1st of July, 2022.
Hitchhiking in Turkey.
Many cars from the village are coming and going. One white car in particular pass three times and always looking at me. It starts to get on my nerves.
At some point, he stops across the road and start talking with another man. They keep staring at me. I ask them if they want a photograph. Laugh.
The guy from the white car goes one more time to the village and when he comes back, he parks beside me and say I can come with him to the next city and tells me he is a police officer. There is something odd about him, so I refuse. He says – “it is your call”, and when he turns around, I can see he has a gun on his trousers. A pistol! He was carrying a pistol! I must admit I laughed at that moment. I don’t know why, relieve perhaps, knowing for sure that I did the right choice. But it was a funny moment. Crazy, but funny.
A small truck stops, and I think he is going to Erzurum, so I take it. He is a nice man and on him I know I can trust. We don’t chat much thought, because of the language, but he drops me off soon in Erzurum.
There, a bigger truck stop. What is it with me and the trucks on this second time in Turkey. His name is something like Muraz and he is a middle-aged guy. I think he is also going to Ankara and at first, when I get in the truck my plans are of going all the way with him to Ankara and from there to Izmir. Luckily for me, by looking at the map, I change my mind halfway to Erzincan, because I decide trying to go to Gaziantep and finally having some baklava. Me and the baklava: a love story! Perhaps this was the whole point of me not having the baklava before, just so I could get out of his truck earlier. Nothing bad happened, I will tell you.
So, he is married and have kids, and when his phone rings, he asks me to keep quiet. That’s a sign, ladies and gentlemen, of when a man is not trustful. After I tell him my decision of getting out in Erzincan, he writes in his phone that he would like to have sex with me. Ugh! Disgusting! Seriously, I wanted to open the window and throw his phone out of it. I get really angry and give him hell, and I did to all the men who asked me that before. I tell him that never a woman will react in a different way than me. Women will always be offended and disgusted by the request, so he should never, ever again ask such thing to a woman. He apologizes many times, saying stupid things like, he didn’t expect for me to have this reaction. What the fuck reaction he expected then?
Anyway, I don’t let him get away with it, and I leave the truck showing that I am extremely offended. I am guessing that he thought that just by apologizing, everything would be fine. Nope!
I stand by the road to Gaziantep for a little while until the weather change into a huge storm. Luckily for me, the bus station is just beside this road, so I run there. I feel like this route is not the best to Gaziantep, so I decide to check on my computer for better directions. The plugs by the station are not working, so I ask in a restaurant if I can use their plug for a while. A lovely lady who can speak English tells me I can stay as long as I need.
Because the weather is going to be bad for a long time and it is getting late already, I decide to stay overnight in the station and carry on with my travels tomorrow morning. I also get directions to Izmir from here, just in case I am stuck in the road to Gazianep for many hours and have to give up of that idea. After watching a film, I go out of the bus station just to look for an open restaurant or something, where I can ask for some food.
I cannot find anything! Everything is closed! Damn it! So back at the bus station, I decide to ask in a mini market if they could give me some cheap thing to eat.
Now, this part is funny, by the time I am waiting for the couple in front of me to finish their shopping, the owner of the shop strikes me as an angry man, because he looks very grumpy. So, I consider not even asking him anything, but after all I think about stereotypes and go for it. I try to explain to him that I am not taking a bus, but travelling in the morning by hitchhiking, and I show him my sign. He smiles and gives me some cookies, a small fruit cake and a juice box. He seems happy to help and not a bit annoyed. Stereotypes!
When I was out there looking for restaurants, I talked with a security guard and he told me I could sleep in the praying room, on the second floor of the bus station. What a genius idea! I should have thought of that the last time I was here in Turkey, and also spent the night in a bus station, in Balikesir.
There is nobody in the praying room when I get there. I am not really sure if this is allowed but I decide to try anyway. I wash my feet in the place for it, just outside, arrange my things near me and start to sleep. I hear some women coming during the night for praying but nobody disturbs me. After a good night of sleep, I leave early in the morning.
2nd of July, 2022.
Unfortunately, I was right. After many hours waiting for a lift to Gaziantep, I give up and walk through Erzincan, crossing it completely, to get in the other side, on the road towards Izmir. Bye bye, my beloved baklava!
A funny new chapter of my travels starts. Metin stops his car. He is going all the way to Bursa. To Bursa! I cannot believe it! He is a young man and looks like a nice person, cool guy. Things would change a bit after a while, but we do have some good time together at least.
He can speak a reasonable English so we can talk all the way. He is a super busy businessman, an engineer also, and money is a very important thing for him, so he gets really surprised with my lifestyle. He is funny and many times he makes me laugh. But he is also homophobic. And even though he doesn’t say bad things about homosexual people (he actually believes that they are sick, and that to be sexually involved with someone of the same sex as you it acts like a drug to your body, an addiction, so you must to be cured of that, and the reason why is that homosexuals behave like that, is because they had some kind of trauma with their parents, in their childhood), I get very disappointed with him after he tells me that. I let him know what my opinion about the subject is, of course.
We stop in a quiet fancy restaurant on the road to have some dinner. It is called Çamlik. Metin shows me a bit more of his true character when he gets offended and angry when after a few minutes nobody comes to the table with a menu for us. The people of the restaurant are actually very nice. I have just some eggs with tomatoes, but it is extremely delicious! No, seriously, I have never had such delicious eggs with tomatoes in my life! The flat bread they have is also amazing! Metin order some meat with grilled vegetable, but barely touches them. I have some of his vegetables and ask for the rest as take away.
At first, he tells me that the plan is getting to a friend’s house in a city, where we can spend the night and carry on with the trip next day. We do get to the city and his friend is very friendly and kind. We have coffee and a piece of cake at his friend’s restaurant, and it would have been perfect if we had stayed for the night.
But Metin decides we should keep driving. I know how this will end. Perhaps I should have warned him. He says that, when he feels tired, we will stop and, to follow a bit of my lifestyle, he will sleep in the car, and I can put my tent somewhere outside. I mean it is not a bad plan, but I am sure he will be cold, and he has never done this before. Why can’t him just get a hotel room for him or something? Plus, I tell him that it is hard to find a place to camp after dark, but he does not follow me.
Anyway, when it is getting really late, he decides to stop somewhere but it is just not possible to find a place where I can, safely, put my tent. He does not seem very understanding of the situation, and starts to behave like a jerk, even saying that he doesn’t want to throw me out of the car, but he needs to stop and rest. It’s all your fault, man! We could have stopped last night at your very friendly friend, who totally said I could come, and have had a very good night of rest. But nope! For some stupid reason that only you know, you skipped, and now we are in this shitty situation!
We park in a gas station, really shitty place. He parks the car near some trucks, but everybody is sleeping already. I have my tent outside and try to sleep.
In the middle of the night, he turns on the engine and scares the hell out of me. For some time, I think he is leaving, and abandoning me here. I have all my stuff with me, of course, but it is still dark, and I wouldn’t feel great to be left alone here, outside, all by myself, when everyone can see my tent. But it happens he was only cold and turned on the car so he could get some hot air.
We leave very early in the morning under his complains that he couldn’t sleep at all. No breakfast or water whatsoever.
In a few hours we are in Bursa. He buys me a small bottle of water and, at my request, drops me off in a McDonald’s.
I never said that hitchhiking life is perfect. Very rarely, it happens that we encounter some not so pleasant people. But I would never change my lifestyle, or anything in my life, due to some huge exceptions.
10 Years Around the World 