Friday September 14-22, 2018: Now that the rush to get out of the EU for our Visa’s is over, and we have settled into Croatia, we have begun looking for opportunities to serve. In July we met a couple Carmen and Peter who have been out for over 2 years and have been serving as they go. They say that the service allows them to find more meaning in their travels, and to conserve their funds as they visit different countries. In France they ran a bed and breakfast for a month while the owner went on holiday. In Croatia they worked with a gentlemen named Robert, who has a beach resort, and assisted him with his farm, in exchange for room and board. Once the dust settled for us here, we looked up Robert and emailed him. He is starting to harvest olives, and said he would appreciate some extra hands.
Two hours North of Dubrovnik, is a long thin peninsula that juts out into the ocean between two islands. There are few paved roads and only one that goes to end of the peninsula. This single paved road passes through miles of vineyards and olive groves, summits ridges and presents beautiful vista’s of the ocean,
Along the way, you pass lots of potential stops, however the price you pay in drive time, is worth the beauty to be found at the end of the road. Where the asphalt ends, it opens into a small protected harbor, lined with a few homes and restaurants.
The village of Loviste is where Resort Gardina is to be found. It is a small and simple Hotel of 10 rooms and a Resturant that specializes in fresh grilled fish and meat. Scents of the wood fired grill and fresh caught fish drizzled in olive oil, float across the patio lined with tables and sun shades, and out into the bay. At anchor are sailboats aware of this secret little bay and the amazing food that comes off the grill to your table.
Gardina was Robert’s childhood home, but it was not until he was 7 that his mom started letting out rooms and feeding guest that came to visit the beach and village. Roberts home was built right up the edge of the water and during bad storms, waves of water would crash into the home through the front door. At age 12 his family had their fill of the ocean in their front room, and Robert’s job for years was to take a donkey and cart, through town and up the hillside to their farm. He would pick up rocks out of the olive groves, and fill the cart. He would follow the same path and deposit those rocks into the ocean, in front of his home. After years of hard labor, he had pushed the ocean back 50 ft. Another year had it cemented over and a patio appeared, the envy of any outdoor Resturant.
It was Robert’s idea to take the large cement patio and turn it into a real resturant, not just for guests, but for any who would come. His dream took time to incubate, and being young when he took over the family business, he began looking for ways to expand and grow. However, the war for independence from Yugoslavia took place, and the tourists stopped coming. The war was settled and still no tourist from the North came. Years went by without them returning, but Robert believed that one day they would. So he began to prepare and went to work, all in a time when others in the village were closed down. It was during this period of his life, he met a Croatian woman living in Brussels, and during his visits he began importing fine wood tables and Furnature for the future resort he envisioned.
Flash forward to today and he has a thriving resort filled with tourist from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and a myriad of other Northern European countries. Aussies and New Zealander’s are also well represented, however Americans are the rarity. He claims we are his second in all his years. It has become the place to go when you want to avoid big crowds and find a simple quite beach side existence. Robert says that the community is much as it was 10 years ago, and that they have about one new home built a year, by someone looking for a slice of heaven.
Robert is proficient in multiple languages and speaks English quite well. He is the consummate entrepreneur constantly going from 5:30 in the morning, when he takes a small boat out into the ocean and checks his nets. After breakfast he works on his farm until lunch, then waits tables until late into the evening. Afternoon and dinner being their busiest time, he is running all day and late into the evening, to keep everything afloat. If you are looking for 5 star accommodations or a resort with marriott-like polish, Gardina is not for you. But if you are looking for a laid back, friendly place to soak up the sun, explore the beautiful Adriatic, and enjoy fresh grilled delights, make this your place. To me this is my Nirvana, I’m in love and so grateful to be here.
In this secluded bay, the sun rises over a low hill to the east, and reveals ordered lines of olive trees and vineyards among the cedars native to this area. The sun sets at the mouth of the bay, where you watch it slowly descend into the ocean.
Our schedule while we have been here begins at 6:30 am just as the sun is rising, when we come together for breakfast served family style. Then we are off to Farm Gardina which is located on the hillside overlooking the town and bay, and we spend our time pulling the olives from the branch’s with plastic rakes that look like sand toys. The olives fall from the trees and land on large nets we have placed under each tree as we begin our harvest.
Once all the olives are removed from the tree, we load them into large green containers, ready for processing. Roberts says that his area is dealing with a type of bug that they has never seen before, which is attacking the olives and causing them to fall from the tree before they are ripe. He is harvesting early in an attempt to get some oil from his trees this year, and not have a total loss. Most of his friends and neighbors are letting their crops go, concerned that it won’t be worth the effort. Time will only tell for Robert, if harvesting early will provide enough oil to payoff.
While we are here, the agreement for volunteers is that they will work diligently 5 hours a day, in exchange for room and board. He has hosted some individuals who looked for every opportunity to cut corners and avoid work, and reports that these don’t last long. We are typically done by noon and after lunch we are free to explore the area, relax on a deck chair, use the sea kayak’s, or as I have done, attempt to get caught up on our blog.
Although it is not required, I have started joining Robert on his fishing trips to help place the nets in the afternoon, and in the morning to see what has been caught. We start at 5:30 so we can be back by 6:30 and breakfast, it is dark at that hour, with just the slightest glimmer of light from the rising sun. The fish we bring back are cleaned by his chef and cooked for the patrons as they order.
Joining him makes his life easier, so he does not have to run from the front of the boat to the rear to adjust the direction of the motor when he is placing and bringing in the nets. He lays the nets in an S pattern, then wraps the net around to where it begins, so that the fish get trapped when they swim in. The ocean has always called to me, and joining Robert on his daily efforts to provide fish for his Resturant, has been a joy.
One afternoon Robert invited us to join him to place some nets and snorkel in a little bay that had an abandoned home, set on the side of the sea. The home was comprised of the faded orange clay tile of the Mediterranean, and beautiful white stone, so prevalent in this landscape. The structure was in remarkable condition considering its long years without maintenance, and would be an idillic place to pass a few months each year. The home has a cement dock to stand up to the storms, and boat is the only way in or out to this little sea-side homestead. The couple who lived here, raised 13 children off of what they could gather from their garden, their olive trees, wild boar and what the sea would provide. Today Robert says most people think he owns the property, but those thirteen children all married and have children of their own. Robert says he would love to live here and fix it up, but is concerned that as soon as he does, one of the descendants would come making a claim of ownership. On our way back to Gardina we stopped at a net Robert had placed early this morning. Robert and Ethan dove in with their snorkels to check on the nets and we could hear Ethan crying from the water, that he could see fish stuck in the nets. When we returned to Gardina, those fish were cleaned, grilled, and enjoyed for dinner.
The day has started to fall into patterns, with me joining Robert at 5:30 to help with the nets, and a breakfast at 6:30 of meat, cheese and bread. It’s probably a good time to mention that I have been eating Keto for the last 3 weeks, more about this later. After breakfast, it is off to the Olive Grove to harvest until noon and lunchtime. Lunch is usually Fish and French fries, or a meat of some kind. The kitchen staff decides each day what is on the menu for the volunteers. They are good to us and particularly the boys where they often throw in Crepes or other sweets. They look good but have no sway in my heart. Eating this way allows me to have no craving for them. In the afternoon, I typically go out with Robert again to help him place the nets. After we will go for a snorkel, and work on preparing our blogs for posting. I am grateful for the down time and good internet, or I would not have been able to have posted so many from the start of our trip, in such a short time. (I guess it is important to note that this blog started out as my journal, my attempt at trying to capture what we have been experiencing. At first I would sent snippets or pictures to our family via email, and I have been working hard to transfer all that I have written and the photos we have taken, to this blog where other are able to share).
Dinner is between 6-6:30, and I usually shower and change before I eat, then continue to work on the blog until 10. I sit on a table that has a clear view of the dinning patio, and watch people from all over Europe talk for hours after their food has been eaten. The cook Julio loves Elvis and most nights we hear Elvis from the speakers, echoing from the kitchen.
A few experiences of note. We were finishing up one tree in the grove this morning and Robert asked all to come check out something. He showed us a hole in a stone wall that was built by his grandfather back in the Natzi days. When the Natzi’s took over this area during world war II, his grandfather got on the list of people who were to be exterminated. Word spread fast and he had built a place where he could go to hide when they would come.
His grandfather had grown vines over the opening so that it was perfectly covered. He stored food and water in his hideaway in case he needed to be there for an extended period. When the Natzi’s came they wandered all over his farm trying to find him without success. Finally his wife came and got him after they had left. A few weeks went by and again they heard the sound of engines coming towards town, but along with it they heard the bark of dogs, and his grandfather knew that his hide away would not work this time. So he quickly gathered his family, along with a few provisions, and hiked over the hillside surrounding the village to a small boat he had hidden in the trees. His family used that boat to cross the adriadic to an island that would afford them some protection. The Natiz’s did not know where they had gone, and when they retreated and they were able to come home.
The second describes the banter and humor found around Roberts Table, and happened during lunch as we were hot from the work with the olives and being in the sun. After eating I asked, “Does anyone want to join me for a swim?” Spencer with his quick witt retorted “ I don’t want to swim, I don’t want to go whale watching” (referring to me as the whale). Everyone at the table laughed, including myself, the timing, and the sheer comedy of it was brilliant.
We eat three meals a day together family style, with Robert, his mom and dad, and fellow volunteers Gustavo and Aldana. The time around the table is filled with cheeky sarcasm, mostly generated by Robert, and lots and lots of laughter.
It was a sad day that dawned when we were to leave Robert and his Gardina. We helped with olives in the morning, shared a lunch with the gang, and began preparing to leave, doing last minute laundry and showering. I was surprised by the sadness of our two boys. I thought it was just something Jen and I were feeling.
This place is special, and our time with Robert left us feeling like we were not quite done here. We would stay longer, but have a ferry carrying us to Italy and a second to Barcelona to meet my mom and sisters. The option to stay longer was not possible. We embraced Robert and he presented us two gifts, one was a vase of his famous olive oil and the second a tool for removing corks from Wine bottles. He laughed, saying I know you don’t drink wine, and that’s what makes it so funny! We drove away, again feeling like we were not done here, but maybe that’s the best way to leave a place. (Jenny: Kelly is correct that we all were sad to leave. Goose and Aldie were so kind as well. They are in their late 20’s and are just traveling around playing their music. He plays the Saxophone and she plays the guitar. They sing and play tango. They have no car, and really no money, they are just working their way around Europe serving and playing. They say really they wanted some time away from Argentina which has become very corrupt in some areas)
