AND so it was that I found myself in Austria, the city of Graz my home for the a few weeks. Waiting for a friend to contact me about hitching down to Spain I chatted with a traveller friend in Turkey on Erasmus. She communicated to me that she was going to have some free time and wanted to hitch around Turkey. She offered me to come with her but being some 2000km away it seemed far. Unperturbed by a wave of freezing cold temperatures and pouring rain which stopped me thinking of hitching I took the bus to Sofia for 60 euros. I thought that I would try it and at least it would be an experience to see some more of eastern europe. Sofia was interesting, couchsurfing with some guy over there who at first seemed a bit dodgy when he told me I would be sleeping beside him. But I still ventured out at night first to a cool spot called The Apartment, an imaginatively-decorated venue with colourful lighting and some interesting open-minded travellers, students and artists, hanging about as usual, shamelessly chatting to people about their daily lives, trying to peer in and explore their approach to existence in this new world of capitalism where they now found themselves entangled. This place probably first epitomised the transfer of influence with its imperialist high ceilings and yet its mundane communist white-tiled toilets, and its swirling new-age drawings and teas. It was chilled and intensive and yet open and warm.
Onto a typical hostel atmosphere and cool hangout for the young people in a cellar where foreigners mixed with trendy locals and outside on the streets under Marxist monuments surrounded by those mundane hollow cuboids with endless windows and blackened walls, the bleak dwelling place of most people in these former USSR states. I think that Bulgaria had quite a large degree of autonomy but I am not sure. People helped me a lot and on the second night, when I searched for a place to stay some friendly locals I met in a bar saw my plight and offered me some peoples' home.
The next day I tried to hitch again but found no luck. It was raining and even the lift I got took me only to the motorway near Plovdiv, forcing me to walk through the driving rain to the nearest petrol station, which was small and had no passing traffic. Standing under a sun umbrella it suddenly dawned on me that I had to be in Izmir to pick up Eli the very next day and I was not even in Turkey. Getting a lift from some workers to Bulgaria's second city nearby, I took a coach from there to the frontier town, but not before I met a really cool alternative-looking Russian girl who lightened my life with some conversation and a wonderful smile. I needed it. Getting to the border I was dropped off at a hotel just passed the border and being tired and the rain having stopped I decided to park my tent under a bush some 100m from the hotel, where I would be out of view and also close to the road. Of course, I didn't count on the rain starting again halfway through the night. Piercing my thin summer tent I was soon swimming in a small pond with my sleeping bag drenched and with first light I managed to pack everything and quite exhausted took the first bus to the nearest town. There I took another bus to another town where I managed to contact Eli and tell her I was coming her way. People in Turkey were very approachable and friendly as I started to venture into the culture, various could speak some English and because their economy is stronger than Morocco they have less financial need. Their infrastructure is more developed than many Eastern European countries, with an extensive network of motorways and a great number of people in employment with decent wages of around 3-500 euros a month. I know people who get that in Spain... Okay, being an Islamic country (and I hope this won't offend anyone, but it has been my experience) people are not too concerned about lying through their teeth, even to a good end, which reminds me of once a bit further down the line, when we were told we were going to be taken to our next destination the next day by some guy when all they wanted was for us to spend the night in some guy's home.
Okay, so there I was, lost in Turkey spending a whole afternoon in a bus station where I managed to dry my tent and sleeping bag in back entrance, endearing me to some of the workers and travellers there who then invited me to coffee and cigarettes. Though our communication was limited it was good to get down and dirty with some local people. I was soon on my way to Izmir, where I met Eli who I woke up. That was a great moment, especially as I met her in south Spain one crazy surf weekend and taught her to surf and then stayed in her community house when she had a room free in Barcelona. We set off the next day after a good sleep, our chilled out timing and lack of planning forcing us to wander along some roads not knowing even in which direction we were going or even where. Obviously I didn't know this until we got on the road but that's Eli and I love her intuition, self-confidence and improvisation. Soon we caught a bus to the next town as the sun set we asked the driver to leave us off at exit of the motorway and thought we would stand there with our finger out. Good choice. After about ten minutes we got picked up by a truck-driver who would take us 400km into the heart of Turkey in the direction of Cappadochia. This guy was a real gentleman, something Eli noted faster than me. Everytime we would stop at a restaurant to eat he would buy us food despite our protests. We were going slow, with some hills being taken at 40km/h, but at least we were moving. The only bad experience on this stretch was after our first meal in a restaurant. A military man came in with two soldiers and started to literally interrogate us for no apparent reason. He seemed quite content to destroy our self-confidence with his military swagger and strong, commanding voice, asking questions we only just managed to answer on my two-day knowledge of the country. Some more wikipedia research would have definitely helped. After some truly uncomfortable moments which seemed to last forever and thought we would end up Midnight Express style, (he even told me to confess Mohamed over Christianity!) his pride seemed to have swelled to its most and we were allowed to leave.
We could see the two extremes of Turkish culture here and our chauffeur agreed he was “not cool”. I decided to make sure I wrote about him though as this story should be told. I later learned the power the military has in Turkey ever since Ataturk set up the foundations to the modern Turkey we know today after the loss of the Ottoman Empire after the Great War. The military even have a national security council which can overturn any decision made by the government, especially if it's a decision which makes the country more religious. For example, the ruling party tried to pass a law allowing (yes allowing...) women to wear head scarves in a predominantly Muslim country. The council vetoed that and consequently banned the party, making it near impossible to win the next election. I suppose this system may have its cons but I suppose it stops the country falling in to extremist chaos and keeps it on the secular path with more foreign investment. On the other hand I am sure there is a lot of corruption at this level, like that which we experienced, and I don't know how this limited democracy can be allowed into the EU. Some people say that stability has to come before democracy but I suppose at the end of the day they mean that the proletariat need to have the possibility of a faith in materialism to replace or at least counter-balance their Islamic zeal. Consumerism is definitely quite established in the west while the east is a different kettle of fish, where I am told more traditional beliefs and hierarchical systems continue to exist.
Our friend eventually took us to his small home for dinner and we eventually managed to get on the road, yeah you guessed it, at sunset... So there we were, Eli and me on the side of the road, chatting on the side of an empty dual carriageway under a yellow streetlight near a patch of wasteland, thinking of camping there. It was a strange feeling but we laughed and talked trying to flag down a car. We eventually got picked up by a smart-looking car. The man inside spoke decent English and we soon learnt he had lived in Holland for 15 years and had his own luxury clothes chain. He took us to his shop and after a coffee he insisted we stay in his hotel he would pay for. Eli tried to resist but he seemed to be able to pay for it taking out a wad of 100lira notes, and after saying he would feel very bad if we didn't take up the offer we accepted. It was a good sleep on a cold night and something we appreciated the next day when we walked out of town and tried to take a couple of trips to Cappadochia itself. We succeeded and that night we slept in what looked like a quite hidden place in between the rock formations in an abandoned field. Of course, the inevitable happened. Hit by an electric storm in the middle of the night after a feeble attempt to ignite a fire rainbow style (I didn't get past the paper-lighting stage) we sheltered in a mini cave until it stopped a bit when we had to clamber out and into a man-made cave where we froze to death in our shitty summer sleeping bags. We didn't die though and in the morning woke up and after some sight-seeing, which really didn't feel that great after the adventures we had had to get there, hitched to Aksaray (or was it Kayseri?) Anyway this is where those three guys who seemed quite ok, picked us up from the side of the road and took us walking to their little flat. Apart from a little paranoid trip when he started burning loads of women's and kid's clothes in between telling me his wife had died recently, eventually well-fed and conversed, we went to bed.
The next day was a little more crazy as it was the big feast-day of Turkey, the end of Ramadam and their version of Christmas, Bayram. Of course, this was like their Christmas and everyone was like stoned, drunk or both. So maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised when two guys, Eli didn't like the look of (I should have trusted her intuition...) suddenly asked Eli: “Afakju?” No Eli didn't want to fuck him, not even just once. He let us off pretty quick and I needed to give her a hug after that, she was so shaken. Next we were picked up by some guys who soon told us they were the Satanist mafia and when they started feeling Eli up we decided to leave them too. But Eli still persevered with hitching, even when they offered us a bus for 5euros for both of us. Two drunks picked us up with the passenger sprawling all over Eli to her terror. We eventually got a bus into town from the outskirts after the car broke down.
We then met some nice couple and they directed us to the bus station where we got a coach supposedly to this seaside town called Karasu. After reaching the Black Sea we got in for a dip and then sat watching the sunset on our final destination of the odyssey. After that we sat near some youths playing traditional guitar tunes and after Eli taught them to juggle they led us to some friends' home where we stayed that night and bought some beers before going to sleep there.
The next day Eli was off back to Izmir where she remained until January until she returned to Barcelona to do her six months of work experience as a pharmacist. I continued the trail, staying one night with the guys in Karasu before hitching to Istanbul courtesy of some friendly rides in the now warmer sun. Getting there I hopped on a tram that took me to the neighbourhood of a guy whose flatmate would put me up. He turned out to be a friendly enough person being a German activist kind of guy who gave me and some French couple a roundup of what there was to know around the city. Walking for hours to some party we never found we were informed of the dodgy political situation I talked about earlier and we even went clubbing among the throngs and multistorey nightclubs in Taxsim. Everywhere police ran around hurriedly among the throng, sporting trendy submachine guns with their index fingers lovingly gripped around triggers, while partygoers blissfully brushed by them with surprisingly care-free attitudes. Such is a military state, I assume, the price of the hollow 'capitalistic democracy' Turkey follows.
Soon I was hitching out of it all. I tried to take shortcuts but didn't find a way out and in the end I hatched a cunning plan to get on this bus which would take me to the entrance of the motorway. Sure enough, just as the light began to fade, I got picked up and taken to the entrance to the motorway from where I got a lift to a services station and then some teachers dropped me at the motorway exit at a police check. The rigorously religious men even handed me 20lira as they parted despite my protests.
Standing there in the middle of the night no-one seemed to want to stop with the cops right behind me, but as it turned out my scourge was also my blessing. The cops, having pulled over a bus going to Bulgaria, 'pursuaded' the driver to let me get a lift with them, and soon I was back where I had started by the big hotel near the frontier. I got some food and then after trying aimlessly for some rides, knew what I had to do. I instinctly headed for my previous camping spot under the bushes, hoping for a better time than the last occasion. This it proved to be and after a good rest on a beautifully calm and starry night, I packed up and headed to the hotel for a lift. As I stretched and asked around for a lift to the frontier, a camper van pulled up driven by an elegant and yet youthful looking middle-aged woman from Holland. She agreed to take me to the frontier and upon talking with her a bit she seemed agreeable enough, having travelled for six months around Turkey on her own. I then asked her where she was going and how quick. She retorted, “Bulgaria, Serbia and Graz...” I cut her short. “That's where I am going!” I exclaimed. She said she would take me as far as it worked out and that was that. At the other side of the border-crossing she picked me up and we chatted all the way to Graz, bar a rather frosty night in slightly dodgy Serbia. Maybe it would have been nice to check out some places on the way but you can't turn down a trip straight to your doorstep. As it turned out it was cool enough and after a couple more weeks with my cool Czech unicycler friend Martin and some nice times with the Spektral people I hitched to Wien for a few days to visit the cool Carola and a guy from Morocco, two people I met in Tarifa and Imsouanne respectively. From there I hitched to Linz where I stayed with a couchsurfer guy with shining blue eyes and some really open friends who led me around the town and introduced me to their beautifully-endowed home for a night. From there I then flew to Barcelona, a place where I felt at home the first time and always felt part of the furniture. One week of mad parties meeting old and new friends and hanging around Can Masdeu later I was on the road again, this time on a car with www.viajamosjuntos.com to Gijon with an Argentinean guy. It wasn't hitching but the next best thing and to be able to get there for a 30e sacrifice when the bus would have cost me double was a massive relief, especially as we had some edifying chats on the way.
I then picked up my van from my friend's yard and tried the settling down thing for a few months. I found a chilled place right by the centre on the beachfront where I could park and remained there most of the time, occasionally venturing into the mountains to some communities therein and to some other beaches where I had some friends, like one guy I had a great connection with, Edu, who I incidentally met on my last trip to Morocco and who had travelled for many years too and was also a reluctant surfer who didn't fall into the surfer stereotype. With him and a few other personalities I met with in and around Gijon I started to forge some sort of companionship and foster than sense of community I had strived for on the road. However, I can't really say that I was totally socially incorporated. I sorely missed the activism of Berlin, the multiculturalism of London (I twice visited London in 3 months for my brothers' graduation and sister's wedding) or the arty-alternative expression of Barcelona. Still I was elated to get back into surfing. I found myself a local spot right called La Roca (aptly named The Rock for me) which broke right in front of my usual parking. This right-hand pointbreak had throwbacks to my fave Moroccan wave at Cap Sim, Les Grottes, while still being surfable most of the time there were any waves at all in the San Lorenzo beach. It was a wonder to get some sessions with few people on it and see myself gliding effortlessly along those walls with either my shortboard or bic longboard. Soon I was almost a local there and I could even say that I was being recognised by people I didn't know personally. Maybe all I lacked were some friends I could share real stuff with and as Edu left so did my main ideas expression. I had some companions though but life seems to be drifting towards a social responsibility I don't feel I would like to fall into with many people I have less and less in common with.
Maybe in the end I will go travelling again and see if the road offers me more than a community which often seems to have its head more in the sand of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll rather than the maturity of social edification. Maybe it's time to head south again or maybe i will stay and stick it out. Time will tell...
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