Who’s Following Whom?

We began to notice them as we started our grand tour of Croatia.  From Plitvice National Park to Split to Dubrovnik, we were being followed.  Who knew that Croatia had such persistent stalkers!  We first spotted them following us at one of the 250 waterfalls at Plitvice; Croatia’s only National Park.  They, too, were marveling at the most beautiful set of waterfalls this side of the Mediterranean.  The gall.  They even stopped to chat as we ate our snack and watched all the fish in the unbelievably clear water at one of the many sixteen lakes.  Then the next day, oh my gosh, it’s them again. They followed us on to the shuttle bus that would take us to the other end of the park.  We decided to get off and walk instead.  We were so stealth that they didn’t even notice we were gone.    But low and behold there were the four of them again walking the same trail and enjoying the same serenity and harmony as we were.  They insisted on talking to us, with their funny accents, about how the park was closed for 5 years during the 1990’s war when the Serbs occupied it and it was allowed to go wild with only a few people (with guns) walking the trails.  We went our separate ways that afternoon after saying good bye to these fierce trackers.  We knew that they were touring Croatia also, but we thought that we were rid of them. 
       
Along Croatia’s coast, in the middle of the country, in the large city of Split, the four of them found us again.  One afternoon, after strolling along the beaches, admiring the perfectly clear Adriatic water and minding our own business, there they were, just as before;  posing as innocent tourists.  We were on the way to climb the bell tower and to learn a bit about the history of Split when we saw them.  The nerve of them to copy the things we were doing - taking pictures of the views, marveling at Diocletian's palace (an important Roman emperor) and contemplating the bombs that fell during the 1990’s war. 
 
We couldn’t shake them.  A few days later, as we ambled through Dubrovnik’s magnificent old town one evening; we heard them calling to us.  They had arrived in town earlier in the day and it seemed that they had been looking for us.  With their foreign sounding English they told us about their travels to Mostar and Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovinia.  Phew….at least we wouldn’t run into them in those cities.  Maybe we’d loose them after all!
As we headed off to find Dubrovnik's finest Gelato, we said, what we thought, were our final good byes to the four stalkers from Australia.  This fun, world traveling, family was heading home in then next few days so our ‘shadows’ would disappear, at last.  At least we thought.  But no….they found our email addresses and sent us a nice note inviting us to their home in Sydney.  How could these hounders be so generous?!?! 

After taking their sons out of school to travel to The Balkans, Mom and Dad admit that they may be creating travel junkies out of their two teenage sons.  They hadn’t even left the Sydney airport, when one of their sons, Wil, suggested that they go to Mauritius soon.  (It’s an island near Madagascar, which is off the east coast of South Africa – we had to look it up…and we want to go too!)  We hope to see our new friends, oops, I mean, our pursuers, again one day.  Could it be that we were following them?