Reunion with my son: Back in Bovec / Slovenia

08/20/2023-08/24/2023

TANYA:

The separation from Markus in Skopje is anything but easy for us, as we know that we will only see each other again in Vienna in 5 weeks at the Burgtheater premiere of our son Tristan.

... From now on I will continue the blog alone.

While Markus makes his way home to Bonn in a 26-hour bus ride (ultimately it will be 36 hours!), I take the bus back to Slovenia to meet Milan, our younger one, in Ljubljana, as he is with his ID card is currently only allowed to travel in EU countries.

My bus trip via Belgrade is no walk in the park: When I land at the rather creepy bus station in Belgrade at night, it is completely unclear where my Flixbus to Ljubljana leaves from. There are no counters of any kind and no one speaks English. Fortunately, Goran, a Serb, notices my distress. He communicates with me in his broken German, finally finds out where I have to go, buys me a ticket with his Serbian money (I didn't have any cash with me and how do you think that you have to buy a ticket to get there? to be allowed on the bus platform) that you need to get to the Flixbus, and then even invites me for coffee. He seems like an angel to me. Without him I would probably have had to spend the night at this rather scary bus station...

Seeing Milan again is great and we are discovering Ljubljana with its pretty bars, squares and cafes on the river in a completely new way together, and then driving back to Bovec in the afternoon (back for me).

Milan falls in love with the village just as quickly as Markus and I did a few weeks ago. The very next morning I go canyoning with Milan - this time in the Predelica Canyon. Just the two of us with a fantastic guide named Ricky, who told us a lot about the landscape, the different weather conditions in the mountains, about baby fire salamanders that swim in the canyon before they are old enough to walk on land and about different species of spiders in the canyon . The highlight is a 30m high waterfall through which we can abseil ourselves and feel the full power of the water. Then we go rock jumping in the river. Only the thing with the buses turns out to be more difficult than expected: Nobody knows for sure whether there will be a bus from the bathing area back to the village, so we hitchhike and make a really fabulous acquaintance. It's John, a Brit who has lived in Italy for 11 years with a mini car the likes of which I've never seen before - completely lined in glitter with British flag colors and an outstretched hand as a rest and a sound at 80 km/h like driving 200 km/h. In the car we also meet Nancy, a teacher from London, who John is currently showing around beautiful Slovenia. The trip is a real experience and it's even nicer that I bump into them again in the evening for a beer in the village and John invites my son and me to his home in Udine in Italy.

The next day, Milan and I go on a wonderful 5-hour hike, swim in the Virje waterfall and marvel at the mighty Bloka waterfall from a viewpoint.

The next day we both discover a new hobby for ourselves: kayaking in the whitewater river - becoming one with the kayak and braving the rapids in this enchanting area was great fun and thanks to Yakan, our guide, we quickly learn how to use the kayak . Only the obligatory practice roll with the kayak scared me a lot at first... In the end, however, it was Milan and not me who had to use it on our trip😉

Filled with great experiences, we continue our journey by bus and train to Udine to visit John, our new acquaintance...