by Paul Archer
As we crossed the bridge that we thought signalled the border, the car, as one, yelled, 'Naked country!'
We pulled our clothes off and tootled along the lush green Alpine pastures, completely starkers.
A month living in the same vehicle had done strange things to us all.
'Wait a minute,' I ventured, looking outside, 'those are still Austrian signs, I don't think that was the right bridge.'
The others groaned and we pulled our clothes back on for all of 90 seconds, until we crossed the correct bridge and saw the Liechtenstein coat of arms halfway across and again chorused, 'Naked country!'
I've always had a fondness for Switzerland. Something about the perfectly ordered and almost unfeasibly clean place appeals to me. The beautiful, spotless Alpine villages almost look like some kind of film set. Unfortunately all this comes at the price of the country being horrendously expensive – even a simple meal at a cheap restaurant and a quick drink in a quiet bar easily smashed our £10 per day limit. It was interesting to spend some time with some of our friends from the other side: people who had graduated from university and gone straight into the corporate world, who thought nothing of buying a €50 round of drinks and then went home to their plush city-centre apartments.
There we were sharing a loaf of bread and a squeeze of bacon-in-a-tube on the bonnet of our car for lunch while these guys were living it up in posh cafes on the shore of Lake Geneva; we were sleeping on the floors of draughty farmhouses while they were lounging in king-sized beds in fully furnished bachelor pads. We admitted we had all had fleeting pangs of envy talking to these guys, but back on the road again it didn't take long for us to realise that we wouldn't swap places with them for the world. We were having the time of our lives.
Back in France, and the march ever southward had brought with it the kind of glorious weather you expect from the Riviera; a stark contrast to the biting cold of the frozen Paris suburbs we had experienced earlier in the year. We decided it was now warm enough to try out the pop-up tents we'd brought along as a money-saving measure, for wild camping in the warmer climates. We drove higher and higher up the sides of the valley in the foothills of the Alps and found a spot of grass marked as a 'Municipal camping ground'. As we were setting up camp, I saw Leigh tutting and shaking his head as he threw up his tent. The shop we had bought them from only had two green camouflage tents and one bright pink one left in stock, and Leigh had been cursing us for weeks that he ended up with the odd one out.
'If we ever get attacked in the night I guarantee I will be the first,' he always half-joked, 'they can see my girly pink tent from a mile away.'
In our haste to get on the road in the UK we managed to misplace a particular bag that contained half of our camping gear. This meant that although we each had a sleeping bag and a tent that was about it. An old roll of carpet we had found somewhere had been chopped up into makeshift sleeping mats and a pile of dirty laundry served as a pillow. Without proper gear, we shivered through the night, but we were rewarded the next morning with a stunning vista of the valley as the sun rose over the far mountains. Despite the low temperatures in the mountains our camping appetite was well and truly whetted.
It may have only been late March, but the sun was properly shining. Driving through the winding roads of the French Riviera from Nice to Monaco is one of the world's ultimate drives. It was perfect; the sun reflected off the gently rippling Mediterranean, which was only interrupted by the odd super yacht. I felt like I could have been Cary Grant. Except that instead of an Italian sports car, I was in a 20-year-old taxi, and instead of Grace Kelly – her headscarf flapping in the cooling breeze – I had Johno, scratching his balls in a pair of obscene cut-off Daisy Duke shorts.
Dropping into Monte Carlo, the home of the world's superrich tax dodgers, we instantly found ourselves on the F1 track. We did a lap of some of the open F1 street-track – careering into the tunnel at a cool 30 mph to that epic Formula 1 sound, 'nneeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrrrmmmph' (well at least that's the sound I was making to hide the gentle tractor-like hum of our diesel engine). I negotiated the dangerous chicane with ease and hurtled by the luxury yachts at 10 to 15 mph.
A scooter pulled up beside me and waved me to the side with a heavy arm with a large security badge on it. Expecting to be in trouble – which for us was beginning to feel normal – I pulled over to find that actually he was just a fan of the expedition who had been following us online and wanted to say hi.
We all had a go on the track and at making the obligatory sounds before heading up to the casino. The car parking was divided into an underground facility for mere mortals, and a show park for superstars and supercars out the front. The attendant took one look at our tatty old cab and waved us to the 'normal' zone, but we just smiled back, waved and drove past him into the exclusive zone, as brazen as day.
Hannah had been drawing attention ever since we had rolled off the ferry and into France. From the dollar signs rolling in the eyes of the Soviet cops to the wide grins and waves of what seemed like every motorist on the motorway in the Czech Republic, she was definitely causing a reaction. We parked up in front of a row of priceless metal and hopped out and started to take pictures. To our surprise, so did the rest of the tourists milling around – they were more interested in the sticker-covered, rusty black cab than the rare million-dollar machinery on display and, much to our glee, we were soon posing for a small group of German tourists. Even when the local police turned up to see what all the commotion was about they were soon happily chatting away to Leigh about how we had got here.
The reaction of the Italians was one of the best, and most stereotypical, so far. After leaving Monaco we were driving down the Italian motorway. As usual almost everyone was overtaking us when a throaty Ferrari ambled along next to us, inching past as the occupants enjoyed a slow cruise with the top down.
As we drew level, the passenger, a pretty, dark-eyed girl, caught a glance of our beaten-up London taxi with a roof rack full of junk and stared at us with an open-mouthed smile.
The driver, presumably her boyfriend, was still unaware, cool as could be, cruising down the road in his sports car. That was until he saw us, or more accurately saw the look his girlfriend was giving us. His mouth dropped open in disgust and somehow eyeballed all three of us at once as he made an unintentionally comical over-exaggerated display of putting his manly arm around the passenger before roaring off at 100 mph.
Staying true to our drunkenly planned task of driving to Australia via 'the longest route possible to rack up the fare' included driving across the top of Africa. Unfortunately, about a week after we left London a young student set himself on fire in Tunisia, successfully starting a revolution in the Arab world. Unbeknownst to him, he had also scuppered the plans of three lads in a black cab.
So, instead of taking a ferry from the southern tip of Italy and driving around North Africa and the Middle East to Turkey, we had come up with a new plan: the Balkans.
The first new country on our revised route was Slovenia, which was so miniscule that we managed to drive nearly all the way across it in two hours. Crossing the border into Croatia, we came across a cosy little hostel for the night.
We woke up the next day considerably more rested and relaxed than we had been for some time, at least until we looked out of the window. Hannah was parked right outside but even from our third-storey window it was obvious that something wasn't quite right. A large pool of some unidentified liquid had formed underneath her and when we got downstairs to investigate Leigh discovered that the ageing fuel tank had begun to split open along the seams, leaking diesel all over the road. This would either require a completely new tank – probably not that common in Croatia, we thought – or a very skilled welder to try to patch it back together. Fortunately our hotel owner knew the perfect guy, and within a few hours Leigh had explained all that Hannah needed and she was safely in the hands of a man who had just the right skills to make her as good as new.
With a
forced exile from Hannah for a few days we decided to make the most of the free time with our latest Couchsurfing host, Igor, who showed us the city by day, and took us drinking by night.
We stayed with Igor for a couple more days until the car was repaired and we could hit the road again. Yet again, we struggled to find a decent camping spot for us all to lay our tents and ended up driving down an abandoned track into an incredibly eerie wood. Leigh outlined every scenario that happens to woodland campers in horror films, especially focusing on the popular modern trend for setting them in Eastern Europe. Driving past a particularly creepy abandoned hut was the last straw and, as the driver, I turned us around and drove out.
Not because I was scared though.
In the end we camped on a grass verge by an industrial estate – much safer.
CHAPTER 14
METAL MONDAY MORNING
We arrived in Split after a day of driving and exploring the stunning Plitvice Lakes. Driving for hour upon hour every day can, unsurprisingly, be quite dull, and the obvious way of keeping yourself sane while driving is to listen to music. Johno and I are both really into our music – Leigh, however, can count three Black Eyed Peas albums on his iPod and so it was agreed that his opinion was nullified. With opinions bouncing around the cab you would expect music choice to be a key point of contention, but fisticuffs were kept at bay by abiding to the simple taxi music rule – the driver is in full control.
However, by this point in the trip, we were all pretty bored of our choices and decided to jazz it up by having music-themed days. The Saturday drive from the verge of an industrial estate to Split in Croatia: Reggae Saturday. Consolidating all the reggae between us on to one playlist is easy – making it last for a day, however, isn't. Very soon ska was allowed in and by the end it was any punk band that had ever played a ska track. Needless to say, themed days took off and were going to stay.
We crossed into Bosnia and headed towards Sarajevo, following some directions to what had been described to us as the perfect camping spot. Soon we were crawling up a narrow track on a steep hillside far above the river below. Without saying a word we each took off our seatbelts and opened our windows, unspoken precautions in case Hannah slipped and tumbled into the rushing water below. The view of the impressive valley from the field made the sketchy drive worth it, although the high winds and chilly temperatures made for another fitful night's sleep.
After a brief stop in Sarajevo, although not long enough to do justice to the history-soaked city, we pressed on for the border with Montenegro.
Monday was Metal Monday, which meant all my old thrash metal albums got an airing, Leigh's Limp Bizkit came out and Johno introduced us to the rather unique Austrian Death Machine – a brutal heavy metal band that sing exclusively about Arnold Schwarzenegger films in a fake Austrian accent.
It was the perfect soundtrack for winding between the steep Montenegrin gorges, criss-crossed with Indiana Jones-esque rope bridges. The roads were tight, but well built – cut into the vertical cliff sides with sheer drops on one side protected by large concrete blocks.
Montenegro came and went, and we found ourselves at the top of a huge pass crossing into Kosovo. The Mediterranean spring behind us, it started to snow hard. The drive through Kosovo was grey and wet, and by the time we got to the border with Macedonia the rain was bucketing down.
Having been lucky enough to grow up in a time of open European borders and cheap air travel, we, along with most of our peers, hadn't really experienced the peculiarities that are land borders before departing on the trip. But over the past few months we had been thrown in at the deep end.
There was something horribly similar about all of the borders we had struggled through so far. All were bathed in harsh fluorescent strip-lights that never quite cut through the grey drizzle that always seemed to be falling. The barn-like structures, fences, concrete floors and constant throng of movement vaguely resembled some kind of human factory-farm and the constant bustle of human traffic belied any actual meaningful human contact. Although thousands of people pass through the barbed wire every day, none of them seemed to care about anything other than getting their own group over to the other side.
The officials seemed almost robot-like, dehumanised by the constant process of dealing with people as 'Approve' or 'Deny' stamps rather than as real people, and the Macedonians were no different. The border guards took one look at our Green Card insurance documents and refused to accept them on the basis that they weren't printed on green paper.
We eventually had to pay another £35 for Macedonian insurance. We passed through the border as evening fell.
After two and a half hours of driving through the darkness and rain – the occasional puddle splashing up through the gear stick hole and a continuous, tortuous drip over the driver's accelerator pedal foot – we exited Macedonia. Leigh poked his head out of his sleeping bag, having slept the entire way, as the border guard waved us through and into Greece.
Leigh was becoming more and more preoccupied by what was and wasn't allowed in Turkey. His main concern was whether we could take the pork we had stocked up on in Bosnia, but Johno and I could tell he was wracking his brain for any other items that may not go down well in a Muslim country.
'We don't have any booze do we?'
'Unfortunately not, plus it's not a dry country so we'll be fine.' I replied.
Back when we were in the Czech Republic, Leigh had been missing his girlfriend, Charlotte. So, as a good friend, I felt I needed to get him something to cheer him up. With few options in the first service station we stopped at, I selected the most depraved (and cheapest) hardcore Czech pornography mag, had it nicely gift-wrapped by the bemused woman at the till, and presented it to Leigh as a little cheer-you-up gift. It had since bounced around the back of the cab, spawning a new game; the game of hiding the porn mag wherever it was most likely that a person would discover it in an awkward situation (which was often the documents wallet that's brought out every time there's a police check or border).
'Oh God… did you guys throw away my… err, the Czech porn?'
'Yes, mate.' (We hadn't.)
'Are you sure?'
'Yup.'
'Good, because if we got caught with that, there would be all sorts of trouble.'
At that very moment, it was actually hidden in Leigh's hand luggage.
CHAPTER 15
THE GREEN CARD
Unfortunately the magazine stayed hidden across the border, but there was still the hope that Leigh's girlfriend would discover it when she came to visit us a few days later. The guards refused to accept our Green Card insurance documents and insisted that, even though it had 'Green Card' and 'Carte Verte' printed on the top, because it wasn't literally printed on green cardboard, it was unacceptable. A German couple in a camper van were having the same issue and despite the large man's angry, sweating protestations that, 'we already have zee GWEEEEN Card,' we were both forced to shell out handsomely for updated polices.
We made it to Istanbul in good time, but spent two hours trying to find the hostel we had booked into. We had arranged to meet up with an Irish couple we had met in a hostel back in Ukraine. They were brilliant photographers and cracking fun, but average at best at giving directions to hostels.
Eventually we found it and were let in by its owner – a Turkish Rastafarian, bottle of Jack Daniel's in hand, whose Thai Chang Beer singlet hinted back to a better time. The building had been condemned and was set to be knocked down in the next couple of months, but that hadn't stopped the hostel being full and him double-booking us. Considering the effort it took to find the place, we weren't going anywhere else, so he offered us the kitchen floor and a piece of toast for breakfast for £1.50 a head, and we gladly accepted.
We spent the next day seeing the sights and lapping up their culture: the Blue Mosque, eating kebabs, smoking shisha, chatting with the wonderful Turks and wandering the Grand Bazaar, where we witnessed a fight break out that knocked over a c
harcoal kebab braiser and almost burned down the whole place.
The city break was not long enough, and before we knew it we had to go. It was approaching three months on the road and apart from four days in Rovaniemi and four in Croatia due to the fuel leak, we hadn't stopped anywhere for more than a couple of nights. We were exhausted. We had arranged a week off at a Turkish beach: a week off from driving, from moving, from camping and – most importantly – a week off from each other.
We had planned these breaks into the trip to allow ourselves to retain our sanity occasionally. Such a long time encased in a tin can in unbelievably close proximity inevitably creates tension, but nothing that a nice holiday within a holiday couldn't fix. To help us with our beach break, we had invited our girlfriends/girls-wemet-in-a-bar-in-Prague-who-we-somehow-persuaded-to-go-onholiday-with-us along too. Their flights were due in a couple of days, and we had 500 miles to drive.