The Long Hitch Home

by Jamie Maslin

  Out of Lord of the Rings it most certainly was.

  Reaching the caves required continuing past them upstream on the opposite bank, where a small bridge spanned the river, connecting with a path that led back towards the site, where it traversed its way up the distant mountainside. The place looked deserted, but as I hiked along the track towards the mountain, a small inconspicuous door in the rock next to the path flung open, revealing a tiny but cozy-looking gray-walled cave, decked out with a wall-mounted cupboard, electrical light, and a wooden table, where three men sat sharing a crusty loaf of white bread and a bottle of red wine. The man who had opened up gestured me inside.

  None spoke much English, but it seemed they were some sort of custodians of the caves, who, in the absence of other visitors, were whiling away the evening with a good bottle of red. They poured some into a little tumbler and tore a hunk off the loaf, passing both to me. I was all for staying in here out of the rain making merry with them, but I was running out of daylight. If I didn’t take an excessive amount of time exploring the caves, and managed to get a lift back to the main road before dark, then I might still reach Turkey tonight.

  The wine was sweet, full-bodied and delicious, but I guzzled their kind offering in as quick a manner as was possible without appearing hasty or uncouth, then struck off for the caves, bread in hand, having left my backpack behind with my new-found friends. The absence of its weight was bliss, and I bounced up the track like a mountain goat, climbing higher, until I was halfway up and looking down on the greater canyon below, where a fertile tree-lined floodplain stretched from the grassy scree slopes to the banks of the river.

  Straddling the track in front of me was a square keep-like building crafted out of stone, with arched entranceways. Beyond it, I knew from my earlier sightings across the river, lay the caves proper. I stood still for a second at the entrance to the building, savoring the anticipation while I got my breath back. When the sound of my heartbeat died down below the soft chirping of nearby birds, I decided I was ready. Stepping through the archway into the building’s cool interior, I gazed up in the fading light at its beautifully carved ceiling, its once-white rock now stained black from the grimy residue of centuries of candle smoke. Passing through to the other side, an enchanting city of rock emerged. External paths and stairways skirted along a tiered rock face, going to and from the hundreds of cave dwellings of this otherworldly former monastery, climbing from one level to another.

  Making my way along one of the paths, I went into the grand ruin of a cave, its walls covered with the scars of picks, still clear to see eight hundred years after their original wielding. Inside was a mountain womb, a cozy shelter with alcoves in the wall for books and candles, a high ceiling, raised sleeping platform, and an internal corridor leading to another room; and then another; and another after that. Internal staircases, tunnels, and secret passages criss-crossed the entire site, interlinking many of the chambers over its thirteen levels, in a bewildering maze of complexity where you could enter at one spot and then pop out, blinking into the daylight, at another. It was a phenomenal site, like an abandoned mystical hobbit city, which I proceeded to explore, ducking in and out of it like a rabbit in a warren.

  In the center of Vardzia was its beating heart, the Church of the Assumption, a twelfth century chapel announced by way of a double-arched façade, with exquisite biblically-themed frescos. While marveling at their detail and beauty, I pondered what it would be like to reside here permanently, cloistered from the outside world, living a life of contemplation and asceticism. I reached the startling conclusion that retreating from society for a couple of years as a monk—so long as I could be stationed in a place like this—held a surprising amount of appeal.

  Distracting me from further thought of an ecclesiastic career change was the sight of three great bells hanging from the arches of the church’s façade. With the mighty canyon directly below, I wondered what the echo would be like. I gave it a tentative tug. Echoes resonated far and wide, producing an eerie ghost-like response in the misty canyon, and a wholly unexpected consequence closer to hand. Suddenly a nearby door in the rock swung open, and there before me appeared a fully cloaked, long-bearded monk, screwing up his ugly mug, looking anything but the picture of inner peace I’d imagined moments earlier, and the source of his torment was me. I had no idea the place was still inhabited, even by a solitary contemplative. His holiness wasted no time in berating me in Georgian for ringing his precious bell, giving me a right old roasting over my indiscretion, a forthright blast of Christian charity delivered by the end of a jabbing finger. In an act of hasty contrition, I apologized for my sins, and concluded that a monk’s life wasn’t for me after all.

  It seemed a good time to hit the road.

  Several lucky lifts, including one with a priest, this time a cheery old soul, who bopped along to dull-as-dishwater British/Georgian singer Katie Melua on his stereo, saved me from being marooned in the dark. Just before the last of the day’s light faded away, I scored a ride across the border: another modern SUV, this time with a young couple, Nizam and Ia, who were heading to the Turkish town of Ardaham, seventy miles away.

  It proved a quick and easy transit on into Turkey, where we soon found ourselves twisting up mountain roads, climbing in elevation until the altitude brought with it a thick blanket of snow. Another language barrier endured, so I reclined in the back in silence, savoring the warmth and comfort of the interior, secure in the knowledge that I was being taken to a destination where I intended to spend the night. There would be no more hiking along or standing by the side of the road for me today. It was a reassuring thought, and soon my weary eyes became heavy, and I drifted off to sleep.

  My serenity shattered in an instant.

  From out of nowhere an extreme centrifugal force threw me hard against the door, jolting me awake, as the vehicle pitched violently to one side, spinning out of control off the road. Ia let out a piercing scream, and for a second I thought my number was up. Instinctively I braced myself, ready for a crushing impact. It never came. With an abrupt lurch we came to a skidding halt in a snowy ditch, having spun almost 360 degrees. The emotional dust took longer to settle. Ia was in near hysterics. Doing his best to calm her down, Nizam employed a softly-softly approach, then, when it became clear this wasn’t working, resorted to the verbal equivalent of a slap across the face.

  “Kadin sakin ol!”

  It did the job and she sat in a more manageable stunned and submissive silence.

  Stepping outside into knee-deep snow, Nizam and I surveyed the situation. We were in the middle of nowhere, on top of an unlit, wind and snow-lashed mountain plateau, with terrible visibility and no sign of civilization or any other vehicles. There had been plenty of perilous drops next to the roadside earlier on, visible in the hazy illumination of the headlights; if there had been one here, then we would all be dead; no question about it. On the surface of it the SUV looked undamaged, but the snow was jammed up to the bumpers and wheel arches, holding her firmly in place. Having pulled herself together, Ia began pointing back the way we’d come. She seemed to be telling Nizam they had passed a dwelling of some sort just beyond the near horizon. If so, then we might be able to source a shovel. Visibility was terrible in the flurry of falling snow flakes, but our tire tracks were still clear enough, so Nizam and I set off in the building’s supposed direction, leaving Ia wrapped up in a blanket in the SUV.

  She soon faded from sight behind us, and the snow and darkness became our world, broken, eventually, by the warm enticing glow of illuminated windows in the distance. A large house appeared to the left of the road, its forefront strewn with heavy duty mechanical machinery. Knocking on the door, a surprised old man appeared who immediately beckoned us inside his cozy-looking home. No doubt mindful of Ia, Nizam politely turned him down, explaining the situation and our need for a digging implement. A quick shout behind him, and the old man summoned a younger male who came outside with us and retrieved the perfect t
ool: a long-handled shovel with a tapered head. With this in hand we thanked the man and made our way back to the SUV. After a world of digging, Nizam jumped in the driver’s seat, firing up the engine. Fumes billowed from the exhaust, illuminated in the dark by the red glow of the tail lights. The SUV wailed in effort, rocking back and forth as it struggled for traction, wheels flailing around in a wild frenzy, until finally it lurched forwards. We were free.

  Whatever arrangements had been made for the return of the shovel, I don’t know; but Nizam made no attempt to take it back. He put it in the trunk and we were off. Any euphoria at being back on the move again quickly subsided, replaced by a cautious and somber respect for the dangers of the road ahead, a silent and subdued realization that things could have easily worked out very differently, and with dire consequences.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Home Stretch

  When I closed my eyes at night I saw road, a seemingly everlasting tract with no final destination. Did England really exist at the end of one of them? Actually, no, not if you consider the English Channel. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that by now I was good and ready for home, to forget about thumbing a ride altogether, to stay put for a while with no intention of dragging myself off for the next place shortly after arrival. The sheer cumulative effect of the last few months had taken its toll: the distance covered and the number of rides, over eight hundred and counting, that by now had blurred into one never ending stretch of road to nowhere. The thought of catching a train and chugging my way merrily back to England was extraordinarily tempting, but I hadn’t come this far to cheat on the home stretch.

  Despite promising myself that once I got to Turkey I would simply push on west without undue hanging around or sightseeing, after the delights of Georgia’s Vardzia cave city, I couldn’t quite resist stopping off at a similar location in central Turkey that I had visited twice before: Cappadocia, a sprawling geological wonderland renowned for its canyons lined with bizarre phallic rock formations known as fairy chimneys, where ancient underground cities and Christian churches were carved out of the stone. I spent a couple of days hiking through the region this time, where spring was no longer teetering on the edge of arrival but bursting fully into life, with fluffy pink offerings of blossom covering the region’s almond trees, and fields erupting into golden blankets of sunny wild flowers.

  I departed Cappadocia at dawn, leaving for Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, amid a fiery orange sunrise that seemed to set the stratosphere ablaze. My late night arrival in the western half of the city signaled a momentous geographical transition. Crossing a giant suspension bridge with cables dripping in bulbs like baubles hanging from a Christmas tree, my home continent appeared across the famous waters of the Bosphorus Strait. On the distant banks appeared a vibrant modern city with an ancient heart: a twinkling metropolis full of light and optimistic promise, where palatial apartments rose from the water’s edge alongside spear-like spires of minarets, where the rampart walls of a floodlit stone fortress dazzled golden like an ethereal palace, while skyscrapers loomed large over the city in the distance, paying homage to the false gods of industry and commerce. I was back in Europe again, and it felt fantastic.

  After a day relaxing in this spectacular city of 13.5 million people, I stuck to my plan of pushing on home unabated, clearing tiny neighboring Bulgaria and then Serbia in a day a piece, finding myself, on the morning of the third day, a stone’s throw from Croatia.

  I awoke with a jolt in the cab of the truck I had spent the night in at a roadside truck stop, prodded into sudden consciousness by the sound of a vehicle driving past in the pitch-black outside. Suddenly the realization hit me: people were moving towards the border. It was 4:30 a.m., but time was of the essence, I needed to get moving. Emily had inadvertently set the time frame, with an email mentioning she would be away from London for a couple of nights to play a gig with her string quartet, Indigo Strings, at an Elgar festival on the Isle of White. With Emily departing for her gig in three days’ time, I was dammed if I was going to take more than that to get back to London. Having traveled such a crazy distance from Australia, pushing myself under what were, at times, very trying conditions, it just felt wrong to arrive home to an empty apartment. Not that Emily was aware of my plans; I intended my arrival to be a surprise.

  I had reached the border the evening before with a Turkish truck driver who had picked me up in Bulgaria. He was on his way to Holland, a very nice distance of roughly 1,500 miles. Problem was, he was driving it at a leisurely pace, with an ETA just after Emily’s departure. Having encountered a monumental backlog of trucks at the Croatian border, he had given up and parked at a truck stop while the backlog cleared. And so, I decided to say farewell and to go solo instead, shifting from one ride to another, when traffic started using the road again in the morning. Not only was it logically the right thing to do, but, more importantly, it felt right, with another powerful internal urge imploring me to jump ship.

  With a sense of urgency I scrambled from my bunk in the pre dawn darkness, grabbing my gear and clambering outside the truck onto the wet gravel below, having passed on my thanks and said my goodbyes to the driver the night before. There was no time to properly pack my sleeping bag; every truck that passed could be the one that got me home. Slinging my sleeping bag around my neck, I stumbled through the slashing rain to the deserted road. With no idea how long I’d be stuck here, I undid my pack, tearing through its contents for my waterproof jacket, retrieving it in the nick of time: just as two powerful headlights appeared in the distance, slicing through the darkness. If I didn’t pack away my sleeping bag soon it would become soaked, but the approaching truck was my priority.

  Standing upright with my backpack prominently displayed beside me, I stuck out a thumb. In the darkness I couldn’t really see into the cab, but when it was close enough for the driver to get a clear shot of me, I hit him with the “Maslin move,” hand on heart, imploring him for a ride. He carried on past, but then, in what must have been a last minute change of heart, violently jumped on the brakes.

  With my backpack half open and sleeping bag still out, I did my best to cradle them in my arms, hobbling down the road towards the truck. It was a cumbersome weight and my back paid the price. An electric shock-like pain raced through my left hand side. I winced, but it was more than worth the discomfort; one of the most fascinating rides I’ve ever had was about to commence.

  Greeting me in the cab was a dark haired Caucasian guy of about thirty with a beaming smile and warm kind eyes, dressed in a black sweater and blue jeans.

  “Thank you so much!” I said, heaving myself inside.

  “You are welcome,” he replied. “I need company.”

  He introduced himself as Miodrag, a Serbian long distance truck driver heading from his home country on a delivery to northern Italy.

  Only minutes into the drive and we reached the Croatian border, where my passport caused quite a stir with the female official manning the drive-through booth. The problem was my mug shot. After months of roughing it, this now bore little resemblance to the long haired, unkempt and malnourished reality in front of her. Looking from the fuller-faced, clean shaven I.D. photo to my hideous reality, she recoiled as if staring into the face of the elephant man. In desperation she called a colleague, and then a second, their eyes flicking back and forth from the photo to me, desperately trying to reconcile the two.

  “Come on guys. It’s me,” I said, pulling a silly smiley face, as if this would somehow assist in their marrying the picture with my ugly mug.

  I tried a fatigued drawn face instead, then began counting on my fingers, while listing the countries I had been through, trying to induce the conclusion: Goodness me, all those places, no wonder he looks such a state.

  They checked my passport stamps to verify I was telling the truth. A nod of the head was shared between them. They handed it back and waved me through.

  I wasn’t the only one with problems. For some
reason Miodrag’s paperwork for his cargo left something to be desired, and so to rectify the problem he had to pay a bribe.

  “It is so corrupt here,” he said in disgust as we pulled away. “Not as bad as Hungary but still bad. Hungary is worst in Europe. I have friend who stop for a madam, which was police woman dressed up. He had to pay 1,500 Euros.”

  “And he didn’t even get laid!” I added.

  “No,” laughed Miodrag. “Fuck is twenty euro, blow job ten, so he could have fucked for a year!”

  The further we drove and chatted, the more Miodrag opened up to me, telling me about his past and how he got into long distance truck driving.

  “I am former teacher but I need travel like you,” he told me.

  “How long were you a teacher?” I asked.

  “Five years.”

  “What did you teach?”

  Miodrag laughed.

  “I am hairdressing teacher, practical and theory. I love art, my father make sculpture: wood and stone. He is professional. My uncle is professional painter. I learn first by practicing on younger brother. I work one shift in school, one shift in my salon. I was really good at my job but I can’t stay in one place.”

  His aversion to staying put had led Miodrag to do plenty of hitching before becoming a truck driver, and was one of the reasons he said he always tried to stop for people hitchhiking, or as he called it “autostop.”

  “I picked this guy up on highway in Portugal. I was tired and needed company. He autostop like you. But in cab he sweat and scratch and ill. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, and he tell me ‘I have problem, I need heroin.’ ‘Oh, no!’ I think and say ‘I not have any!’ but I look at him and feel bad. I see he is good man but does have problem so I say, ‘Where can I buy heroin?’”

  Miodrag laughed and shook his head.