According to the locals, my misfortune was a common one, that Croatia Air has been neglecting to fix for years: The small planes that make the Zagreb to Dubrovnik flight can't actually complete the flight to Dubrovnik many times a year. The plane can barely make it to Dubrovnik when filled to capacity, and when the wind is high, it needs spare fuel to attempt the landing. High winds on small runways mean the plane often fails to land and needs to circle back around and try again. But it doesn't have enough fuel so they don't even try to fly to Dubrovnik, and land halfway across the country in Split instead. Adding a 5 hour bus trip to the end of 48 hours of sleepless flying was Not Good. Being on a bus ride without good air flow where most of the passengers took off their masks while the pandemic still raged was Not Good. Having missed my pickup from the airport and arriving at 4AM was Not Good. There not being enough taxis at the place the bus drops off at 4AM was Not Good. I ended up stumbling through a cold town in the middle of the night for an entire hour, dragging my luggage uphill for two miles. Croatian Airlines needs to fix their Dubrovnik route, so this stops happening. All the locals rolled their eyes and complained of how common this diversion is. Either put a better-sized runway at the airport so that planes can reliably land even in high winds, or put a plane with the fuel reserves to make the repeated attempts needed on this route, or both.