1000 Days of Spring: Travelogue of a hitchhiker

by Tomislav Perko

  So, these two cheerful girls took me to their home, gave me a clean towel and left me alone in the apartment while they went to the supermarket to buy some groceries for dinner.

  “I hope you won’t mind sleeping on the couch,” Amanda said to me after dinner.

  “No worries,” I told them, “it’s in my job description: I travel and sleep on other people’s couches.”

  They took me by the hand, and took me out. We started our evening by listening to a street flamenco singer, continued with roaming around different local bars, and ended up in a salsa club where my girls danced ravishingly in their fluffy dresses.

  “I’ve had enough for tonight,” Sandra joined me as I was trying to doze off a bit in the club, “shall we go?”

  “Yes.” I got up straight away. “What about Amanda?”

  “She still feels like dancing,” she smiled, “I don’t. And you don’t either, as I’ve noticed.”

  “You’ve noticed well,” I smiled, too, and took her by the hand.

  On our way to the apartment she gave me a Spanish lesson. I didn’t care much about learning it, but I enjoyed listening to her pronouncing letters ‘c’ and ‘z’. The tip of her tongue nearly touched her upper teeth, puffing out air, at the same time creating a little air bubble and that beautiful sound. I believed she noticed it after I asked her to repeat the word cerveza for the fifth time.

  She laughed. I found that even more adorable.

  “Let’s watch a movie so you could learn a bit more Spanish,” she suggested as we were entering the apartment. Although I was quite sleepy, barely keeping my eyes open, I followed her to her room, on her bed on which she put the laptop and started a movie by Almodóvar.

  We snuggled, pretending that our attention was directed only on the movie.

  “I hope your roommate won’t mind spending the night on the couch,” I said drowsily as I realized that I would be spending the night in their bed.

  “Why should she sleep on the couch?” she looked me directly in the eyes while the corners of her mouth and eyes twisted into a smile.

  “Say ‘cerveza’,” I said after a few minutes of silence.

  “Cervez...”

  Day 567.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll give you a ride,” the girls suggested when I told them that I was leaving Málaga, “it’s only one hundred kilometres away, and we’d love to see what’s going on in Beneficio.”

  Only a couple of days before, they’d picked me up on the road, hosted me in their apartment, fed me, showed me the city, let me watch them dance salsa, and now they wanted to give me a ride to my next destination.

  “If you ever happen to come to Croatia, I’ll spoil you just like you’ve spoilt me.” We shared a group hug and got going.

  After a short ride, we arrived to Orgiva, followed an unpaved road to Beneficio, parked the car and started searching for the hippy commune situated in the centre of a national park.

  We noticed lots of vans, camp-houses, and even a London double-decker from the fifties, redecorated and transformed into a functional home. We spotted a bar with a couple of people who didn’t seem to look like hippies. Once in the community, there were no alcohol or drugs allowed, so that bar was the last stop for people to refresh themselves a little with a beer.

  The path we were on didn’t appear to be part of a national park. It was mostly made of sand and rock, and very difficult to walk on. Still, after we crossed a little creek, the unremarkable path became a forest trail surrounded by greenery.

  “We’re here,” I informed the girls as I spotted the big Indian tepee and two girls wearing rainbow-print dresses and with dread-locks on their heads.

  We looked around the tepee, the name of which was Big Lodge and which was, judging by the flyers lying around, the centre of the community and a gathering place. There were people inside playing instruments, sleeping, or smoking joints.

  We followed a path uphill, spotted a couple of smaller tepees, some small clay houses, a couple of dogs and playful children, half-naked and naked people doing their everyday chores. Nobody paid attention to us – three curious tourists.

  We found a spring where people would go to take their fresh mountain water and a waterfall where the people would wash, using the gush of the water for a real, strong massage.

  There was no electricity and no sewers, no television or satellite dishes. All the dwellings were made out of natural materials and didn’t have a negative effect on the environment.

  The girls helped me set up the tent where I was planning to spend the following few days. I asked for the permission from the people who were living close and they simply laughed, telling me that I could do whatever I pleased.

  “Thank you very much for everything, my dearests.” I walked my two angels to the exit. “I hope our paths cross again.”

  We hugged, kissed each other and went our separate ways.

  “Got any tobacco?” a blonde man asked me, interrupting my thoughts about the beautiful days I’d just spent in Málaga.

  “Got any rolling paper?” I asked him.

  He had, I had: the situation was ideal for the two of us to become best friends.

  “I’ve been here for the past eight months.” Lukas started telling me his story after we placed ourselves by the forest path, taking out the rolling papers, tobacco and the rest of the stuff we needed. “I live in a cave at the top of the mountain, but I’ve run out of tobacco so I had to come down here.”

  “What brought you to Beneficio in the first place?” I wanted to know.

  “A search for peace, meditation, isolation,” he said. “I got sick of the world in which I’d grown up, so I decided to try out something different. Totally different.”

  “How is this so different to the outside world?” I liked the role of the questioner. It seemed to me that my collocutor had a lifestyle similar to mine, he had just decided to stay in one place, instead of travelling from one place to another.

  “Surroundings, mostly,” he said looking somewhere behind me. “Here, look up.”

  I turned around, noticing a naked female body walk slowly down the path. It belonged to a twenty-something-year-old girl with short brown hair and hazel eyes and full breasts; it was decorated with colourful tattoos that covered her entire left arm and a large part of her back. A beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful scene.

  “Out there,” he continued as if he hadn’t just witnessed the unforgettable scene, “she would be accused of being immoral, or, at least, labelled as a freak, rude or crazy.”

  “Of course,” I said, convinced that someone could make the same conclusion even here if they came with the outside way of thinking.

  “And why?” he asked, inhaling the first toke, “she’s only naked. She must have a reason for that and it doesn’t concern us. She is not doing harm to anyone, and yet, she would be accused because her behaviour doesn’t fit the traditional concept. Here, people can bare themselves, both literally and figuratively, without being afraid that someone will judge them or excommunicate them. And when human beings aren’t under pressure anymore, aren’t afraid of not fitting in anymore, of being judged” he said, passing me the joint, “then they can concentrate on themselves, discover who they are, what they like, where they want to go. Away from the surrounding which imposed those answers upon them, which define them, away from what they thought was defining them.”

  His story reminded me of the stories I’d heard from Mongoose, told many months before. The need to take a step back, the need for an unknown environment, an environment where you’re unknown to the others, an environment where different rules applied. The need for answers that you have to look for yourself, forgetting everything you thought you already knew.

  We soon separated. I went to the centre of the action: Big Lodge.

  There were fifteen people in the biggest tepee in the village. There was a fire in the centre around which people were sitting or dancing to the rhythm of a djembe, didgeridoo or guitar.
One of them got to his feet and started speaking in a weird language, pointing with his finger at everyone gathered around the fire. He seemed to be engaged in black magic in his free time, and throwing evil curses at everyone who didn’t pay attention to him. On my left and right, rolled joints and clay pipes kept circulating.

  That night, untypically of me, I didn’t say a single word. I simply kept observing the tongues of fire, which always had different forms no matter how long the fire burned for. I observed the intoxicating smoke, people and their careless, peaceful movements, the dance of half-naked girls. I observed my inner struggle: there was my common sense on one hand, which was telling me that I was surrounded by freaks, stoned loafers, people who couldn’t teach me anything. On the other hand, my present self quite enjoyed where I was, not judging, but simply observing.

  And what I noticed was pure simplicity, pure unity of those gathered there, despite the differences. I assumed that none of them were joined by long friendships, but were connected by a strong energy to which I managed to let myself go and, with the rhythm of the drums, feel the magic of the togetherness of my new, unknown family.

  The following morning, after waking up in the beautiful forest, surrounded by the chirping of the birds, I went straight to refresh myself: my first shower under a waterfall.

  Having found it, I noticed a familiar body standing under it: the gorgeous girl with brown hair and hazel eyes, dressed in the same fashion as the day before; in her colourful tattoos. She was standing under a strong torrent of water rubbing her hair with her fingers and looking towards the sky through her closed eyelids.

  A few seconds later, she was done and stepped out of the waterfall, rubbed her eyes, and, as if she could sense my eyes on her, she looked directly to me. Not taking her eyes off of mine, she took a few steps and stopped right next to me. The pointiest part of her body was nearly touching me.

  She was shorter than me by a head, and beautiful enough to make everyone lose their head because of her. She put a wide charming smile on her face, raised her right arm and touched the tip of my nose with her index finger.

  She stood like that for a second or a two, flashed me another smile and went away.

  I stood there for a few moments, waiting for my heart to stop beating heavily so I could carelessly immerse myself in the same gushing water under which she stood a couple of moments before.

  I remained there for an eternity, not having to worry that the residents of the camp would have to pay a large water bill the following month. I moved to the other side of the torrent, looked through the water and noticed drops of water playing in the sun, creating a rainbow. I was thinking about the girl with hazel eyes and her soft touch. I was thinking about life and how I was happy that I was living it.

  Even though the community was originally founded as a barter society, there were people in Beneficio who had decided to start their own small business so they could afford some privileges of civilization. So, I found a small bakery, a house where they sold cheese made of goat’s milk, the same goats living in front of the house, and at the top of the hill I found Benewifio – an Internet café.

  Since it was situated in a hippy village, the café itself was decorated in the same fashion: it consisted of a covered bench placed in front of the house of a naked hippy with dreadlocks, a mini laptop and an extension cord connected to two solar panels.

  I liked the concept of connecting an alternative lifestyle with a modern one. The fact was that most people live in an extreme way: they either use all the privileges of modern technology, drive cars, use computers and mobile phones, watch television, have a dish washer and washing machine; or, as in this place, they give up completely on civilization, live in harmony with nature, produce their own food and do all the things that machines could easily do instead of them.

  Why does the modern world have to give up on living with nature while the alternative lifestyle gives up on technology? Why couldn’t we take the best of both worlds and live in harmony with nature, with the help of technological breakthroughs? The happy, naked hippy at the top of the hill, with a small laptop powered by solar energy was a good example of how the things could work out.

  “Nice flip-flops,” I said to a guy when I climbed down the hill, noticing that we had the same make. He was in the middle of the process of filling a pipe, he just looked up, looked at my feet, smiled gently, and motioned me with his head to join him.

  I sat next to him silently, not wanting to interrupt his diligent, solemn and thorough work. He was in a kneeling position, sitting on his heels, with his back straight up breathing synchronized. He was breathing in deeply, as if it was his last breath, and breathing out in the same way, as if he was breathing every bad thing out of his body.

  “Bom Shiva,” he said with his eyes shut, drawing the pipe nearer to his forehead and then lowering it to his mouth, always with the same concentrated movements.

  I took the matches and lit the mixture of tobacco and ganja, which he, keeping the rhythm of breathing, inhaled deeply. A dark smoke came out of him; there was enough of it to fill an entire room, if we happened to be in one. He pressed the pipe to his forehead once again passing it on to me afterwards. I repeated the same actions, but more clumsily.

  “Smoking chillum is a sacred act,” he said shaking the ashes out of the pipe. He took out a stone filter of an unusual form and started cleaning his kit. “Since it is from India, where you will end up one day without doubt, there are rules you should be aware of.”

  I cocked my ears and closed my eyes. I was feeling the power of the sacred act.

  “Bom Shiva is an act of paying respect to Shiva, who is associated with this plant in many legends,” he explained calmly. “The respect is shown by pressing the chillum to your forehead before the very start. The first time you inhale, you move it to the right side, using your right hand only. You can also move it to the left, but then you have to say Bom Kali, with which you’re paying respect to feminine energy.”

  I was absorbing the information, realizing that I’d never perceived smoking weed as a sacred act. Just like in Amsterdam I’d experienced the medicinal effects of the plant, now I was ready to explore other spheres.

  My collocutor and religious master’s name was Raya and he was born in England. According to his stories, he’d been travelling for the past eighteen years, spending most of the time in the Far East and he was a regular attendant of Rainbow meetings all over the world. Beneficio was, in fact, a Rainbow village, where the same rules were applied and the same lifestyle was practiced as during the meetings. At the moment, he was elaborating a larger project and gathering people who knew something about ships and wanted to join him.

  “Ships?” I asked, “why do you need ships?”

  “The Earth is changing” he said convincingly “for the worse. Soon, we’ll be witnessing natural disasters like fires, earthquakes, and eruptions. The electromagnetic radiation of the sun is getting stronger, and that’s a fact.”

  “Many won’t survive it,” he claimed pessimistically. “Still, Africa and South America will be the continents least affected by these changes, that’s why I’m gathering people and equipment to be prepared for the transoceanic evacuation in one or two years.”

  His plan sounded dangerous. I turned my not-judging filter on and listened carefully to his predictions. I even remembered the name of the city that would be the base of his big project. Of course, the chances that everything he’d told me was pure rubbish, were, also, quite high, although I’d leave him 0.1 per cent of a chance that he was right. If his predictions turned out to be true, the rest of us, the 99.9 per cent, would be complete dumbasses.

  “And you?” he asked me, “what do you want from life?”

  I told him my life story briefly. I told him everything about my life in Zagreb, my huge debt, my first journeys and my plans for the future, which, mainly, included more journeys.

  “Now I’m working on becoming a travel writer,” I said proudly, “but
unlike other travel writers, I will write about something more interesting, different and alternative. And I think people will cherish that.”

  “So, you don’t like the way in which other writers write about their journeys?” He was curious.

  “Not really,” I confessed. “You usually need a lot of money to travel in that way. It’s easy to travel when you have money.”

  “Ego, my friend,” he said, looking deeply into my eyes, “you have a problem with the size of your ego.”

  “But...” I wanted to defend myself.

  “Let me finish,” he interrupted me. “You criticize others who simply have a different approach from yours. At the same time, you claim to be alternative, different, that only you are entitled to know the right way, that only you know the truth. You’re trying to be better than the others, when, in reality, there shouldn’t be any competition. It’s a way that will lead you to destruction,” he concluded.

  I tried to find a way to defend myself against his words.

  “Do your thing, in an honest way, the best way you can. Observe others, learn from them, but never think that you’re better or greater than someone. The only person you can be better or greater than is yourself. Because you’re the only person you know everything about.”

  He smiled at me, got up and went off in a random direction.

  I sat there for quite a while thinking about his words and my reaction. The words of that stranger were strangling me, they were making me nervous, there were making me justify myself, have a debate with myself.

  He was right. What is the point of competing with others, of making comparisons with others regarding something I want to do in life? Where did I get the right to think that something that I create will be better? It could only be mine. And that was the only thing that mattered.

  As it was getting darker, I went back to Big Lodge, to spend another night hanging out with the rest of the village. Everything was just like the night before: there was the fire, people were playing instruments, dancing, smoking. The only thing that was different was that there was a fifty-odd-year-old woman sitting next to me, playing guitar, behind which she was hiding, just like the majority of people in Beneficio, her naked body.