Once again it was time to go: three days in the same place was too much! So we woke up as the sun rose over the roofs of Krakow, filled the bag with our meager belongings and left. We walked for an hour in the cool of the morning until we got to the service station we chose on the road and out of town. Other 'Spanish breakfast', some questions to sour-faced employees and start the day!
The path we had chosen for the day was 600 kms. traversing Poland and its capital Warsaw to the border with Lithuania, and then another 100 kms. to Kaunas and the expected encounter with Tuchkus, with whom we had lived and traveled in Malaysia and Australia. In fact, with him I spent the most remarkable new year's eve of my life. We were both in Sydney (probably the best place on earth to see the new year's celebrations) and alone, almost without knowing anyone and without a dime... What to do? I had an unorthodox idea: make a big sign that between pretty drawings said something like: "New Year's Eve! Help us with a coin, a beer, a job or a nice girl!". And we began to ask everyone that we passed by, with a big smile and telling something of our history. People were surprised by our strange marketing strategy: someone finally asking honestly for money to get really drunk! And so, in just over an hour, we got like $50 ... sooo, bought a five-liter cask of the cheapest wine (goon!), and in a disinterested display of alcoholic generosity donated the rest to a charity (I must admit that we repented it when the wine ran out ...). Then we met Min Woo, a South Korean friend, and 15 minutes before midnight jumped the fences escaping the police to the place where more than half a million people were looking forward to the celebrations and beginning of the new year.
Poland is probably my favorite country for hitchhiking. The people are friendly and very used to hitchhiking. Until the early '90s this was an official mean of transport, organized by the National Tourism Board. Each hitchhiker had a ID card with assurance included, and the drivers could get points and prizes. It was therefore quite easy to find a lift to Warsaw. After some 15 minutes, Aneta offered to drive us the 300 kms. that separated us from the capital. She lived in England but had started a business in Krakow and was traveling with two guys who worked with her. She was very nice and good conversationalist, and we crossed half Poland hearing of her adventures, travels, family and future plans.
We stopped at a small gas station after Warsaw, in good position to continue north, as many cars were going in our direction. He had just received a message from Tuchkus. Last minute plan change: instead of going to Kaunas, we should meet with him and his friends in an ecofestival in the middle of nowhere. As we had no money to call him and he is famous for its comic disorganization, almost four hours passed until we finally had a little idea of where we had to go. At the gas station waited like 15 minutes until Michał took us another 30 kms. until another gas station after Wyszkow.
Next to the narrow road, girls in tight clothes offered their services to tired drivers looking for imitations of love. We ate a small snack beside the road, and after another 20 minutes Florian took us towards Białystok. He was German but lived and worked as a lawyer in Poland, from where his wife was. He was a funny man (yes, there are good lawyers!), with crazy stories of restless youth and interesting points of view. He veered a few miles out of his way to leave us in good position, and we parted ways on the side of the pictoresque wooded road.
We were there for a while, because again we had a long-distance sign with the majority of cars being locals. Finally, and after about an hour, some guys offered to take us through some typical small countryside towns to a gas station halfway towards Augustow.
After another half an hour Marek and Gabriela gave us another short but helpful lift. We talked about life and this and that crossing green fields, and I had a chance to practice my 'Polengruski' (my poor Polish mixed with some English words and sounding like the Russian I learned some years ago). They left us at a gas station outside that city, only 50 kms. to the border with Lithuania.
There, a short wait and another lovely couple offered to drive us 200 kms. until near Trakai, a few miles from the festival. We crossed the border as the night began to lay a cloak of dark velvet over the picturesque fields of the southernmost part of the Baltic country, talking about past memories, stories of a restless present and colourful future plans. It was late when we parted ways wishing each other a happy life, on the road intersection where we were supposed to be meeting Tuchki and friends.
The night was dark, lit only by the dim silver light of stars, and with a dense fog covering the fields. The minutes passed, and we were not sure if we were in the right place because there was no road signs and the roads themselves did not resemble the map so much. We started walking without knowing where we were going, until some time after a car hit the brakes in front of us. Tuchkuuus! We hugged jumping in the middle of the road, and we told each other all our latest adventures as we went to the festival with their friends. But that's part of another story ...
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