From Prishtina to Istanbul

     So it’s been nearly a month and a half since I posted on the blog, I know and I apologize. Many things have happened since I last wrote my thoughts down and there were times I didn’t have access to a computer and others when I did but had so many other things going on around me that I couldn’t get myself to sit and write. So I’ll try to give you a “quick” summary of everything that went down since my last post in Kosovo.
     Just after posting about the truckers I left in a late afternoon with my German friend Alex Krimm (whose last name was a misspelling by the registry office at the time and actually makes us related) who as a nice looking blue eyed blonde I must admit facilitated in much the day’s hitch-hiking into Serbia. We crossed the border on foot in Merdare and when interviewed by the border patrol we got by with a simple: “These are not the droids you are looking for” (gladly the Force has great power over weak minds and he didn’t bother looking much through my passport to see the 8 huge black Republic of Kosovo border stamps on it and we went about our business). From there we then had to wait for the slow go of truck traffic through the border in hopes that a passing truck might carry us a bit further. While waiting we met another hitch-hiker from Germany, Benjamin, who was making his way South through the same border as us with his rather small backpack. No tent, no cooking gear, just the very basics and a positive mood. Less is more!

After a while waiting we caught a ride til  a village about half-way to Nis where we would get on the Amsterdam-Istanbul truck route, but stopped for the night in this little village. After a 30 minute walk, we found this nice grassy field where we laid down my Quechua 2 Second tent and retired for the night. 

      It was a hot night and we had no water left so I walked out to find a family of 4 who lived next to the field just getting home. After finding that the wife spoke English we started to communicate. I was able to get some water and them very interested in our trip. They were very nice and not only that, after I had gone back to the tent the husband shows up with two bottles of mineral water and a bag with cookies, canned tuna, instant mashed potato mix and more. We felt so great about having experienced such kindness that we wanted to thank them personally and in the morning we stopped by the house before leaving again and were welcomed by grandma with Turkish coffee and her own homemade sugared plums (Delicious!). As the Balkan saying goes “The house belongs to God and the guest”. Speaking to the husband in our half German, half Serbian talk, we found that he was part of the Armed Forces during the war with Kosovo and gave us accounts of some of the things he witnessed including the NATO bombings (one less than a kilometer from his home) and showed us a bit of the city and the Serbian tanks still parked at the barracks in Prokuplje.

     After that he dropped us off at a gas station, bought us a coke and we went on to find a guy who went out of his way to drop us off at a small gas station on the E-80 to Bulgaria. It was not exactly where I wanted to be since small petrol stations are rarely visited by large trucks and it’s hard to get them to stop from the highway. An ideal spot would have been the toll station just a few Km North, but because there were no side roads we were sort of trapped there. Nevertheless we took it easy, asked around the drivers, met some Portuguese and Spanish speakers, played cards and listened to Bob Marley when the sun was too hot, napped, found a den of baby mice, enlisted the help of a gas pumper who was eager to find us a ride and even took the time and ink to make ridiculously huge hitch-hiking signs.But still after many hours we were still there and our patience, with each other, running out (patience with hitch-hiking never runs out because there is never any other option, so you might as well just chill and keep a smile on your face). Finally a Turkish truck stopped and we convinced the driver to take us to Sofia.

His name was Gokçen (or Hassan) and as the truck drivers I have mentioned before, a family man doing his long haul across Europe. He only spoke German and Turkish so we ended up practicing my German and learning some Turkish (Alex felt quite at home). On the road though we both decided to ride with him all the way to Istanbul, which was my plan all along but Sofia was Alex’s stop and would have been a good distance covered in one day. 

 So he did, drove us to Bulgaria where we waited for his truck to go through and also met two Polish hitch-hikers doing the same route on another Turkish truck also waiting for their driver. Hassan drove us all the way to a stop just before reaching Plovdiv where we had a great full Turkish dinner a sat drinking raki until 4:30 in the morning when we all stumbled into his truck to sleep.

Next day, rise and shine at 11 am to continue driving and because of the water drunk with Turkish raki, no hangover! We set off again through the sunflower fields of Bulgaria on and on until the Turkish border of Edirne, where again we waited for Hassan across the border, cooked lunch and oddly enough met the same two Polish hitch-hikers in the same situation as us (the only difference being they were headed to Istanbul to fly to Kenia and then back to Poland. Why? Cheap flights and curiosity after watching The Lion King (which I’ve heard most Kenians don’t even know).

 After a while we met our respective truckers and kept on going. Hassan took considerably longer because the Bulgarian border officers kept wanting him to pay more and more to get through. Border crossings are easy enough for pedestrians and drivers but for truckers they are long, troublesome and depending on the country, quite expensive (bribes).

Still we kept on going through the even more plentiful sunflower fields of Thrace (felt an urge to play Plants versus Zombies) until finally arriving late at night just outside of Istanbul where we all said our goodbyes and got offered a trip to anywhere on the way back to Denmark we would start in 5 days. Me and Alex negotiated the confusing streets and walked along the Marmaris for a few hours until finally we found a bakery and soon after a park where we camped for the night behind some trees. We did have to move when the sprinklers turned on at which point I went to sleep against a tree and Alex found a cozy spot on a bench.

Left Kosovo on July 2 and arrived in Istanbul on July 4. I am still in Istanbul.