minutes weren’t promising, as we hopped onto the Disney Tram and watched as we drove by nature for what seemed like miles.

We finally hopped off the tram, and started hiking, and we hiked for hours. Most of the paths are boardwalks, built right on top of the lakes, so you can walk near the edges of the lake and fell like you are walking on water. This allows for some dramatic views of the abundant fish, fowl, and dragonflies that inhabit the area. It also provides some beautiful glimpses of how the fallen trees and underwater vegetation slowly becomes covered in this white calcium rich water, giving everything a slightly ghostly and surreal look. It doesn’t take long to realize that the reason why this park and the lakes are so well preserved is due to the fact that there is no fishing, swimming, camping, or unregulated hiking that happens here. The habitat is untouched.

We hike from the highest lakes and make our way around the shore to the middle lakes, walking past waterfalls, butterflies (some of which became quite enamored with me for some reason – check out the photos), and past some of the largest schools of lake fish that I have ever seen – simply swimming in the sun and seeming to tease the ducks just above them. About 4 hours in we hopped on the Ferry to head over to the beginning of the trail for the great waterfall. The ferry takes you across one of the largest middle tiered lakes, and to the beginning of the lower lakes.

We stopped for a beer and Pomme Frites break, and mustered up some more energy for the walk to the last waterfall. We walk past wide expanses of lily pads, an aggressive duck who wants to eat my new favorite snack food (Thanks to Natasa for introducing these to me, Smokies – which are corn puffs with peanut butter on them – totally addictive), and more waterfalls than I can count.

We finally make it to the last lake, which culminates in a large waterfall surrounded by mossy green rocks and a dramatic drop off. This waterfall is to the right of the final waterfall, the Velik Slap (Large Waterfall) which is some 75M high, and unlike the other waterfalls in the park, is due to a river and not the lake waters. It was beautiful, and quite a wonderful way to end a long day.

We headed back to the car, trying to decide what to do for both dinner and lodging – as we had no plans for either - and we decided to head out, and see how close to Zagreb we could get before the daylight was gone.

We started to get tired, and a little anxious about a place to stay about 70KM outside of Zagreb, as we had stopped at 3 guesthouses, all of which said they were full. We then tried a roadside hotel, which was too expensive, then a traveler’s hotel, and another roadside hotel (which Ulises said was so bad that he was certain some Tarentino film had been made there). We keep driving, and sometime around 9PM arrive in Zagreb, with no hotel reservations, and no map. So after an hour of trying to find hotels referred to in the Lonely Planet Guide, but which weren’t on the map, we broke down and stayed at the only place that was nice to me when I got out to ask their availability – that’s right, the Best Western Zagreb. The super kind night manager checked us in, upgraded us to a suite, helped us figure out where to park the rental car, and made sure we had a late check out for the next day…nicest guy ever.

Tomorrow we are off to South Africa.