The tides have changed

While my time in Rovinj, Croatia was fantastic, trying to move on to the next location started a series of travel woes that nearly took the wind out of my sails. My plan was to continue west into Bosnia, where there was a town across the border with a river that had amazing white-water rafting. It was Friday morning when I packed up to catch the bus out of Rovinj. But when I got to the bus station, it was a mess. The line to the single window was all around the sidewalk. The lady in the window was one of the worst I have ever seen. So people were standing in the non-moving line for 30-45 minutes and watching the buses they wanted to take leave half full because no one could get tickets. I finally gave up and decided this might be a good time to experience a true piece of backpacking through Europe…..hitch-hiking. It was only an hour ride to the next main town where I needed to catch a bus transfer to get out of Croatia. The area was full of vacationers, so it shouldn’t be too hard to catch a ride, right. Wrong. I walked and thumbed for nearly five hours beside the busy road out of town with absolutely no luck. Finally, after enduring a small rain pour and starting to wonder where I could pitch my tent in this countryside, I young lady stopped and gave me a ride. She was also amazed that I had been disregarded for so long.
Once at the next bus station, things did not turn around. I spent the whole night trying to figure out how to get where I wanted to go, only to be given many different answers, which continually turned out to be incorrect. By mid-Sat morning, I was so disgusted and exhausted I decided to just head back to Spain a few days early. So I changed all my attention and tried to head west. It was awhile until the next bus to Venice, so I sat in the bus station for more time. Got to Venice just in time to miss the afternoon flight to Barcelona, so sat in the airport for six hours until the nighttime flight. So I left Rovinj on Friday morning and didn’t get to an actual destination until Sunday morning.
My travels continued to be agonizing for nearly two weeks after that, but I will not go into all of the details.