From Vienna to Krakow. Chronicles of a hard hitchhiking day under the pouring rain...

We woke up early with the sun rising in the viennese skies. I took my famous Spanish breakfast (coffee and cigarettes), and we prepared the backpacks and said goodbye to Elisabeth. We took the Underground and a bus, and walked to the station we had chosen on the highway A4/E60. To get someone going in that direction was a bit difficult since everyone seemed to be a local or going pretty loaded, but we were in the right direction. After about an hour, Robert agreed to take us on his car to the outskirts of Bratislava. The plan was to spend a few hours exploring the city, but we were getting late and it was beginning to rain, so we decided to go directly to Krakow instead. Robert was a Slovak, living in Bratislava but working in Vienna (only 60 kms. away), the best possible combination given the cost of living in the Slovak capital and the high wages in Austria. 

 He left us in a good position at a gas station on the D1/E58. There we spent some time preparing signs and talking to people, until we met Santi and Nuria. They were from my beloved Catalonia and were on vacations on Slovakia, touring the country in a rental car, so the scene was funny when I saw the license plate and tried to approach them in my tarzanic Slovak. Then they said they were from Barcelona, ​​so I started to laugh and tried to start a  conversation in my poor Catalan, that did not practice for too long. We chatted a little of everything, as we crossed the green Slovak fields and watched the dark clouds and the thick raindrops crashing on the windshield. Santi was a professor of Philosophy and Nuria was also professor of biology and mathematics, perhaps the most hated subject for all students. They told us their experince as a teacher, their relationship with the kids and some life stories. I, for umpteenth time since this trip began, summarized my story, my travels and where I lived, my future plans and dreams of restless youth. It was also nice to speak Spanish with someone. In my experience, no matter how well you can master another language, you can never match the depth communication of feelings and emotions as in your mother tongue, so close to us and our memories from our early childhood. So the communication passed fluid the 200 kms. that separated us from Zilina, where we parted ways to continue north across the Czech Republic. They kindly diverted a few miles of their way to leave us in a small gas station, already on the E75. 

 There we decided to take a break and eat something given of prices in Slovakia, amongst the cheapest in Europe. I ate a huge and tasty sandwich baguette that heated in a microwave and half a litre of a really strong local brew, all for 2.50 €. And that considering that gas stations that are usually about 50% more expensive than any local shop... As the place was too small for both of us approaching people, we decided to split and I started to wave to passing cars at the side of the road. The rain fell steadily and soon I was soaked to the bone. Long time passed and no one stopped. First and obvious, drivers are often reluctant to take a couple of wet strangers in their car, but it was mostly a matter of wrong strategy: most of cars were driving short distances in between towns, and we were showing them signs indicating "Krakow / PL". "North Pole" could have give us the same result... However, after a few hours a very nice guy Slovak stopped, and as he had not much to do and the sight of two wet backpackers probably awoke his curiosity, he offered to drive us about 40 kms. to the border with the Czech Republic. He did not speak any human language that was not Slovak, but nonetheless we managed to communicate and give him directions. We crossed the border on foot and made about 200 meters to a parking lot for trucks. 

 It seemed like a good place to get a lift for long distances, but there were few people and everyone had to wait for departure time. In many European roads and on certain days, trucks have certain times when they can not circulate, and must also respect their own hours of rest. I decided to smoke a cigarette and look around at the small bar, also advertised as a nightclub. Inside, a beautiful Czech girl in the flower of her youth smiled mischievously and gave us curious looks behind eyes of a blue sky. I believe God was in a really good mood when he created women, but he should have been particularly inspired when he made the women of Eastern and Northern Europe, with their slender figures, hair made of gold, and eyes that smiled and invited to love. We decided both of us to keep hitching from the side of the road, James with a big piece of cardboard with the sign "PL" written on it. The afternoon began to decay in the pictoresque Czech countryside, with the sky colored in all shades of gray, but I wouldn't have cared to spend the night camping in the beautiful nature and talking with the mysterious girl... 

 Finally Dominik, a young Polish truck driver offered to take us to Bielsko Biala, already in Poland and only 100 kms. away from our final destination. We were talking about Poland, travel and women, while the dim light of twilight bathed the fields around us, and I was trying my 'Polengruski for the hearing impaired', a mixture of English and my poor Polish that rather resembled the Russian I learned years ago, all accompanied by gestures. We left right at the bus station, where we decided to cheat for once and take a bus to Krakow to spend the night in a decent bed and take a refreshing shower. In one day, we crossed four countries ...