“To hell with the money,” he left the oranges and approached me, “take a few days off the next week. Here, take some money and go somewhere.”
When I came home that day, four Bulgarians were waiting for me in front of the door.
For a few months my roommate and I had been hosting travellers via CS in our subtenant apartment. Our apartment was a place where people could take a rest, wash themselves, eat and drink. It was a place that offered them an opportunity to get to know the culture from a different perspective and it was all for free. So many people had passed through our apartment that our neighbours, as soon as they spotted someone with a big backpack in our neighbourhood, they would instantly take them to our door. We had a huge world map on the wall and we could easily spend days looking at it as if it was a television. And we would fantasize.
Even though that the experience was very beneficial for our guests it was also good for us. Nearly every evening in our living room we were surrounded by people who were living their dreams, who travelled the world and in whose eyes you could see that they were doing what they wanted to do. Those were the guys who would tell us their first-hand experiences over a beer or two. It couldn’t be compared to any book, any documentary or a film: we had people in the flesh in front of us who were telling us about their travelling experiences: one guy travelled for more than ten years, another travelled by bike from France to China, and one hitchhiked from Germany to Iran, all of them finding occasional jobs on their way that kept them going. Those were the people who weren’t limited by the routine and habits imposed by the society in which we live. Those were the people without any prejudice or hatred, but were only full of understanding.
They lived their lives in the best way they could. Simple. Could they be my inspiration and give me a piece of advice?
“Sofia isn’t far away,” Vasil told me when I announced that I would be having a few days off soon and that I wanted to use them for a short journey. “We would be pleased to host you.”
“The only problem is the money,” I complained. “I only have 40 Euros, which my boss gave me. What can I do with 40 Euros?”
“Trust me, a lot of things,” he carried on carelessly. “Beer costs less than a Euro there. The food is even less expensive, and you won’t have to pay for the accommodation.”
“How will I get there?” I kept on asking more questions, or maybe looking for new excuses.
“Have you ever hitchhiked?” Elena, his girlfriend, asked me. Everyone else was waiting for my response.
“I haven’t,” I said sadly.
“So, obviously, now’s the time.” They laughed and raised their glasses.
Obviously.
Day 189.
I was awake even before the alarm went off at 6:04.
I put my backpack on and took two pieces of card that said SLAVONSKI BROD, BELGRADE, NIŠ and SOFIA[4]. I took bus number 276 to Ivanja Reka and got off at the last stop. I had to cross the fields and a stream, and climb over a fence in order to get to the toll booths going east.
The nervousness was definitely there. The fear. I was sure that I was breaking at least one law by walking along the highway. God knew what was ahead of me: what kind of drivers, what would be my experience in Serbia and in Bulgaria. I had eight hundred kilometres ahead of me, and no plan B. My head was a complete mess and my heart kept on beating heavily. I could still easily give it all up and go back home, lie back on my comfortable sofa, in the familiar surroundings, go back to my friends and to my nights out.
“Hey, you!” I heard someone calling me just as I was dropping my backpack on the road, between the toll booths.
I haven’t even started hitchhiking and I’m already being chased away. It was a bad sign.
I turned around and saw a guy in a dark blue VW waving at me through an open window.
“I’m going to Slavonski Brod,” he shouted, “you can come with me.”
I immediately ran to the car, threw the backpack on the back seat and sat in the front.
“I saw from the sign on your backpack that you were headed for Slavonski Brod,” he was saying as he took his ticket at the toll booth, “my car horn doesn’t function so I had to shout.”
“And I thought that I was being chased away from here,” I replied as I secured the seat belt. “This is my first time hitchhiking and you pulled over before I even got the chance to stick out my thumb.”
“It sounds like a good sign.” He stepped on the gas and changed gear. “Besim, nice to meet you.”
“Tomislav.” We shook hands. “Nice to meet you, too.”
I observed the highway in front of me while the thoughts were piling up inside my head. Is it possible that this has just happened? I haven’t even stuck out my thumb and I already have a ride for the next two hundred kilometres. Have I just made a world record in hitchhiking? Has this been a sheer luck or coincidence or a sign of something?
“Wanna beer?” Besim distracted me, “there’s one in the glove compartment.”
It was only then that I realized that the guy was holding a beer bottle between his legs and that he was sipping it slowly. He was driving and sipping a beer. At 7am. Maybe this hadn’t been the smartest move I could’ve made.
I opened the drawer and saw another small bottle. I took it, thanked him, opened it and took a sip. If I drank it, he wouldn’t. At least that was something.
Besim was a construction worker from Bosnia working temporarily in Slovenia. We talked about life, work and war. I liked him. I observed him driving with a beer in his hand, slowly, in the right lane of the highway without overtaking anyone. I was relieved. I was in safe hands.
“Hey, let’s make a stop at this gas station,” I suggested. “Let me buy you a beer; after all, we have to celebrate my first hitchhiking experience.”
He laughed, took a right turn, and soon we were sharing four large cans of beer.
“Do you smoke?” He asked, taking a pack of cigarettes placed next to the gear stick.
“Thank you, but I don’t smoke cigarettes.” I accentuated the word cigarettes.
Besim was one of those people who know why. Soon we made another stop to roll a joint, after which we moved on. It was 8am.
I had a goofy grin on my face and my head started moving up and down following the rhythm of a rock song that was playing on the radio. I couldn’t believe what was happening, who I was with, where I was. If someone had told me a story in which a person hitchhikes for the first time, stops a car before he even sticks out his thumb, shares six beers with the driver and smokes a joint with him I wouldn’t have believed it. And the exact same thing had happened to me in the past hour or two. Things couldn’t get any more extreme, intense or weird.
“My friend,” Besim interrupted my thoughts, “have you ever tried speed?”
I got out at the west exit from Slavonski Brod. There wasn’t a living soul at the toll booths, but I couldn’t care less. The sun was shining brightly, my head was spinning, I danced cheerfully by the road, thanking the sky for my first amazing hitchhiking experience.
A few cars drove past me, but they were all going back to Zagreb. Still the smile wasn’t leaving my face. After an hour I got a bit more serious, and after two hours I started frowning. After three hours I was getting desperate.
I was way too naive. What was I thinking: going like that without a plan or a backup plan, hitchhiking to a city that was eight hundred kilometres away with only forty Euros in my pockets. A true optimist. I was thinking about returning to Zagreb and of giving it all up. I still had a story that I could retell for the rest of my life.
When my pessimism reached its peak, as usually happens, one guy pulled over and gave me a ride across the Serbian border, showed me around Belgrade and left me in the best place to continue hitchhiking – toll booths on the highway that led to Niš. I continued my journey with a Macedonian truck driver who left me at a big gas station in the middle of the highway. I was half way there, and in theory, I still had plenty of
time to get to Sofia in time. In theory.
The clouds were starting to gather, it was starting to rain. It was getting darker. I gave up asking the truck drivers for a lift since I realized that they could only get me to the border. Also, I gave up asking cars, which could only give me a ride to Niš where I would be left in the middle of the road, at the mercy of rain and darkness. I could either bump into someone going straight to Sofia or spend the night here and continue the following day.
When you’re at a gas station and your possibilities are limited to those people who are headed for a town that is three hundred kilometres away and in another country, there’s a high chance you’re going to spend quite a lot of time there. Also, you will be thinking about a vast spectrum of feelings you’d felt that day. The fear of first hitchhiking, the luck in breaking the world record in finding a ride, the shock of the amount of mood altering substances consumed early in the morning, the desperation due to spending three hours in one place, the satisfaction of finding a ride to Belgrade, and, finally, depression because it seemed that I would be spending the night at a gas station in the middle of Serbia.
However, luck hadn’t abandoned me yet: it came to me in the shape of a car with Bulgarian licence plates. Finally, some hope. I made the saddest face I could, walked around the car with my sign saying the name of the Bulgarian capital while the driver and his co-driver were paying the bill. They were approaching the car. They spotted me. They said something to each other, sat in the car, started it and got going. They pulled over next to me and rolled down the window.
“Where are you from?”
“Croatia.”
“You’re headed for Sofia?”
“Yes.”
“Get in.”
I was the luckiest man on Earth.
The ride across the south of Serbia, a downpour the likes of which I had never seen before, the most delicious burek[5] in a bakery in Niš, lightning that illuminated the terrifying canyons we were passing through, stray dogs as we were crossing the border in the middle of the night, arriving in Sofia way after midnight, finding Vasil at a party – I did it!
What followed after that were gloomy nights with my Bulgarian friends, climbing up mount Vitosha in the rain, night camping and sarma[6] and sleeping in a cramped tent, morning climbing up a 50-metres rock despite my fear of heights, giving free hugs in the centre of the city during the day, hanging all night in dark parks under the influence of unknown hallucinogens, meeting new people and strengthening the relationships with the people I already knew.
Four days and forty Euros later I was at the metro station begging for one lev to buy a ticket so I could get out of town and start hitchhiking again. I couldn’t try to go into the metro without a ticket because the conductor was standing by the entrance.
“Do you speak English?” I asked the first girl that seemed that she might have mercy on me and give me one lev.
She nodded her head up and down, turned around and left. Four days in Bulgaria weren’t enough to get used to their body language: nodding their head up and down meant no, and right and left meant yes.
“Good afternoon,” I approached a guy who seemed approximately my age, “I’m from Croatia, I’m hitchhiking in order to get back home and I need one lev to buy a ticket to get out of town. Can you help me?”
“Croatia?” he replied, “where from?”
“Zagreb.”
“Riiiight,” he smiled widely, “Dinamo Zagreb?”
“Yes, Dinamo Zagreb.” I started laughing, too, surprised by the fact that a random passer-by in Sofia recognized the name of a football club from Zagreb. He took two tickets out of his pocket and inserted them in the machine.
“Dinamo Zagreb!” we kept on yelling as we went inside the metro hugging each other, while other passengers looked at us surprised.
Sofia is really an ugly town, I started thinking as I was passing through the dirty suburbs searching for a good place to stick out my thumb. Grey and damaged buildings, broken muddy roads, and more than anything, during my whole time there, I was followed by drizzle. However, I had a blast in Sofia, thanks to all those people who took care of me, took me with them on all kinds of activities, who helped me to feel like a local, and not just a regular tourist who only passes through.
Apparently, it didn’t matter where I was, but who I was with.
“Where are you going?” An older guy in his Yugo asked me when I was on the Bulgarian-Serbian border. A jolly truck driver from a village in the south of Serbia brought me there, but since he spent hours at the border I passed across on foot and started hitchhiking again.
“To Niš,” I replied briefly.
“Get in,” he responded in the same way.
I got into a car that was nearly falling apart, and the first thing I noticed was the face of the most notorious and wanted man from our area in the mirror – the war[7] criminal Ratko Mladić.
Only a hundred meters before I’d seen his face on a poster at the customs office offering a reward of a million dollars to those who were in possession of any kind of information about him. Maybe that guy knew something so we could split the reward?
I wasn’t at ease. I didn’t even introduce myself to him not knowing how he would react to a fact that he had Tomislav from Croatia in the car with him. However, in a matter of seconds, I came up with a whole story, just in case. I had a name that could easily pass on both sides of the border, I was a child from mixed marriage, my father was from Serbia, mother from Croatia. The father had died before the war started and my mother decided to go back to her family so we remained in Croatia.
It wasn’t my fault that I was a Croat, I swear!
Luckily, the man wasn’t up to talking too much so I even managed to doze off a bit, waking up every now and then, just checking whether we were still on the highway or whether we took a turn to a village or somewhere else, God forbid.
“Thank you very much,” I said to him when he left me by the toll booths near Niš. He gave me a strange look. I guess my accent[8] was a bit off. It didn’t matter: I was safe, outside of his car.
I’d already prepared myself to wait at the toll booths: there wasn’t much traffic, but it had started to rain so I had to go inside the office, where people working there treated me to a juice and listened to a shortened version of my four-day adventure.
I wasn’t in a hurry since I knew that I had a place to crash in Belgrade, in case I got stuck there and didn’t manage to get back to Zagreb in one day. On my way to Sofia I realized that it was always a good thing to have a plan B.
However, as it turned out, I didn’t need one after all. The next driver who showed mercy on me was a Bulgarian who was going to Germany. I made myself comfortable, sent a message to my host in Belgrade saying that I wouldn’t be visiting her and after only thirteen hours since I’d left Sofia I was back on my blue sofa in Zagreb.
It was incredible that the last time I was on the very same couch was only five days ago. So many things had happened since.
My eyes were wide open, the smile on my face was larger, and there was more air in the lungs. I collected stories, I was in situations that would usually never happen to me in my home town. In only five days I gathered enough material to tell stories for the next few years. Apparently, hitchhiking wasn’t only a free way to get somewhere, it was also an excellent way to experience unusual things. Just like CouchSurfing. People hear about these ways of travelling first of all because they are free, but once they try them they discover there is more to it than simply being free.
Much more.
Plus, four days in a town eight hundred kilometres from Zagreb cost me exactly forty Euros, the same amount of money Mongoose had given to me. It was much less than the cost of living when I was in Zagreb. Is there a way to always live like that: intensely, excitingly, with a lot of changes, always meeting new people, new places, experiencing different things?
I wanted my life to be the exact same way it was during those four days. All the
time. I wanted to leave and travel the world without ever stopping. Without having a home, a steady job, a return date. I wanted to be as free as a bird.
Still, there were two huge obstacles in front of me: unfinished university and the debt of thirty-five thousand dollars.
Despite my determination I couldn’t find a (legal) way to earn that amount of money, so all I could do was focus on the first problem. The mitigating circumstance was that the people I was in debt to were family and friends, not loan sharks; family and friends who were, although let down on my part, supporting and full of understanding.
“You’ll pay us back when you can,” they used to say. “Finish university, get a job, take it easy. Don’t worry too much. Everything will be okay.”
That night was the first time I fell asleep peacefully, with confidence that everything would be all right.
Day 217.
My roommate and I kept on hosting people via the CS network. By retelling me the stories from their journeys, my guests not only reinforced within me the wish to adopt travelling as a lifestyle, but they also gave me an idea of how to repay my debt. I was particularly intrigued by my guests from Australia, who told me that the minimum hourly wage in Australia was approximately AUD$15. The situation was similar in Scandinavia. The wages were a bit lower in Canada and in the USA, but an option was starting to appear: finishing school and finding a job abroad. I could spend a year or two abroad, live off of bread and water and earn enough money to repay my debt. After that I would finally be free to do what I want.
It was an excellent plan. Still, I had to finish university first and pass the remaining exams. I had to concentrate on studying and studying alone. I had to avoid anything that could prevent me from reaching my goal.
I had to stop hosting people. Even though juggling between studying for my exams and hanging around with the strangers in my apartment was fun, it wasn’t very productive; especially since I didn’t know how to say ‘no’ even when I had to.
1000 Days of Spring: Travelogue of a hitchhiker Page 3
