On the Road

Being stopped for road construction is rather normal in Croatia and Montenegro. You have to build it into your transit time when going places. So we thought nothing of it when we were stopped in this rather scenic area (yes, they're all scenic, really) on the way from Dubrovnik to Split and waited for a few minutes. We were about a dozen cars back from the light. Paying more attention to the view down to the sea than the road work going on up the mountain, we were slightly startled to hear a series of booms. Oh! They were blasting a new place to build the road and get another couple of lanes. Great. Then... rumble, rumble, bounce, rumble.... one boulder comes crashing down the mountainside. Sure enough, it landed right on the road. We saw it coming down, but my companion didn't react quickly enough to take pictures on the way.

It was kind of funny to watch the construction workers afterwards. All of them at the top stood in a line with their hands on their hips, looking down and shaking their heads. In unison. You could tell they were cursing, even from that distance. This poor guy was the flagman below, kicking off the pieces of rock to finish tumbling down into the sea.

And this is the boulder in all its glory. Notice the guard rail is -still- intact, and only bent. It gave my companion a lot more confidence in driving on the roads that if something happened, the rail wasn't as flimsy as he thought. On our way back three days later, the boulder had already been removed but the guard rail was still bent.