Showing posts with label latvia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label latvia. Show all posts
20110303
2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part4 - Bauska-Suwalki
Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We
Bauska-Suwalki
Bauska was a complete success of a choice. From local bus station we had to walk less than a kilometre to reach to a spot nearly as good as it gets. Stood there for a while, and consumerist in me couldn’t get my eyes off from a little supermarket just thirty meters away. We could buy water and some cookies and snacks and that would be so smart thing to do. But there’s always some consideration - hitchhiker doesn’t want to leave the road. Maybe a dream ride, not to mention a simply kind enough person, would drive by exactly at that time? A convertible! Or an old Volga! Or a jolly company of youngsters with a decent amount of beer! Leaving two at the roadside when you are actually three is not a good tone at all. Especially in Finland, appearance of a “hiding” member might cause the car literally to flee. But the memory of shortage of supplies was fresh enough and I went for it, for shopping and this accompanying little anxiety.
Just when I was contemplating about the possible reasons for this apparently heavy discount on Värska, really good mineral water from Estonia, and the amount what I should buy, She rushed in calling me – a truck had stopped!
“Does he take three?” I’m slow, I ask questions. Rare case, to get on those transit ships of dry land - in a nice world a real symbiosis partner for the hitchhikers - with three, especially inclined towards masculine. But we ran, grabbing stuff from the roadside while running as this huge thing blocked road quite remarkably, and climbed on. Me on the seat, She and Him on the lower bunk. And this mess of a boarding gave me a concern for the rest of the day – I wasn’t sure if my laptop bag got on or not. He couldn’t remember for sure if he picked it up, and She was sure that she didn’t, and neither did I. If hitchhiking with too many valuables, no difference in what kind of category the value is measured, you pay a toll in anxiety. Avoid! at all times. But this time I had no choice. My impedimenta, or my life in a packed form if you wish - I was carrying everything I needed for a year.
The ride was quite a catch. We heard that we can get to Poland. It was allowed to smoke inside and he offered cigarettes (and sunflower seeds for to help to avoid the wish to have one) and was generally strongly on the nice side of the scale, though language turned out to be rather behind a barrier.
A long and calm voyage it was. Trucks, they don’t go particularly fast, but they make it up in stability. They go and go and you feel there is nothing what can intervene with that. Road ships, billowy and comfortable, even if you’re the one who doesn’t have a bed but a plain seat.
It is against the rules to have four people up in the cabin. It's meant for two. Schengen, and all that, but border facilities are still there and sometimes officers also. Old habits die hard I guess. When a Latvian-Lithuanian border was closing up, the driver turned his smiling face to us and that was a sign - He and She hid behind the curtain and had to go with my voiceover. This was fun, felt like kids misbehaving. Truck slows down, weaves through lanes and round ways at the border installations, you’re all attention trying to sport officials. We got through, nobody there. Interesting if you made it exciting in your head - another valuable ability of kids. And useful for hitchhikers.
In Lithuania we had to make a half an hour stop. Rule of law and order for general safety can intervene with the stabile onflow of kilometres. It comes in a shape of a round piece of paper with enigmatic graphs on it - the logger. It records everything - speed, driving time vs standing time, stuff like that. You have to make a stop and rest, or otherwise the logger will know that you didn't and will tell on you to the first traffic policeman curious enough to ask. Half an hour of He and She hiding in the cabin of the truck - hiding by drivers request, as seemingly even truckers might have grassers amongst - parked closely between other trucks, and me having a coffee with the driver outside. Handing two cups of coffee up to the cabin for people who did not exist - with a bit of imagination it felt conspiratorial all right.
One more border was coming up, the Polish border, already in darkness, and again some smell of adventure, unexpectedness. We were closing up, and flashlight spotlights and parked cars with special colours visible from the distance made it evident, that the border officers were there.
We did get stopped. Driver remained cool and calm, suddenly sporting the best sort of truckers arrogance - arrogance towards authorities. He opened his door and looked down from his high king-of-the-road seat at the tiny young placeman. All his posture was saying - what? Young official was watching us, he looked confused, didn't say anything, and then just waved us to go.
Now, when we were in Poland and moving again, the driver seemed amused by this successful little prank. Arrogance was gone, he was this warm half-bold fellow again, nibbling on a sunflower seed and smiling.
Once in Poland, we had a huge decision to confront. Most optimistic pre-trip prognosis included hitchhiking all the way to Warsaw, or, even above optimistic – Lviv. The other possibility stated taking a train to Warsaw, either from Suwalki or Bialystok. Now we had to figure something out as it was quite late, dark and raining. The place, where the truck driver was going to go, is a “truck sleeping place” near Suwalki. Near, but far from being in it, or walkable. There are few places like that near Suwalki and along that road from Lithuania to Poland. They are special as they are huge. Literally most of the transit from the Baltics and some on-the-ground transit from Finland comes down and goes up that road, through the narrow strip between Kaliningrad and Belarussia where Lithuania and Poland meet. So every evening you see these vast parking places slowly getting bristled with trucks, sometimes as little as 50 centimetres between two, and can observe some really virtuous parking abilities. But, when the evening is falling you’re stranded there as a hitchhiker. Usually there is no speed limit nearby, which, together with darkness diminishes your probabilities to get a ride. Ordinarily there is a restaurant sporting some kind of accommodation facilities as well, but this surpasses average hitchhikers budget. We were considering our options - pushing on towards Suwalki and Bialystok ignoring the rain and darkness, or paying that money for accommodation, or walk on at random hoping to spot some more “simple” shelter for the night.
First step was to let him park the truck and go and have something to eat at the restaurant, while at the same time trying to ask if there is a train stop nearby or maybe there are night trains going from Suwalki (you’ll never know, and as Estonians we simply believe that train traffic just has to be better where ever else). He, our driver, was a tremendous help with that issue. He mobilized some of the local stuff to get the phone numbers and information we needed, and did all the calling and talking for us.
Those places specializing on sleeping or resting truck drivers are worthy of their own story in full right, but it has to be left out now, as this after all is a train blog. Let just say that if you don’t come with a really fucking big machine you are a complete alien. Even though everybody knows who you are – a hitchhiker. Another fold there for females, as there is a strong possibility and a second thought behind those curious-looking trucker faces – is she a prostitute? But this is yet again another kind of a symbiosis.
I was having a cigarette outside, under the eave, and suddenly I hear a cow going “ammmuuu..”. WTF, I wonder, as it is pitch dark, raining and there are no fields around that vast parking place next to a loud road. Why should a cow get so close to a disturbing place (for a cow, I’m bold enough to presume) like that? It took me almost the full length of a cigarette to figure that out – cow sounds came from speakers placed all around sleeping trucks.
Train enquiries carried some fruit eventually, but no too good news – next train was early in the morning, a bit before six. And then, surprisingly enough, the truck driver offered yet another possibility – we all sleep together in the cabin of the truck! He was seemingly really worried about us being there in the dark and him not being able to take us as far as Suwalki (prevented by the logger and upcoming lack of truck-suitable parking places). That sounded like a crazy plan, so we took a bit of time for consideration. And decided to go for it. Let’s do it! How, although, was something of a interesting imagination work.
We all, after food and few modest drinks, and probably for amazement of those neighbouring truck drivers who noticed, climbed to the cabin. It took some clumsy arranging (and it was nice to discover that I still had my laptop), but the driver went on the upper bunk, me and She shared the lower bunk and He was lying over two front seats and a high floor in between them. Even comfy, I’d say, and for all of us. Surreal, but nice. Drifting asleep while listening rain drum on the tin roof, noises from the road and an occasional “ammmuuuu...” of a comforting cow.
Wake up call came early, though – 4AM. Another set of clumsy rearranging and we were on the road again without further ado. He dropped us in Suwalki and gave rather vague directions for getting to the train station while apologizing that he can’t take us there – too complicated to approach with a truck. That was a warm farewell, he even came out of the truck, into the rain, to make one more attempt to explain where we should go. The feelings are always bigger than visible or shared at those occasions, I’d say, as some kind of a bond grows between the ride and the rider when a long time and a vast distance is shared in this confined and by nature private space of a car or a cabin, no difference if this time has been talked through or not. Another fluid emotion released while getting out, always in a haste, and trying to find something to say but never really able to articulate. After all, he was a real jackpot for us. Not to mention the serious distance we covered with him, thanks to what we probably gained at least one extra day in Odessa, but all this help with train information, insisting on paying for some of our food (to which He answered by paying the beers we had), offering us shelter in his cabin. He really took us under his wing.
And then you’re outside again. In our case, we were outside in the rain, half past four in the morning, in the mingy light of an early daybreak, in the little settlement by the transit road through that settlement. Shortly: 4.30 AM somewhere in Poland.
After years of affectionate hitchhiking I’ve learned to despise the road infrastructure. This thing, the road, is designed so exclusively for cars that you should never leave one. Bigger street, a transit street in the city (seemingly having pavements) and a roadway through countryside – there’s not much difference. You are not “outside” in any other sense than that you are outside of a car. Nature or landscape never reaches the roadway, it will always be only a view; being outside of a car at any main road is like being stuck on a postcard with a horrible soundtrack.
While we walked through quiet sleeping neighbourhood of well-mannered private houses the light had time to gain some strength and rain stopped falling. But this was an exhausting walk. I had almost forgotten about my Comrade, and now Me and Him were carrying it between us again. Stripes cutting into shoulders, the weight, the early morning. I was getting grumpy and trying to hide it. I was even ready to pay for the taxi but got voted out. When we finally saw the train station and a train in front of it - I felt relieved. Relieved like after something really important and demanding finally done, finished, out with that. Even to such an extent that I discovered my head emptying of everything, emotions, thoughts, shedding away. I was just standing there, in the damp morning, looking at the train saying “Bialystok” in LED lights, looking at some suits going to work with the same train – “you fuckers, you can’t imagine where we have been!” – observing some train attendants smoking their cigarettes from the palm, and nothing.
She wrapped herself in a blanket when on the train - we were still damp from the rain, he fell asleep as he was and probably I did also. I remember myself thinking that I should feel something. I should maybe even do something. As this was kind of a milestone, objective reached, a special moment. From hitchhiking to trains, we fucking finally reached trains! Nothing.
It was a simple new suburban train. Efficient, may be, but ugly.
Photos and other stuff: We
Bauska-Suwalki
Bauska was a complete success of a choice. From local bus station we had to walk less than a kilometre to reach to a spot nearly as good as it gets. Stood there for a while, and consumerist in me couldn’t get my eyes off from a little supermarket just thirty meters away. We could buy water and some cookies and snacks and that would be so smart thing to do. But there’s always some consideration - hitchhiker doesn’t want to leave the road. Maybe a dream ride, not to mention a simply kind enough person, would drive by exactly at that time? A convertible! Or an old Volga! Or a jolly company of youngsters with a decent amount of beer! Leaving two at the roadside when you are actually three is not a good tone at all. Especially in Finland, appearance of a “hiding” member might cause the car literally to flee. But the memory of shortage of supplies was fresh enough and I went for it, for shopping and this accompanying little anxiety.
Just when I was contemplating about the possible reasons for this apparently heavy discount on Värska, really good mineral water from Estonia, and the amount what I should buy, She rushed in calling me – a truck had stopped!
“Does he take three?” I’m slow, I ask questions. Rare case, to get on those transit ships of dry land - in a nice world a real symbiosis partner for the hitchhikers - with three, especially inclined towards masculine. But we ran, grabbing stuff from the roadside while running as this huge thing blocked road quite remarkably, and climbed on. Me on the seat, She and Him on the lower bunk. And this mess of a boarding gave me a concern for the rest of the day – I wasn’t sure if my laptop bag got on or not. He couldn’t remember for sure if he picked it up, and She was sure that she didn’t, and neither did I. If hitchhiking with too many valuables, no difference in what kind of category the value is measured, you pay a toll in anxiety. Avoid! at all times. But this time I had no choice. My impedimenta, or my life in a packed form if you wish - I was carrying everything I needed for a year.
The ride was quite a catch. We heard that we can get to Poland. It was allowed to smoke inside and he offered cigarettes (and sunflower seeds for to help to avoid the wish to have one) and was generally strongly on the nice side of the scale, though language turned out to be rather behind a barrier.
A long and calm voyage it was. Trucks, they don’t go particularly fast, but they make it up in stability. They go and go and you feel there is nothing what can intervene with that. Road ships, billowy and comfortable, even if you’re the one who doesn’t have a bed but a plain seat.
It is against the rules to have four people up in the cabin. It's meant for two. Schengen, and all that, but border facilities are still there and sometimes officers also. Old habits die hard I guess. When a Latvian-Lithuanian border was closing up, the driver turned his smiling face to us and that was a sign - He and She hid behind the curtain and had to go with my voiceover. This was fun, felt like kids misbehaving. Truck slows down, weaves through lanes and round ways at the border installations, you’re all attention trying to sport officials. We got through, nobody there. Interesting if you made it exciting in your head - another valuable ability of kids. And useful for hitchhikers.
In Lithuania we had to make a half an hour stop. Rule of law and order for general safety can intervene with the stabile onflow of kilometres. It comes in a shape of a round piece of paper with enigmatic graphs on it - the logger. It records everything - speed, driving time vs standing time, stuff like that. You have to make a stop and rest, or otherwise the logger will know that you didn't and will tell on you to the first traffic policeman curious enough to ask. Half an hour of He and She hiding in the cabin of the truck - hiding by drivers request, as seemingly even truckers might have grassers amongst - parked closely between other trucks, and me having a coffee with the driver outside. Handing two cups of coffee up to the cabin for people who did not exist - with a bit of imagination it felt conspiratorial all right.
One more border was coming up, the Polish border, already in darkness, and again some smell of adventure, unexpectedness. We were closing up, and flashlight spotlights and parked cars with special colours visible from the distance made it evident, that the border officers were there.
We did get stopped. Driver remained cool and calm, suddenly sporting the best sort of truckers arrogance - arrogance towards authorities. He opened his door and looked down from his high king-of-the-road seat at the tiny young placeman. All his posture was saying - what? Young official was watching us, he looked confused, didn't say anything, and then just waved us to go.
Now, when we were in Poland and moving again, the driver seemed amused by this successful little prank. Arrogance was gone, he was this warm half-bold fellow again, nibbling on a sunflower seed and smiling.
Once in Poland, we had a huge decision to confront. Most optimistic pre-trip prognosis included hitchhiking all the way to Warsaw, or, even above optimistic – Lviv. The other possibility stated taking a train to Warsaw, either from Suwalki or Bialystok. Now we had to figure something out as it was quite late, dark and raining. The place, where the truck driver was going to go, is a “truck sleeping place” near Suwalki. Near, but far from being in it, or walkable. There are few places like that near Suwalki and along that road from Lithuania to Poland. They are special as they are huge. Literally most of the transit from the Baltics and some on-the-ground transit from Finland comes down and goes up that road, through the narrow strip between Kaliningrad and Belarussia where Lithuania and Poland meet. So every evening you see these vast parking places slowly getting bristled with trucks, sometimes as little as 50 centimetres between two, and can observe some really virtuous parking abilities. But, when the evening is falling you’re stranded there as a hitchhiker. Usually there is no speed limit nearby, which, together with darkness diminishes your probabilities to get a ride. Ordinarily there is a restaurant sporting some kind of accommodation facilities as well, but this surpasses average hitchhikers budget. We were considering our options - pushing on towards Suwalki and Bialystok ignoring the rain and darkness, or paying that money for accommodation, or walk on at random hoping to spot some more “simple” shelter for the night.
First step was to let him park the truck and go and have something to eat at the restaurant, while at the same time trying to ask if there is a train stop nearby or maybe there are night trains going from Suwalki (you’ll never know, and as Estonians we simply believe that train traffic just has to be better where ever else). He, our driver, was a tremendous help with that issue. He mobilized some of the local stuff to get the phone numbers and information we needed, and did all the calling and talking for us.
Those places specializing on sleeping or resting truck drivers are worthy of their own story in full right, but it has to be left out now, as this after all is a train blog. Let just say that if you don’t come with a really fucking big machine you are a complete alien. Even though everybody knows who you are – a hitchhiker. Another fold there for females, as there is a strong possibility and a second thought behind those curious-looking trucker faces – is she a prostitute? But this is yet again another kind of a symbiosis.
I was having a cigarette outside, under the eave, and suddenly I hear a cow going “ammmuuu..”. WTF, I wonder, as it is pitch dark, raining and there are no fields around that vast parking place next to a loud road. Why should a cow get so close to a disturbing place (for a cow, I’m bold enough to presume) like that? It took me almost the full length of a cigarette to figure that out – cow sounds came from speakers placed all around sleeping trucks.
Train enquiries carried some fruit eventually, but no too good news – next train was early in the morning, a bit before six. And then, surprisingly enough, the truck driver offered yet another possibility – we all sleep together in the cabin of the truck! He was seemingly really worried about us being there in the dark and him not being able to take us as far as Suwalki (prevented by the logger and upcoming lack of truck-suitable parking places). That sounded like a crazy plan, so we took a bit of time for consideration. And decided to go for it. Let’s do it! How, although, was something of a interesting imagination work.
We all, after food and few modest drinks, and probably for amazement of those neighbouring truck drivers who noticed, climbed to the cabin. It took some clumsy arranging (and it was nice to discover that I still had my laptop), but the driver went on the upper bunk, me and She shared the lower bunk and He was lying over two front seats and a high floor in between them. Even comfy, I’d say, and for all of us. Surreal, but nice. Drifting asleep while listening rain drum on the tin roof, noises from the road and an occasional “ammmuuuu...” of a comforting cow.
Wake up call came early, though – 4AM. Another set of clumsy rearranging and we were on the road again without further ado. He dropped us in Suwalki and gave rather vague directions for getting to the train station while apologizing that he can’t take us there – too complicated to approach with a truck. That was a warm farewell, he even came out of the truck, into the rain, to make one more attempt to explain where we should go. The feelings are always bigger than visible or shared at those occasions, I’d say, as some kind of a bond grows between the ride and the rider when a long time and a vast distance is shared in this confined and by nature private space of a car or a cabin, no difference if this time has been talked through or not. Another fluid emotion released while getting out, always in a haste, and trying to find something to say but never really able to articulate. After all, he was a real jackpot for us. Not to mention the serious distance we covered with him, thanks to what we probably gained at least one extra day in Odessa, but all this help with train information, insisting on paying for some of our food (to which He answered by paying the beers we had), offering us shelter in his cabin. He really took us under his wing.
And then you’re outside again. In our case, we were outside in the rain, half past four in the morning, in the mingy light of an early daybreak, in the little settlement by the transit road through that settlement. Shortly: 4.30 AM somewhere in Poland.
After years of affectionate hitchhiking I’ve learned to despise the road infrastructure. This thing, the road, is designed so exclusively for cars that you should never leave one. Bigger street, a transit street in the city (seemingly having pavements) and a roadway through countryside – there’s not much difference. You are not “outside” in any other sense than that you are outside of a car. Nature or landscape never reaches the roadway, it will always be only a view; being outside of a car at any main road is like being stuck on a postcard with a horrible soundtrack.
While we walked through quiet sleeping neighbourhood of well-mannered private houses the light had time to gain some strength and rain stopped falling. But this was an exhausting walk. I had almost forgotten about my Comrade, and now Me and Him were carrying it between us again. Stripes cutting into shoulders, the weight, the early morning. I was getting grumpy and trying to hide it. I was even ready to pay for the taxi but got voted out. When we finally saw the train station and a train in front of it - I felt relieved. Relieved like after something really important and demanding finally done, finished, out with that. Even to such an extent that I discovered my head emptying of everything, emotions, thoughts, shedding away. I was just standing there, in the damp morning, looking at the train saying “Bialystok” in LED lights, looking at some suits going to work with the same train – “you fuckers, you can’t imagine where we have been!” – observing some train attendants smoking their cigarettes from the palm, and nothing.
She wrapped herself in a blanket when on the train - we were still damp from the rain, he fell asleep as he was and probably I did also. I remember myself thinking that I should feel something. I should maybe even do something. As this was kind of a milestone, objective reached, a special moment. From hitchhiking to trains, we fucking finally reached trains! Nothing.
It was a simple new suburban train. Efficient, may be, but ugly.
20110301
2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part3 - Valka-Bauska
Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We
Valka-Bauska
That’s the thing with crashing places for one night. If it is a building - half-built, just abandoned or whatever else what has a roof and a floor: in the evening it is a practical solution to the problem, in the morning it has gained a smallish “home touch”. It’s not plain roadside building any more, it is a roof under which you’ve slept. Is it the general feeling of a morning, or expectancy of departure, or those ten little things everybody does in the beginning of a new day - but it feels special. It already has YOU written over it, and it has written itself in you for an eternity we call life. This feeling I’m groping about here is awkward, frail, but I suspect it in smiling and knowing something I still don’t.
We had coffee. With a little merited coffetiera I carry around. Coffee itself was something average as my favourite, carefully hoped for supply for the year abroad – “Sao intenso” – got mangled in humane logistics and was somewhere in Austria by the time we took off. This is my morning thing nr 1. Coffee. And it has to be good.
We washed our eyes. Brushed teeth while embraced by uncut grass around the house. Packed our things. And the road again, aiming Riga. There was another issue to compete with an obvious aim to move on: eyewashing and teethbrushing and coffee drinking had had a diminishing effect on our water supply, siding a complete lack of a food supply.
We got picked up - and morning might really be wiser than evening: after not so long of a waiting time – by a drug salesman. Young talkative guy, diligent, and as a salesman very comfortable in conversation. Easygoing ride. Felt awkward to sit in this clean car of a suit-wearing seemingly successful youngster and remember about morning on pallets. He took us to the outskirts of Valmiera, to the neighbourhood so common around cities - trade areas which are built more for cars than for people, and we had to have an inappropriate walk for a kilometre or so out to the nearest suitable hitchhiking spot. Now me and Him were carrying Comrade Suitcase between us, with a Egyptian head scarf for one shoulder and leather strap remaining from camp wheel solution for the other.
This felt like a real thing already. Near some indifferent overpass, getting hungry, singing some stupid songs, doing some stupid things. Trying to use that limited amount of options there for hitchhikers to kill waiting time without leaving the roadside as good as we could. And here being a bunch of three has its benefits. You can make jokes and have somebody else laugh on them. You can sing and get actually stopped for sound contamination. Or they tag along, and honestly, secretly I’ve been thinking (wishful thinking) that if there is one person who is worse singer than I am, then this is Him. All this crap what is visible at the roadside is just so much easier to bare, if there is someone to whom to reflect impressions. With whom to share a bubble of existence, sanguine bubble devoted to better future down the road (or in a car).
Old Soviet Paz-bus stops and She goes there. I am further away trying to manage all my flabby stuff. And it is somehow intense this moment where you are about to find out who the driver is or – as is the case with one particular Peugeot on Tallinn-Tartu stopping mostly for girls – if he, for example, is wearing clothes or not. First he says, Paz-driver, that we should get on, chop-chop, and when She asks where are they going, he goes: “What’s the difference where we are going!? We are going straight ahead! Straight! Clear!?”. Crystal clear! We climbed on board.
Jolly company, old men, rough around the edges. The bus driver had his own world in its full right and time hadn’t moved much in that world of his, say, since late seventies.
All those old Paz’es in Baltics have streamers and stickers around drivers place. Always there, telling a story where this mature bus has been (carrying diligent worker groups, summer days maybe, a motivational excursion, joint personnel ride to pick potatoes), where the driver has been, or where he would like to be instead (if sporting variety of stickers from the “west”). A good old Paz bus is like a book with drivers picture on the cover. Interactive book – you sit there and read, imagine and remember with your whole body.
Hichhikers sometimes have favourite rides, wished and longed for, statistics neatly kept. Collecting car brands or types, or aiming for most expensive, or cabriolets, or rides on “vehicles on duty”. I like “old and awkward”. These guys definitely qualified.
Not too much of communicating during this ride, though. We shared only Russian as a language and seemingly that as well only with the driver. But still there were accompanying jokes and sly smiles - just have to be! - about going off the road, when we made a little detour to go to some old gas station - which shared it’s era of prime time with the Paz bus - and filled some huge plastic canisters with petrol. When hitchhiking you don’t always exactly understand what is going on or why. And then you discover yourself carrying huge bags of dog food somewhere in a little Muslim village in eastern Greece, for example. You get somewhat used to that, not understanding.
They dropped us at the roadside in a place with two distinctive features: red brick old bus stop and a sign on the other side of the road, near to a turn to a small-small road. Sign said “Inciems”. They turned left, took a small dirt track. We stayed there for two hours.
This was a place which offered a view on Latvia where nothing is actually visible. Field. And some trees there, scattered around, some bushes. I have spent some serious roadside thinking time trying to find some way for to describe this type of a hitchhiking setting. Thing is – they are rather common in Baltics. But so utterly characterless, that it is even hard to effectively insult those.. those.. places. And weather offered embracing drizzle from its chummy side. There we reached the common condition of hitchhiking nr n, where jokes and stories get a bit stupid, mildly said; we built theories about Inciems being a secret Las Vegas of Latvia, just there, at the end of this tiny dirt road, and jolly old men, like our ride, they know, play and are building it even bigger.
We dreamed of sandwiches. This wise girl of a She had brought some candies. Life savers. But we were slow-witted enough to forget to bring a little Estonian flag, for waving as soon as you see Estonian car plate. Those little things really work, and the spot guaranteed a fine amount of reminders of the lack passing by.
Relief came in a shape of a red car, this time. Driver, he was studying agriculture or rural economy or something like that and was working as something and his face I cannot remember either. Sometimes all those drivers you meet, they just melt into some vague mental image, revolving around third or fourth or whatever little unimportant issue. For example, him - and I think he might have had dark curly hair - I remember it was weird to look for shared themes for conversation as none of us knows anything about agriculture, and I remember He said something nice about that, his selection of profession that is, and I think we did find something common which might have been films – but – the issue here, in his case, around which all that revolves, is a picture in my memory: two apples.
He took us - another little detour - to a place at (ex) Rigafilm studio area, as told the metal typesetting above the gate. Huge fenced territory, now filled with little companies - oil change for cars, tires, some refurbished office of a starting business, stuff like that - and an occasional prop or part of set remaining here and there. He went to get something from one of those small businesses, germinating all around on the shabby remains of the glory of the soviet film industry. And we waited in the car. Now – the apples: there was an apple tree near the office. And She told me to go there and pick some apples. I have a memory of smiling to some people standing near to the door, and getting closer to the tree. And I have a memory of eating an apple in the car and really enjoying it. But I can’t remember if I imagined it or did it. (I remember a second thought as well, thought which wondered around the politeness of such a straightforward act against apples in this country. I really could imagine a little Latvian grandmother who makes jam for all the office in the autumn. Well, I couldn’t imagine her sitting there with a salt gun, watching those apples, but yes, we, at this point, at the outskirts of Riga, we were really-really hungry already. But this is irrelevant, isn’t it) Unfair towards this maybe-curly-haired driver, but – we don’t choose ourselves what defines us. Sometimes all that we are revolves around two apples maybe imagined in some ones head.
I don’t remember Riga. How did we get to the bus station? I have no idea. Standing there, in the corner of the hall of the bus station, with all my bags and His bag and Her bag scattered around me. And feeling like shit – I was tired, hungry and sweating heavily.
Somewhere along the way plan had developed. According to one really basic and practical principle of hitchhiking - when in transit avoid the cities, they suck you stuck - we thought of flinging ourselves out again as fast as possible. It’s a mess to use public transport in unfamiliar urban area to get to good hitchhiking spots. Public transportation systems are never meant for that. Sometimes it’s much wiser to get some kind of intercity solution, and reach to some small place on the desired direction. Some town what would be small enough to walk through, and where there is a nice possibility of speeds being low and roads rather narrow. It will cost you some money, but worth every santim paid. There is a very nice train option, almost perfect, if coming back to Estonia and already in Riga; but for going the other way around we had to take a bus to Bauska, as went our best guess.
He and She were looking for tickets, I guarded the luggage. They came back with the tickets for a bus in something like forty minutes. A fact that enthused us to but some speed on the other part of the plan – to eat at the buffet on the second floor. And use civilized toilet facilities. They in principle ran upstairs, and sure, fuelled by the stomach in need, I would have had also, but now Comrade Suitcase was solely on me, and pulling this thing up on to the second floor made me feel like my body just started to digest itself.
Eating can feel like a bliss. Simple contentedness. And then you have a coffee. And don’t talk much. Observe the quiet comfort of digesting.
Photos and other stuff: We
Valka-Bauska
That’s the thing with crashing places for one night. If it is a building - half-built, just abandoned or whatever else what has a roof and a floor: in the evening it is a practical solution to the problem, in the morning it has gained a smallish “home touch”. It’s not plain roadside building any more, it is a roof under which you’ve slept. Is it the general feeling of a morning, or expectancy of departure, or those ten little things everybody does in the beginning of a new day - but it feels special. It already has YOU written over it, and it has written itself in you for an eternity we call life. This feeling I’m groping about here is awkward, frail, but I suspect it in smiling and knowing something I still don’t.
We had coffee. With a little merited coffetiera I carry around. Coffee itself was something average as my favourite, carefully hoped for supply for the year abroad – “Sao intenso” – got mangled in humane logistics and was somewhere in Austria by the time we took off. This is my morning thing nr 1. Coffee. And it has to be good.
We washed our eyes. Brushed teeth while embraced by uncut grass around the house. Packed our things. And the road again, aiming Riga. There was another issue to compete with an obvious aim to move on: eyewashing and teethbrushing and coffee drinking had had a diminishing effect on our water supply, siding a complete lack of a food supply.
We got picked up - and morning might really be wiser than evening: after not so long of a waiting time – by a drug salesman. Young talkative guy, diligent, and as a salesman very comfortable in conversation. Easygoing ride. Felt awkward to sit in this clean car of a suit-wearing seemingly successful youngster and remember about morning on pallets. He took us to the outskirts of Valmiera, to the neighbourhood so common around cities - trade areas which are built more for cars than for people, and we had to have an inappropriate walk for a kilometre or so out to the nearest suitable hitchhiking spot. Now me and Him were carrying Comrade Suitcase between us, with a Egyptian head scarf for one shoulder and leather strap remaining from camp wheel solution for the other.
This felt like a real thing already. Near some indifferent overpass, getting hungry, singing some stupid songs, doing some stupid things. Trying to use that limited amount of options there for hitchhikers to kill waiting time without leaving the roadside as good as we could. And here being a bunch of three has its benefits. You can make jokes and have somebody else laugh on them. You can sing and get actually stopped for sound contamination. Or they tag along, and honestly, secretly I’ve been thinking (wishful thinking) that if there is one person who is worse singer than I am, then this is Him. All this crap what is visible at the roadside is just so much easier to bare, if there is someone to whom to reflect impressions. With whom to share a bubble of existence, sanguine bubble devoted to better future down the road (or in a car).
Old Soviet Paz-bus stops and She goes there. I am further away trying to manage all my flabby stuff. And it is somehow intense this moment where you are about to find out who the driver is or – as is the case with one particular Peugeot on Tallinn-Tartu stopping mostly for girls – if he, for example, is wearing clothes or not. First he says, Paz-driver, that we should get on, chop-chop, and when She asks where are they going, he goes: “What’s the difference where we are going!? We are going straight ahead! Straight! Clear!?”. Crystal clear! We climbed on board.
Jolly company, old men, rough around the edges. The bus driver had his own world in its full right and time hadn’t moved much in that world of his, say, since late seventies.
All those old Paz’es in Baltics have streamers and stickers around drivers place. Always there, telling a story where this mature bus has been (carrying diligent worker groups, summer days maybe, a motivational excursion, joint personnel ride to pick potatoes), where the driver has been, or where he would like to be instead (if sporting variety of stickers from the “west”). A good old Paz bus is like a book with drivers picture on the cover. Interactive book – you sit there and read, imagine and remember with your whole body.
Hichhikers sometimes have favourite rides, wished and longed for, statistics neatly kept. Collecting car brands or types, or aiming for most expensive, or cabriolets, or rides on “vehicles on duty”. I like “old and awkward”. These guys definitely qualified.
Not too much of communicating during this ride, though. We shared only Russian as a language and seemingly that as well only with the driver. But still there were accompanying jokes and sly smiles - just have to be! - about going off the road, when we made a little detour to go to some old gas station - which shared it’s era of prime time with the Paz bus - and filled some huge plastic canisters with petrol. When hitchhiking you don’t always exactly understand what is going on or why. And then you discover yourself carrying huge bags of dog food somewhere in a little Muslim village in eastern Greece, for example. You get somewhat used to that, not understanding.
They dropped us at the roadside in a place with two distinctive features: red brick old bus stop and a sign on the other side of the road, near to a turn to a small-small road. Sign said “Inciems”. They turned left, took a small dirt track. We stayed there for two hours.
This was a place which offered a view on Latvia where nothing is actually visible. Field. And some trees there, scattered around, some bushes. I have spent some serious roadside thinking time trying to find some way for to describe this type of a hitchhiking setting. Thing is – they are rather common in Baltics. But so utterly characterless, that it is even hard to effectively insult those.. those.. places. And weather offered embracing drizzle from its chummy side. There we reached the common condition of hitchhiking nr n, where jokes and stories get a bit stupid, mildly said; we built theories about Inciems being a secret Las Vegas of Latvia, just there, at the end of this tiny dirt road, and jolly old men, like our ride, they know, play and are building it even bigger.
We dreamed of sandwiches. This wise girl of a She had brought some candies. Life savers. But we were slow-witted enough to forget to bring a little Estonian flag, for waving as soon as you see Estonian car plate. Those little things really work, and the spot guaranteed a fine amount of reminders of the lack passing by.
Relief came in a shape of a red car, this time. Driver, he was studying agriculture or rural economy or something like that and was working as something and his face I cannot remember either. Sometimes all those drivers you meet, they just melt into some vague mental image, revolving around third or fourth or whatever little unimportant issue. For example, him - and I think he might have had dark curly hair - I remember it was weird to look for shared themes for conversation as none of us knows anything about agriculture, and I remember He said something nice about that, his selection of profession that is, and I think we did find something common which might have been films – but – the issue here, in his case, around which all that revolves, is a picture in my memory: two apples.
He took us - another little detour - to a place at (ex) Rigafilm studio area, as told the metal typesetting above the gate. Huge fenced territory, now filled with little companies - oil change for cars, tires, some refurbished office of a starting business, stuff like that - and an occasional prop or part of set remaining here and there. He went to get something from one of those small businesses, germinating all around on the shabby remains of the glory of the soviet film industry. And we waited in the car. Now – the apples: there was an apple tree near the office. And She told me to go there and pick some apples. I have a memory of smiling to some people standing near to the door, and getting closer to the tree. And I have a memory of eating an apple in the car and really enjoying it. But I can’t remember if I imagined it or did it. (I remember a second thought as well, thought which wondered around the politeness of such a straightforward act against apples in this country. I really could imagine a little Latvian grandmother who makes jam for all the office in the autumn. Well, I couldn’t imagine her sitting there with a salt gun, watching those apples, but yes, we, at this point, at the outskirts of Riga, we were really-really hungry already. But this is irrelevant, isn’t it) Unfair towards this maybe-curly-haired driver, but – we don’t choose ourselves what defines us. Sometimes all that we are revolves around two apples maybe imagined in some ones head.
I don’t remember Riga. How did we get to the bus station? I have no idea. Standing there, in the corner of the hall of the bus station, with all my bags and His bag and Her bag scattered around me. And feeling like shit – I was tired, hungry and sweating heavily.
Somewhere along the way plan had developed. According to one really basic and practical principle of hitchhiking - when in transit avoid the cities, they suck you stuck - we thought of flinging ourselves out again as fast as possible. It’s a mess to use public transport in unfamiliar urban area to get to good hitchhiking spots. Public transportation systems are never meant for that. Sometimes it’s much wiser to get some kind of intercity solution, and reach to some small place on the desired direction. Some town what would be small enough to walk through, and where there is a nice possibility of speeds being low and roads rather narrow. It will cost you some money, but worth every santim paid. There is a very nice train option, almost perfect, if coming back to Estonia and already in Riga; but for going the other way around we had to take a bus to Bauska, as went our best guess.
He and She were looking for tickets, I guarded the luggage. They came back with the tickets for a bus in something like forty minutes. A fact that enthused us to but some speed on the other part of the plan – to eat at the buffet on the second floor. And use civilized toilet facilities. They in principle ran upstairs, and sure, fuelled by the stomach in need, I would have had also, but now Comrade Suitcase was solely on me, and pulling this thing up on to the second floor made me feel like my body just started to digest itself.
Eating can feel like a bliss. Simple contentedness. And then you have a coffee. And don’t talk much. Observe the quiet comfort of digesting.
20110209
2010 Tartu-Odessa-Tbilisi, Part2 - Tartu-Valka
Text: Me
Photos and other stuff: We
Tartu-Valka
Last-things-to-do which we did were simple. Some time ago I helped a friend to build a gigantic bookshelf, he presented me with this bottle of good Georgian wine, for opening and drinking of which the time was perfect. And we made sign for hitchhiking saying “ODESSA” with nice, beautiful and big letters. Just in case somebody get’s the coolness of that or wants to give us a really long ride.
From left: Him, Her, Me
Done. Ready to go. At those moments, maybe only for those dubious people of my breed, there are always thoughts there, at farewells, headed by the bursting “Why the fuck do you want to leave? Isn’t it nice? Couldn’t you stay a bit longer?” Argonauts, I envy you. I don’t need any Sirens to whisper that to my ears, sun-filled verandah will do just fine. And there is Orpheus with his lyre, singing promise of a enjoyable future happening not here. Split in two, going and staying, for an intense n-time before the first step.
And then suddenly your walking. Going to city centre, changing some money, taking a bus to outskirts. Everything changes. Turning back is a taboo, unthinkable, there is nothing there suddenly, behind. Verandah with sun is suddenly a story, a dream, a dear memory, not a simple place six kilometres away. Only on can you go from here, on, let life happen, let the road cater.
With hitchhiking I am usually the boring pragmatic type proposing to split up, to create couples and solo players in the name of efficiency. Me and Him had even tossed the coin to see who goes with Her. Did we argue over gender equality issues after that? But this time I was voted out. We’ll do it all together! It is more fun like that! Well, that’s true, I say in my head, and admire the amount of enthusiasm present at the beginning of every longer hitchhiking trip.
We were there, by the road near the edge of Tartu – there’s quite nice place for hitchhiking - and kept our thumbs out for the cars in turns, occasionally flashing our ODESSA-sign.
/We had walked some and had a bus and walked some more and one thing became obvious already, acutely – I should have had that late evening around-the-block test walk with my impedimenta-solution.
They had tried to convince me out of this, but without success – I had been intended to have a suitcase with me as a main piece of a luggage. a) I love suitcases (argument easy to refute) b) I had a lot of stuff to carry with me (possible to argue, but hard to denounce) c) I had no big and comfortable backpack, no money to buy one and no will to lend some (possible to argue, except the last and decisive one – no will to lend money. Nowadays, who would condemn?) d) I had to carry a laptop bag + a camera bag + tripod, which actually supported the use of good wheel-solution e) I just couldn’t imagine going to a wedding in Armenia wearing a suit and a huge backpack (theme never used).
So I had found a pair of soviet-era suitcase wheels in a second hand in Tartu. A nice piece, two wheels, about 7 cm in diameter, about 18 apart from each other. Foldable solution, which one could attach to a suitcase with a leather belt. Nice. Camp. Later I got a suitcase itself, brown leatherette with golden (sic!) lining from maybe mid nineties, for about 6.5€ from a second hand in Tallinn. Budget.
A simple 20-minute walk from the House to the centre was enough to assure suspicions. No way! The thing wanted to topple, I had to walk carefully like a ropedancer and the leather belt was so uncomfortable to hold on to that after these 20 minutes I had welts and cuts on my hands. That all looked just miserable. I hoped that we won’t see any acquaintances to whom I should enthusiastically say that “I’m going to hitchhike to Poland!”; we did meet, yes we did. She and He managed to veil their most probably dark thoughts, for which I was thankful as my own auto-blaming process was in full bloom anyway.
While in the bus for outskirts, I managed to engineer a solution including misusing a tripod, which made the suitcase pullable as well as pushable, and thanks to the specific shape of the tripod head, gave the whole process of guiding the suitcase a somewhat joystick’ish feel. Silent cries of joy. And a Tom Sawyer touch to it also.
Cheering a bit too early, though, but we didn’t know that then. Forth member, Comrade Suitcase, we had with us, not the best bloke around but definitely not the most boring one either, a character at least.
She and He? They travelled lightly. Very lightly. /
And actually it was quite late when we reached the roadside. Half past five or six, something like that. Nonsense time for starting. The first ride was short, only a little bit on, to a small settlement. But good, nevertheless – while hitchhiking, moving, however short the jump might be, keeps the spirit up, things happening, thoughts moving. We bought some pies, walked to the other side of this borough and started waiting. Now we saw clearly the consequences of a late start – there simply were no cars. We waited, talked, started to solve issues of some alcohol we had with us.
How many cars we had I cannot remember, I only, although vaguely, remember the last ride in Estonia: a nice and calm middle-aged lady. Remarkable, as it is rare to catch a ride with a female driver, not to mention when you are three. She dropped us at the border post (literally) in the border town Valga-Valka. This is a little twin-town, part of it in Estonia and part of it in Latvia. Now with Schengen the physical border is gone once again. He and She went to get some coffee, I took a leak. In search for a nice quiet place for a small call of nature I turned behind some wall, found an abandoned garage, did my thing (not under the roof, of course) and took a bit different route back to the road. Then I discovered it – I peed in Latvia. Sorry for that, Latvia.
Embraced with a light slightly turning to evening we had our coffees, grogs actually, there at the border stake, said our mental goodbyes to Estonia, picked up our stuff and walked to Latvia.
And on we walked in Latvia. We had to walk through Valka, to the other side. Beginning was jolly. Three travellers we were, walking broadly on the empty streets. Pushing my luggage with this great solution, taking turns. Then the jolliness started having cracks, literally. It was one of the wheels. Rubber tire started slipping off. I adjusted it, walked on. Adjusted it, walked on. Adjusted it, walked on. Comrade Suitcase was putting up a show again. Now I saw some compassion in His and Her eyes, dark thoughts pushed aside, maybe, by my now obvious and profound remorse.
Crack-crack, and suddenly there was only a hub left of that sad little fuck of a wheel. Yes, the suitcase had built-in wheels also, in the style of nineties – four of them, front ones turning - and even a special leather handle with a bow for pulling. I had spent some four hours trying to repair two of those wheels initially broken (6,5€), but that didn’t make them any bigger or appropriate for asphalt. Four small rubberrollies, airport floor type of dudes. We tried, nevertheless. It took about half of a kilometre for one of those dudes to loose it, loose it’s rubber around the hub that is. That suitcase was not pullable nor pushable any more. Nothing else left that good old “carry me” and the weight and the malaise. We moved on, slowly, and sad it looked, and because of me, and no good it made me feel. I used my Egyptian headscarf to make a bowknot through handle to lift some of the weight on my shoulder, but not too much help found there either.
I felt like little piece of worthless shit, honestly, when we finally reached the hitchhikeable place by the road, a bit out from Valka. It was getting dark, and also dark-cloudy, and it went well with my mood. Cars? No cars. Who leaves a little border city far from everything facing late evening?
My thoughts were stray. Scattered by impedimenta crisis illustrated with straightforward physical effort it took to carry my suitcase. Home was far away, Tbilisi even further. And they didn’t even share a chronotope. Once you’re on the road there’s a mental space created between home and you, it doesn’t ask of actual time or distance. Tbilisi, on the other hand, sported a very real remoteness, imaginable in unknown amount of kilometres and days of journey.
When there was a rare car one of us rose his/hers thumb. I was making another shoulder belt out of leather part remaining from the external wheels, following His proposal to divide the weight between us two. He was watching deep dark clouds closing up with a worried face of a metrologyst who doesn’t have an umbrella. Drops there were soon. She went for scouting. On one side of the road, opposite from us, there were some private houses behind a hedge, on the other side, our side of the road, there was hedge also, high and thick, behind of which seemingly fields. I walked to the bus stop some thirty meters away, for a dustbin: I wanted to get rid of those remaining pieces of wheels. With every step I felt the lightness of walking unloaded, the pleasure I had denied for myself for that trip, groundedly but so what? And sadly, unwanted outcome – denied to some extent for Him also, who he offered his help.
She had news when she came back. She had found a house. Abandoned, half built robust example of 90ties architecture. We went for a weird shaped small triangular verandah in the corner of the building. A really tiny space, scantily for three of us. Few windows were broken. Not particularly nice hideout in its never finished, dust covered form, but best what we had. And unscrewing some wire didn’t feel like breaking in.
We sat there into the dark. Crouching with our stuff, looking at Latvia getting darker, looking at rain incapable of deciding whether to pour or drizzle, listening songs from mobile phones, sharing some stories, smoking some cigarettes, sipping some snifter. Few times one of us went to the road, and came back again - quiet restlessness and unease of the end of the first day’s journey. We heard from where we were if a car passed by, rare roaring disturbance in the tranquillity of spatter. That day was done.
We changed our dusty little verandah for bare brick and concrete in the house itself. Up on the third floor under the huge round window three wooden pallets made a bed for us. Horror stories were demanded but never told.
Or maybe there was one story, a story in doze, a story about a children camp teacher telling a carefully composed horror story as a bedtime story for the whole camp, studiously composed to please the more demanding group of older youth and colleagues, and to offer a “boo!” moment for smaller ones. And then, when everything is finished, while his having his bedtime secret-cigarette, he hears that one from the two of his own cabins, little girls, they are not sleeping, no, they are crying. Everybody in that little wooden hut. This was his first year. And small girls were somewhat of a mystery. And crying small girls... He rushed at the spot, trying his best. Answering the questions, and telling stories, other stories, nice stories with flower-fairies and teddy-bears. He almost falls asleep himself on that wooden floor of a little forest hut, lullabyed by calm breaths of young sleep.
A story at the transition of realities, told, thought or third. Sleep.
Photos and other stuff: We
Tartu-Valka
Last-things-to-do which we did were simple. Some time ago I helped a friend to build a gigantic bookshelf, he presented me with this bottle of good Georgian wine, for opening and drinking of which the time was perfect. And we made sign for hitchhiking saying “ODESSA” with nice, beautiful and big letters. Just in case somebody get’s the coolness of that or wants to give us a really long ride.
From left: Him, Her, MeDone. Ready to go. At those moments, maybe only for those dubious people of my breed, there are always thoughts there, at farewells, headed by the bursting “Why the fuck do you want to leave? Isn’t it nice? Couldn’t you stay a bit longer?” Argonauts, I envy you. I don’t need any Sirens to whisper that to my ears, sun-filled verandah will do just fine. And there is Orpheus with his lyre, singing promise of a enjoyable future happening not here. Split in two, going and staying, for an intense n-time before the first step.
And then suddenly your walking. Going to city centre, changing some money, taking a bus to outskirts. Everything changes. Turning back is a taboo, unthinkable, there is nothing there suddenly, behind. Verandah with sun is suddenly a story, a dream, a dear memory, not a simple place six kilometres away. Only on can you go from here, on, let life happen, let the road cater.
With hitchhiking I am usually the boring pragmatic type proposing to split up, to create couples and solo players in the name of efficiency. Me and Him had even tossed the coin to see who goes with Her. Did we argue over gender equality issues after that? But this time I was voted out. We’ll do it all together! It is more fun like that! Well, that’s true, I say in my head, and admire the amount of enthusiasm present at the beginning of every longer hitchhiking trip.
We were there, by the road near the edge of Tartu – there’s quite nice place for hitchhiking - and kept our thumbs out for the cars in turns, occasionally flashing our ODESSA-sign.
/We had walked some and had a bus and walked some more and one thing became obvious already, acutely – I should have had that late evening around-the-block test walk with my impedimenta-solution.
They had tried to convince me out of this, but without success – I had been intended to have a suitcase with me as a main piece of a luggage. a) I love suitcases (argument easy to refute) b) I had a lot of stuff to carry with me (possible to argue, but hard to denounce) c) I had no big and comfortable backpack, no money to buy one and no will to lend some (possible to argue, except the last and decisive one – no will to lend money. Nowadays, who would condemn?) d) I had to carry a laptop bag + a camera bag + tripod, which actually supported the use of good wheel-solution e) I just couldn’t imagine going to a wedding in Armenia wearing a suit and a huge backpack (theme never used).
So I had found a pair of soviet-era suitcase wheels in a second hand in Tartu. A nice piece, two wheels, about 7 cm in diameter, about 18 apart from each other. Foldable solution, which one could attach to a suitcase with a leather belt. Nice. Camp. Later I got a suitcase itself, brown leatherette with golden (sic!) lining from maybe mid nineties, for about 6.5€ from a second hand in Tallinn. Budget.
A simple 20-minute walk from the House to the centre was enough to assure suspicions. No way! The thing wanted to topple, I had to walk carefully like a ropedancer and the leather belt was so uncomfortable to hold on to that after these 20 minutes I had welts and cuts on my hands. That all looked just miserable. I hoped that we won’t see any acquaintances to whom I should enthusiastically say that “I’m going to hitchhike to Poland!”; we did meet, yes we did. She and He managed to veil their most probably dark thoughts, for which I was thankful as my own auto-blaming process was in full bloom anyway.
While in the bus for outskirts, I managed to engineer a solution including misusing a tripod, which made the suitcase pullable as well as pushable, and thanks to the specific shape of the tripod head, gave the whole process of guiding the suitcase a somewhat joystick’ish feel. Silent cries of joy. And a Tom Sawyer touch to it also.
Cheering a bit too early, though, but we didn’t know that then. Forth member, Comrade Suitcase, we had with us, not the best bloke around but definitely not the most boring one either, a character at least.
She and He? They travelled lightly. Very lightly. /
And actually it was quite late when we reached the roadside. Half past five or six, something like that. Nonsense time for starting. The first ride was short, only a little bit on, to a small settlement. But good, nevertheless – while hitchhiking, moving, however short the jump might be, keeps the spirit up, things happening, thoughts moving. We bought some pies, walked to the other side of this borough and started waiting. Now we saw clearly the consequences of a late start – there simply were no cars. We waited, talked, started to solve issues of some alcohol we had with us.
How many cars we had I cannot remember, I only, although vaguely, remember the last ride in Estonia: a nice and calm middle-aged lady. Remarkable, as it is rare to catch a ride with a female driver, not to mention when you are three. She dropped us at the border post (literally) in the border town Valga-Valka. This is a little twin-town, part of it in Estonia and part of it in Latvia. Now with Schengen the physical border is gone once again. He and She went to get some coffee, I took a leak. In search for a nice quiet place for a small call of nature I turned behind some wall, found an abandoned garage, did my thing (not under the roof, of course) and took a bit different route back to the road. Then I discovered it – I peed in Latvia. Sorry for that, Latvia.
Embraced with a light slightly turning to evening we had our coffees, grogs actually, there at the border stake, said our mental goodbyes to Estonia, picked up our stuff and walked to Latvia.
And on we walked in Latvia. We had to walk through Valka, to the other side. Beginning was jolly. Three travellers we were, walking broadly on the empty streets. Pushing my luggage with this great solution, taking turns. Then the jolliness started having cracks, literally. It was one of the wheels. Rubber tire started slipping off. I adjusted it, walked on. Adjusted it, walked on. Adjusted it, walked on. Comrade Suitcase was putting up a show again. Now I saw some compassion in His and Her eyes, dark thoughts pushed aside, maybe, by my now obvious and profound remorse.
Crack-crack, and suddenly there was only a hub left of that sad little fuck of a wheel. Yes, the suitcase had built-in wheels also, in the style of nineties – four of them, front ones turning - and even a special leather handle with a bow for pulling. I had spent some four hours trying to repair two of those wheels initially broken (6,5€), but that didn’t make them any bigger or appropriate for asphalt. Four small rubberrollies, airport floor type of dudes. We tried, nevertheless. It took about half of a kilometre for one of those dudes to loose it, loose it’s rubber around the hub that is. That suitcase was not pullable nor pushable any more. Nothing else left that good old “carry me” and the weight and the malaise. We moved on, slowly, and sad it looked, and because of me, and no good it made me feel. I used my Egyptian headscarf to make a bowknot through handle to lift some of the weight on my shoulder, but not too much help found there either.
I felt like little piece of worthless shit, honestly, when we finally reached the hitchhikeable place by the road, a bit out from Valka. It was getting dark, and also dark-cloudy, and it went well with my mood. Cars? No cars. Who leaves a little border city far from everything facing late evening?
My thoughts were stray. Scattered by impedimenta crisis illustrated with straightforward physical effort it took to carry my suitcase. Home was far away, Tbilisi even further. And they didn’t even share a chronotope. Once you’re on the road there’s a mental space created between home and you, it doesn’t ask of actual time or distance. Tbilisi, on the other hand, sported a very real remoteness, imaginable in unknown amount of kilometres and days of journey.
When there was a rare car one of us rose his/hers thumb. I was making another shoulder belt out of leather part remaining from the external wheels, following His proposal to divide the weight between us two. He was watching deep dark clouds closing up with a worried face of a metrologyst who doesn’t have an umbrella. Drops there were soon. She went for scouting. On one side of the road, opposite from us, there were some private houses behind a hedge, on the other side, our side of the road, there was hedge also, high and thick, behind of which seemingly fields. I walked to the bus stop some thirty meters away, for a dustbin: I wanted to get rid of those remaining pieces of wheels. With every step I felt the lightness of walking unloaded, the pleasure I had denied for myself for that trip, groundedly but so what? And sadly, unwanted outcome – denied to some extent for Him also, who he offered his help.
She had news when she came back. She had found a house. Abandoned, half built robust example of 90ties architecture. We went for a weird shaped small triangular verandah in the corner of the building. A really tiny space, scantily for three of us. Few windows were broken. Not particularly nice hideout in its never finished, dust covered form, but best what we had. And unscrewing some wire didn’t feel like breaking in.
We sat there into the dark. Crouching with our stuff, looking at Latvia getting darker, looking at rain incapable of deciding whether to pour or drizzle, listening songs from mobile phones, sharing some stories, smoking some cigarettes, sipping some snifter. Few times one of us went to the road, and came back again - quiet restlessness and unease of the end of the first day’s journey. We heard from where we were if a car passed by, rare roaring disturbance in the tranquillity of spatter. That day was done.
We changed our dusty little verandah for bare brick and concrete in the house itself. Up on the third floor under the huge round window three wooden pallets made a bed for us. Horror stories were demanded but never told.
Or maybe there was one story, a story in doze, a story about a children camp teacher telling a carefully composed horror story as a bedtime story for the whole camp, studiously composed to please the more demanding group of older youth and colleagues, and to offer a “boo!” moment for smaller ones. And then, when everything is finished, while his having his bedtime secret-cigarette, he hears that one from the two of his own cabins, little girls, they are not sleeping, no, they are crying. Everybody in that little wooden hut. This was his first year. And small girls were somewhat of a mystery. And crying small girls... He rushed at the spot, trying his best. Answering the questions, and telling stories, other stories, nice stories with flower-fairies and teddy-bears. He almost falls asleep himself on that wooden floor of a little forest hut, lullabyed by calm breaths of young sleep.
A story at the transition of realities, told, thought or third. Sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
