Blocked in the jam by an accident, I miss my plane to Venice, where I was supposed to start this adventure… Difficult exit from the airport followed by a night in the tent in Villepinte suburbs.
Then I go East to get definitely out of Paris, hitchhiking is slow, I turn South, to Troyes and finally Dijon where I sleep in a cherry tree orchard (better than the suburbs). Just before, a family having a picnic gives me the food they couldn’t finish. Nice move but I feel a bit more homeless.
Next day a beautiful lady takes me to Mâcon, and I join somehow Geneva area under the rain… I stay there two days to recover, and I move to Chamonix tunnel, Aoste valley, in direction of Milan, with Franck the Irish truck driver.
I reach Como lake and hitchhiking is difficult again… a woman, fifty years old, a small steaming car, tells me they are “all old rich dumb guys voting right wing”. It’s not me telling it ahah.
Then I spend one full day along the lake, hosted by Luca, a teacher, and his two cats. He tells me “Garda lake is awesome”, I go there and it’s awesome. 100% German and Dutch people though, big expensive cars without any glance to the hitchhiker. Poor people. Around this lake there are fences and houses all around, with unwelcoming cameras and dogs, impossible to sleep for free. It’s night already and I’m still too shy to ask people if they can host me. So I don’t sleep and therefore I take sunrise pictures, and I stay the whole day watching the lake and an eagle fishing, with icecream, panini, cocktail and soccer match, and then go to a camping for the next night. Storm. The 1979 tent is still waterproof. I’m happy.
I can only leave in the afternoon, and nobody to take me in their car. I walk, I walk, two people help me for a few kilometers. I finally block in front of a highway gate. 1 hour and still nobody helping. No shelter, and second storm. Goretex saves me.
Finally a guy feels some pity, it’s an half french oenologist! It’s nice to talk a bit. He drops me in Verona, a beautiful city! Where I write you from a youth hostel…
To be continued!
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Let’s go back: a choir of young girls was sleeping in the same hostel, and their rehearsal woke me up in the morning. Verona is left quickly, followed by the voice of these little singers I escape directly to Venice. Olive trees, grapes, rice paddles…and biker gangs. “Here they are calm, in Sicilia however…”. Ok. People seem to live in an awful dangerous world. But it’s not the one I see myself.
The afternoon I move in direction of Trieste, which I reach quickly thanks to Pedro Cazanova, the great Portuguese DJ and Regina. Cool guys! I’m converted to house music…
However I have to quit them yesterday to go to Rijeka, but I first stop by Ljubljana. Small sympathetic city , but it’s difficult to get out! Too many bears. Hopefully, a women tribe brings me to Croatia. But when I ask the little girl among them to draw me… it’s a disaster. The thumb is too big, bigger than my head. I therefore ask them to drop me immediately, and I jump in a field. A field full of ticks, due to this hare forcing my tent in the dawn. I delouse, itch myself, gesticulate etc. It’s a savage life. It’s East. They don’t even have euros, I cannot even pronounce the cities’ names and it’s not helping to hitchhike…
After four days of bad weather I am in Pag, where I meet young people under ecstasy, really nice therefore. The tourists are not here yet, and they try to sober up a depressive winter, before the full season. Their life rhythm depends on tourism, there is not much to do here. They have one speciality though, a cheese salted thanks to the sheeps grazing iodic grass.
Next days I meet cathedral workers, I hailed them in a gas station, and they make me discover their job and host me in their settlement. Then a Croatian barman, a Swiss and his van… With this Swiss guy, Adrian, we take a Canadian and an Australian girl along the road. We camp together along the coast, we visit Dubrovnik and then continue to northern Albania to visit mountains after 100km of bad track. On the road we can watch local mafia, tough children, wooden carts and Mercedes cars.
In Albania, on the road, there is something like 2 gas stations per kilometer. They probably cut it with oil, and taxes get lost somewhere, little devils. And the number of men sitting in cafes is as impressive as the absence of women in the street.
Macedonia! Ohrid is nice from the hill I climbed, but in the city they harass you to propose hostel & co. It’s a bit disturbing but they do what they can to live, and as in Greece, as they have not been like Albania isolated for decades, they forgot how to cultivate the soil. So “if they have no job, they die from starvation, for real” says Mile, taxi driver. After a night in Bitola, in a camp apparently belonging to the army, I recover from a stressful awakening due to soldier’s running. Not seen, not caught.
And I arrive in Greece! Thanks to a young farmer whose sister is born the same day as me, it’s crazy. Amyndeo, a lake, a local wine. I sleep and then I leave early to Olympus mountain where I am now. Weather is not that great, and the top of the mountain is icy and partially covered with snow. I will check tomorrow and decide if I climb it, it would be a nice birthday gift.
There I am hosted by a nice welcoming couple and I visit the city with them, and eat eat eat… As a consequence I would have loved to stay, but the duty calls me and I finally go to Veliko Tarnovo. I go to the concert of Piff, a band well known in the region, and I meet there many expats.
Next day I am in the Carpates in Breaza where I enjoy my time with a nice old couple. They are both disabled and they fight hard to have a decent life. The woman speaks French and we have interesting talks about their situation. I say goodbye and I go South to the Black Sea coast.
In Constanta I stay with a young couple involved in Hospitality Club for years. The man studied in France and explains me his feelings when he discovered Western Europe. He thought it would be modern, clean and beautiful, but he met with social housing and old buildings in concrete. Differences are in the details.
After some lifts we meet a Turk apparently communist with whom we sing Comandante Che Guevara and other songs… then it’s hell: Istanbul. We think we are in the city but the center is 20km away. We finally find our way and I leave my German friend in his hostel to meet Clementine and her flatmate Burak. Two days to visit, too much to see!
The next two nights I stay with hosts in two big cities on my way to Cappadocia. Nothing special except endless beautiful hills, and the habit of drivers to buy me food. I eat 4 times a day but I cannot refuse, can I? And there is also this guy showing me the picture of his daughter and ten minutes later telling me he goes to Konya to visit a prostitute. I am probably his good move of the day to compensate this bad one. Is it moral to stay in the car ? The time to think and we did 200km.
Finally I reach Göreme! Cappadocia. I sleep in the mountain and I enjoy the sunrise, awakened by the whistle of some balloons. I avoid tourists as well as I can and I get lost in caves and rocks.
The next day I go to Hasankeyf, one of the oldest metropolis in the world, it is so beautiful. Landscapes along this road are unbelievable! This is the Middle East of movies. Desert and dust in the wind, oasis and cliffs. I spend one night in Batman, with a photographer, and the next day when I prepare myself to leave the city a civil car stops by me. The guys show me a police ID: “don’t stay here, it’s very dangerous”. I almost tried to do a joke about the city’s name, but they don’t find it funny… And they’re probably right.
After a few hours and a short negotiation with the owner of the hotel, they bring me in Audi to dormitories for students belonging to one of them. Nice!
In Igdir I sleep at the foothills of Ararat mountain (hi Noah!), I meet an officer of Kurdish rebellion, take some photos and jump the next day in a truck which brings me directly to Georgia.
There are three kinds of dogs here: the street dog starving who doesn’t have enough energy to run after you, the well fed pet defending his garden, and the terrible shepherd dog. Well… I’m tired of dogs. One attacked my tent at nightfall, another run to me full of rage because I’m 200m from the cows, and so many others yelling all night. Where are the masters ?
Another good moment, I spent four days with a family after I asked to the grandfather a place for my tent. We beheaded chicken together, and swim with all the youth of the village in the torrent.
In Istanbul I stay a few days in Tugce’s and Serap’s flat and I discover Bogaziçi University and the North of the city. I leave finally, and to give some consistency to my trip I go in direction of Belgrad, in order to reach Paris through central Europe visiting new countries.
From Istanbul it was a long road. I was hosted first in the farm of a Turkish guy, breeding beefs. We visited the countryside together on his motorbike, it was a great experience.
I enter Budapest by night. But i’m not in the center. A car stops and the driver invites me in his home. It’s a sportsman and he is living as a trainer, skipper, or working in summer camps… We drink a local beer together on a hill with a nice view of the city, a great time!
Here I have to tell you how many Syrians and Afghans are sitting in the station areas or in public squares… I am on the so-called “Balkan road”. These immigrants look completely lost, there are mostly men but there are also some families. It reminds me these camps in Turkey. It’s not the same people though, here in Europe they wear modern clothes and they have most of the time smartphones. In Turkey there were more shepherds dressed with traditional black clothes, and far more women. They don’t have the same means here and there.
In Munich I spend one night with a 50 year-old couchsurfer who looks in his 30s. He meets me in a festival, where I discover the crazy atmosphere of a hard rock scene. He is with two korean girls he met earlier on the street, they are plugging their ears. The situation is funny. This guy was a great metal guitarist in the past, and he turned to play flamenco now. Else, he earns his life being a psychologist. He seems to enjoy his life a lot!
Three hours later we crossed a slum along a canal, a Ferrari licence and a huge mall covered by coloured screens. Exhausted by such contrasts, we finally reach our goal. It’s completely dark.