Human Salt Shakers of Hvar

Salt. Salt everywhere.

There’s enough salt on my body to give a white person hypertension with one lick of my face. Powder sticks to the bleached hairs on my arms like dandruff. My hair feels like willow tree bark from swimming in the sea five times a day with no shower. Our clothes and the van’s floor look like we painted weird symbols everywhere with chalk, but it’s just dried up salt.

We took a boat to get to Hvar, an island famous for its fields of lavender. The water sparkles, and if you focus your eye on one point, the reflecting light on the waves looks like static in your peripherals. Matthieu navigated Patrick down one-lane roads built on cliffs. I don’t get car sick easily, but I got woozy sitting in the backseat because the roads are so winding.

I’m convinced the Mediterranean is the most peaceful place on Earth. Even the sea isn’t threatening – you never hear of shark attacks in the Mediterranean or the Adriatic, and it’s gotta be simply impossible to drown here because the water is so salty it’s difficult to dive down. When I want to float on my back I don’t even have to try; I can just rest my hands behind my head and lie there, and when I am on land again I feel incredibly heavy, like my body forgot gravity exists.

Everywhere in Croatia is like a dream, but this island is like a dream within a dream. [Insert Inception joke here]. Driving around is like wandering through a perfume store; every breath you take you smell a new scent. Lavender, fishy sea, fermenting grapes, sulfur, rosemary. The countryside is olive trees, vineyards, and white-washed houses here and there. The houses all have open porches, complete with an old lady in a white muumuu dress looking out over her land like she’s the queen of Croatia. There are probably more bee hive boxes than human houses on this island. An occasional post office marked by a small yellow sign that says “Posta” is the only official building. Every few meters, a stand smaller than a dinner table sells olive oil, wine, honey, and lavender oil, and maybe bottled water and coca cola.

We parked Patrick on the side of a cliff on one of the extremely narrow side roads where some other cars were parked. I could take one step away from the van and slide right down into the sea. On the other side of us was a small vineyard of white grapes.

M&M and I made our way along a rocky path, past a small abandoned church and down to the perfectly clear water. We swam and watched the sunset over the island mountains; when we walked back to Patrick to change for dinner, we were greeted by a huge, silver moon rising just over the grapes.

A quarter mile in the opposite direction of the swimming spot were two small restaurants with outdoor seating overlooking the water. The walk there was lined with long shrubs of rosemary bushes. I ran my hands through them as we passed and picked some to rub in my hair, along with the mint from Maia’s mojito. I smelled like salt and herbs.

We ate a pot of mussels and a fish plate of fresh shrimp, tuna, mussels, white fish, and white wine. The benches were cushioned, and Maia and I lay back drinking wine like Roman goddesses as the full moon reflected over the water onto us and corny elevator music played in the background. Maia and Matthieu started talking like they were in a soap opera, to fit the mood, of course.

“But John…I still love John …” Matthieu said.

“Mathieu, what have you done?” Maia said.

“It is over between us. My heart belongs to another ….” They both looked off wistfully into the distance.

Thank god the restaurant played Louis Armstrong the next night instead of that awful fake jazz. We still had a fun time acting, though, when a depressing, uptight-looking group of couples sat at a table by us and shot us dirty looks every time we laughed, and we decided to pretend Maia and I were both Matthieu’s wives. We doted on him and each wrapped our arms around his waist, and he pulled us in close to his chest, which our neighbors didn’t like one bit. It was hilarious.

Also, the young waiter was high as a kite, (we knew because his eyes were squinty and red and he kept getting confused at the silliest things, like when Maia moved Matt’s glass to fill it and he thought we needed another one even though we had three …), so we messed with him, too. He brought out the dishes one by one, and he would say, “Fish plate?” and Maia and I would point to Matthieu, and the high waiter would set it down in front of Matt. Then he’d come back with another entre: “Mussels?” And we pointed at Matt. “Fries?” Matt. “Bread basket?” Matt. Matthieu sat on one side of the table with a row of food in front of him, and he graciously put two fries and a mussel on our plates and we thanked him profusely for letting us eat.

Eventually, the waiter caught on and laughed at us. Our uptight neighbors never lightened up, though, even after their second bottle of wine, but it just made it funnier for us. In fact, we spent most our two hours there cracking up, mostly at my American accent in French. At one point Maia had tears pouring down her face, and I couldn’t sit up straight because my abs hurt from laughing, and my cheeks were sore. Also, when we walked back arm-in-arm, we noticed a parked car up ahead had one of its headlights still on. “Oh, no,” Maia said. “We should break it for him.”

Of course, that sent us into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

We stayed another night on the island after spending a whole day swimming leisurely. Well, mostly leisurely – poor Matthieu got stung by two wasps. At one point we took a boat to reach another part of the coast to eat at a restaurant again. Maia and I loaded Matthieu with our stuff and swam back across together instead of going by boat. Matt is always carrying stuff for Maia and me and always driving and making coffee, and yet he’s the one who gets stung by the wasps.

(attempting to wash our crunchy hair...in saltwater...)

I woke up at 2 a.m. one night on the island, lying on my side, and my gaze was set over the black water and the full moon was washing my face in silvery light as I slept. Waking up and seeing the moon before anything else is something I could get used to.

I woke up at 8:30 a.m. because of the scorching heat; Maia and Matt were already down by the water. I poured a cup of the coffee Matt had made and chugged it before heading right down to the sea, ripping off all my clothes but my bathing suit bottom and swimming out to them to say good morning. (Boobies don’t scare people in Europe.) You know life is incandescent when you spend more time half-naked in the sea than you do on dry land.

Back at Patrick, Matthieu played blues on his guitar and Maia sang while I got dressed.

The hour and a half boat ride back inland was great because it was air-conditioned, but also wretched thanks to the fact that whoever was d.j.-ing either had the worst taste in music ever and no sense of people’s emotions or really didn’t want any of the dead tired passengers to get any shut-eye. Club music blasted for the whole two hours. Two Rihanna songs in a row. I felt like I was listening to a 14-year-old’s ipod. The hundreds of people around me looked exhausted. Heads kept rolling around like they do when someone falls asleep sitting up in class, and at least 50 people were sun burnt pink as coral; a baby wailed from departure until the music stopped – when we landed. And still, someone kept choosing Rihanna songs they refused to turn down at least 12 notches, at least. I know someone was choosing the music from a playlist, too, because sometimes a song would stop midway through, or we’d just catch the first second of a song before it skipped to Pit Bull.

Anyway, the cute city Dubrovnik (I think that’s where we were …) woke us up with some coffee and quiet. The owner of a boutique I was checking out came up to me and started talking in Italian. “No comprendo…” I said.

“Oh, English! I’m sorry! You look so Italian!” she said. I totally took that as a compliment.

We got a bag of peaches and tomatoes from the open market, and I ate a fresh fig for the first time in my life. Hands down favorite fruit now. Maia made a salad of tomatoes, avocado, olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dinner, which we ate before arriving at a campground. It was the first time we stopped somewhere not by the sea. This time, we were surrounded by rolling hills and forests. It reminded me a lot of Vermont, and I loved it. It’s nice to have a taste of home occasionally while travelling.

(The poodle getting his hair cut)

We all passed out by 11 p.m., and I woke up at 6 a.m. freezing cold. And I smiled. The heat wave had let up for a night, and I was so grateful to be shivering as I reached for my long sleeve shirt and wrapped my sheet around my body like a cocoon. While we drank our coffee in the morning, it felt like the three of us were breathing easier than ever, after having slept a whole night uninterrupted by reckless heat. Also, M&M surprised me with Kinder for breakfast. Sometimes they treat me like a spoiled child, and I love it. And we could finally shower and get the salt out of our crunchy hair. 

It was our last day before driving straight back to France. We spent it wandering through another National Park of probably a thousand beautiful waterfalls and pools of fresh water bluer than the sky and clearer than ice. I walked the paths barefoot, so my feet and calves were covered in a thick layer of delicious mud boots. I got more looks than I ever get in Vermont walking around barefoot, but it was worth it for all the lovely Earth energy I sucked up through my toes.

We will be in Montpelier, France in three days, hopefully, then take a train up to Paris. We packed countless incredible scenes and memories into the last two weeks. If I had written all of them down, I’d have to spend hours writing these blog posts. I think Matthieu is dreading being back in Paris (I know, that sounds so wrong, doesn’t it?) because he has to start work again on Monday, but Maia’s vacation is another month before school starts again. Plus, she’s ecstatic about when we’re in Italy again so she can buy a ball of mozzarella the size of her head. She’s brought up mozzarella at least three times today at the waterfalls at the most random times. I’m a little worried we’ll have to move our bags from the trunk to make cheese room.