We went completely off-grid for a whole day due to various reasons, and I do not regret it for a single second. We headed to Perucko Jezero, an artificial lake which is a fantastic place to see. So let’s get started from the place we left off.
A small but beautiful resting station
Since there was bad weather at the time, and with bad we are talking people swimming over central squares in Dubrovnik, we decided to take a detour and head towards a massive lake to check it out. Another reason, I have to admit, is the fact that I forgot the coffee machine, so we mainly lived on instant coffee so far which is, of course, no real supplement for regular coffee. Because my mother and her husband did drive with their motorcycle through the area, I asked them to bring me the coffee maker, which they did later on.
So there were many good reasons not to go too far south, or it would be a struggle to drive. The decision was made: Inland to a vast freshwater lake. The rout was not hundred percent what I’ve marked here since some of the roads we drove are not available as ways to get selected on google maps. I think now you can start to imagine how far away from civilisation we were.
The mostly uneventful route took us through a mountain pass into another valley surrounded by a mountain range along the coast and another one at the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina. What I’m talking here is basically on the horizon, don’t get the impression that we were driving in a valley or something similar. A pure pleasure to drive regarding the landscape and traffic. During the day almost no cars were passing us, on the continuously worse roads.
From a distance you can spot a village which is on our route, arriving there meant a few abandoned buildings with collapsed roofs. That sort of communities. Since we had the destination, we did not stop all the time to take some pictures since it seemed quite standard. Just a few people besides the road here and there and some places where people actually lived. On the way, we bumped into a street festival, basically out of nowhere.
Left and right of the main street traders offering their goods and people literally everywhere. It took us quite some time to pass through, and we decided to give it a look. We parked a little bit outside, on the opposite side of a bridge.
The reason for that was quite clear another time since the place was crammed with cars and the open spaces were too small to stop and not affect the already slow-moving traffic.
As you can imagine loads of clothing, toys, food as well as beautiful handmade tools. I think I have to explain the beauty here since everybody will think like: How can tools be beautiful? Well, for me at least simplicity and ruggedness are a huge factor when it comes to tools. The axes offered there were basically just steel and wood, no rubber grip or special curves on the blade, simple but they looked like you can do some serious work with it. For a short duration, I wondered what reason I could have to buy one of them, but there could be more complications due to traveling over multiple borders, in a van, with an ax. You get the picture, I think.
Driving further I was looking onto google maps and decided that we should head towards the east side of Peruca lake. The reason for that is quite simple: I like my privacy. Arriving there the streets missed markings at first, got tighter and stopped being streets. Stone and rubble tracks are everything that was left of a so-called street, but so close to the lake we did not think about turning around. 
A beautiful lake, currently at a low point. Well, it had to be bigger than that, so we tried to get better shots. 
It looked gorgeous, so we agreed on staying there for a night, just not on the shore we were since no straight piece of ground was within reach of the coast. Heading back to the asphalted road and staying on the western side of the lake we made a stop at a dam where we made a coffee break as well as some pictures. 
Some signs prohibited swimming in a 400-meter radius along the dam which directly translated to “Safe to swim, just not here.” this time we found a path on the satellite images, which seemed to lead down to the lake.
To be completely honest with you it was so small that I missed it twice when driving past. We found a suitable place at first and parked the car. Time to go for a swim. High winds and cold water it was. 
Living the Van-life
Since I had no real shower or bath since I left home, there was my opportunity. No wrong thoughts here a flannel, soap and some water will do the trick as well, you will get clean, it’s just not as relaxing as a hot, fifteen-minute shower.
I had also massed some dirty clothes I wanted to wash, so I needed fresh water as well and as you can see you have to get in there a few meters to get water without sand.
I literally put my man-pants on and got in there reasonably quick, washed with biodegradable soap and shampoo (of course) and filled up a water tank. It was not so bad once I was in there but still too cold for my friend, but I might add that this is normal feminine behavior. No offense here, but it is what it is. Also, she came for a tour of the Game of Thrones locations in the first place. Van-life is the primary reason for me.
After the refreshing bath, I felt like a new person and was eager to get some of my clothes washed as well since there was not a huge amount of battery left and the sun started to go down.
The sun began to set quickly and we had to get inside the Van, me in particular, just to get warm again.
A little bit later we moved a few hundred meters just to get a minimum amount of a cellular connection. Unfortunately not enough to upload pictures to the blog. We made a comfortable stay and called it a day. 
EU - Adventure 
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