Syria

On Tuesday morning, we started off in Ulac, Turkey towards V. Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Hüsseyin walks some meters out of town with us and waits until a car stops to have some smalltalk to the driver. Few cars pass, but all stop. He seems to be well known in town, everybody wants to give him a ride, but they all are not going our way. Anyway, after only 5 minutes of waiting, we get our first ride of the day.

The day before we got off next to a bridge, where a small road goes over to Ulac, a small Turkish village on the European side of Turkey. Hüsseyin just asked the driver to stop on the highway, under a small bridge. There we walked up the bridge and waited for some fifteen minutes to get a ride into town. It’s an empty road, only some farmers hanging out there next to their tomato fields.

This time, we get a ride by a nice guy who drives a kilometer further  to bring us onto the service station. It’s nearly empty, the only other being there is a dog, not very interested in us two hitchhikers. We decide to walk onto the highway and try to get a ride directly along the hard shoulder.

Our tactic while hitchhiking directly is simple: I’m standing some 100m before Mahab, trying to get a ride. She’s behind me with the luggage, because most trucks or cars that stop need at least some 50-100m. It’s annoying to run back to a car with all your luggage on the back, just to find out that he’s going off the next ramp. Two trucks and a van stop, but they all go to Lüleburgaz only. I want a direct ride towards Edirne. Just a few minutes pass when a young Turkish man who’s going towards Edirne, stops. He’s eather phoning all the time or listening to some English rock music. Just forgot the name of the band, but anyway I now know that we’re finally out of Asia, already on the European side of Turkey.

We get off on a service station maybe 4-5 kilometer before the border checkpoint in Kapikule. There we wait along the highway, pissed off by the hundreds of Dutch and German cars filled up with whole generations of familes passing by. Nevertheless a lonely Turkish driver passes by and brings us to the checks. The officers seem to be no problem, and once we pass the Turkish control, a Bulgarian waves us into his car, so we don’t have to walk to the Bulgarian checkpoints.

Seconds later, he stops at the Duty Free Shop. No problem for us, but he wants me to come with him. All right, this is the procedure: They check your passport when you buy cigarettes, and 10 cartons of cigarettes are for sure not the amount someone buys on his own. The guy hides all the cigarettes in his car, which is in fact falling apart on all sides, but he manages it to hide the cigarettes under his 2 big sacks of potatoes. We went on further to Bulgaria without any problems.

He brings us to Harmanli, a small Bulgarian town dominated by the TIR traffic passing by. We manage to hitch a ride with a 7,5t truck going nearly all the way to Stara Zagora. I’m glad we leave that spot, some children already started to stare and walk around our bags. The village where he let’s us wait for nearly half an hour to get another ride, this time with a motorsport freak doing some “race” on the streets with another guy, who’s car also is tuned from top to bottom. He brings us all the way through Stara Zagora, where we fast get a new ride towards Kazanlak. It’s already 6pm, but we manage to get a direct ride to Gabrovo over the Shipka passage. This is the third time I travel over this one, and each time I fear myself to dead when the drivers rush through the corners as it is a formula 1 race. On the way down we see a Turkish truck lying on his side. Somehow the Turkish still can’t manage to pass Shipka without losses.

In Gabrovo we get stuck because my host’s grandmother is not very well, so we’re not going to Pavlikeni today. We manage to meet up with some local kids, which turn out to be amazing hosts.

The next day we only hitch towards Veliko Tarnovo, which are just 40 km. Somehow Gabrovo still is a hell to hitch out for me, and just after some 2,5 hours of waiting we finally get a ride by a fellow hitchhiker towards V. Tarnovo. Same shit as last year, where I also waited more than an hour in Gabrovo. Everywhere else Bulgaria is amazing for hitchhiking, but somehow not here.

Bringing it all back home

Thursday we finally startet the last hitchhiking trip back home to Germany. At 1pm in Veliko Tarnovo we get a ride by a taxi driver all the way towards Sofia. He doesn’t talk any of our languages, so most of the time I enjoy the Bulgarian countryside while Mahab is sleeping in the back.

On the Sofia highway, we have to hitch around the whole town, which could be quite difficult. The road later turns out to be only one-lane in both directions which many trucks along this. The road’s condition is horrible, and hitchhiking along this one is quite dangerous. Don’t worry, and yep luck is on our side, because after no longer than some 5 minutes we get a ride by a Turkish TIR driver, who’s screaming the city of Zagreb as his destination out to us when we enter the truck.

I alway forget the names of my drivers, somehow I can’t remember them. Anyway, he brings us all the way to the border, where we get out and walk over, waiting on the other side to got picked up. As stupid as we are, we make a #1 beginner’s mistake while hitchhiking: We left our bags in the truck. At the exit of the truck controls, we wait for nearly 5 hours until the truck finally appears. He had problems with the officers, obviously he was driving much more than the maximum hours per day allowed. We could have been to Beograd already, but who cars, the young officer at the exit is a good companion, and many plum trees around us serve us with good food. At the end of his shift, the officer also hitchhikes to his hometown. Oh well, of course he gets a ride by the first car he stops Maybe I should wear an uniform while hitchhiking.

We stay the night at the TIR parking at the border in Kalotina (well, on the Serbian side, no idea what was the name of the village). We sleep comfortably in the truck, which had 2 beds and a big seat to fall asleep in. The whole next day we drive all the way through Serbia into Croatia, and later on some 200km before Zagreb. It’s already dark again, and our driver is going to rest for the night when a yellow DHL truck stops. A Turkish driver again, just waiting for a friend and then going on towards Maribor. He has to get the night train there at 3 am, so he’s in a hurry. So are we, and we move our stuff over in his truck, being on the road again seconds later. It’s kind of sad to say goodbye to our further driver, he was driving all the way to Duisburg, but would have been there by Monday night. It was Friday evening we left him. He really enjoyed some companionship during his ride through Europe.

Our new driver is a young guy of 25 years, who seems to be a cleaning maniac. Anyway, at the Croation border into Slovenia, we experience the first problems of our trip. The officers want to bribe him, because he was in the truck with 3 people. Allowed are only two, so of course they want money. One officer is speaking German, but no English or Turkish. Our Turkish friends doesn’t understand anything, so I want to try to figure out what the officers want. But of course, they send me away several times, just to get the money out of our poor Turkish friend. I get pissed off and after some rough words (I’m glad he’s not understand all German swearwords). After some discussion they got the point that I wanted to see the regulations for this, and it takes ages for them to find them. Of course only in Croatian, but anyway it says that we have to pay 40 Euro. Better than the 100 they proposed earlier. I pay them the money and we get off, rushing towards Maribor to get the train.

Ironically, when we enter Slovenia and have all this trouble, I experience the first rain since Hungary, more than 50 days ago. But this rain comes in heavy showers, and we get completely wet. Amazing. Nevertheless, we manage to get into the TIR-train on time. Hitchhiking a train for the first time, and this all the way to Passau !!!

On Saturday around 11 am, we get out near Passau. We leave our friend at the border, starting to make the last kilometers from Bavaria up to Hörstel. Some short rides, the first woman that picks us up on this trip (she has a gun with her, just in case…), a Romanian truck driver and a guy from Aachen, who brings us all the way from Nürnberg to a service station just before Cologne. There we meet a guy from Mazedonia, who brings us up to the A1 to the next service station. He invites us for coffee, and as it is already 3 am we don’t say no. He leaves some minutes later, while we decide to wait inside the station until it’s getting light. Too cold outside, and we’re still running around in shorts.

On Sunday morning, traffic only consists out of old people or families, and it’s hard to get an empty car to hitch with. 2 hours pass until we get a ride to Lichtendorf service station, and from here it’s no more a problem to hitch towards Osnabrück. A nice couple picks us up. The man doesn’t want us to tell his job, he himself describes it as ‘malen und schreiben’. All right, anyway, we get off at  the Lengerich ramp near Tecklenburg. Some meters walking, hitchhiking the countryside towards Ibbenbüren is no problem. A guy picks us up, and we finally get off in near Gravenhorst. Welcome home, 2 days and 23 hours after starting in Veliko Tarnovo, at nearly exactly 12:00, we enter my hometown: Hörstel.

Thanks and Appreciations

At the end of this amazing trip I want to thank all the hundreds of people I met on the way, all my drivers, who have been Germans, Romanians, Polish , American, Hungarians, Bavarian,  Bulgarians, Austrians, Slovaks, Czech, Turkish, Macedonian, Kurdish, Dutch, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, Iraqis and Palestinians. An amazing variety of great people!

Special appreciations and big thanks are going out for making the trip possible towards  (in no specific order) Annika, Manuel, Desiree, Pernille, Vlad, Miroslav, Vili, Jambo and the rest of the family, Cetin, the guys from the restaurant at the end of the universe (Afyon), the nice family from Reyhanli, Stefan, Christophe and Pascal, Alex, Pavel and Mira, the four Arabic students from Damas, especially big thanks to Omar and the whole family for a lot of things, Abu Shaab (Achmed), his neighbour Ali and mother for preparing delicious breakfast, Mahab for stalking me for more than two weeks, the Austrian guy from Beirut, the Syrian guy who offered us his house for as long as we wanted, the Syrian Automobile Club, Tom and his wife, Hüseyin for being a great companion, the kids from Gabrovo,  Carina, my parents and all the other people I met along the way and finally: All people of Syria for being so unbelievable friendly to all and everyone. I’ll never forget the endless Welcome to Syria!