Traversing What Was Then Yugoslavia, Europe 1970, Part 2

 

In 1970, the US and Russia were still in the throes of the Cold War.  Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam ostensibly to prevent the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.  Travel to the Eastern Bloc (Communist) countries was generally ill-advised if not prohibited.  Traveling across East Germany we had witnessed the barbed wire fences, the guards with machine guns at the ready, and the dogs sniffing under trains and around compartments.  But we had heard that Yugoslavia’s leader, General Tito, was more tolerant and that tourists would not be bothered.  We decided to try our luck at hitchhiking through that country in order to reach Greece.  It was much harder than we had imagined it would be, but we were rewarded with a unique view of life behind the Iron Curtain where time seemed to have stopped decades earlier.

Traversing the country that dreary, rainy November took us seven days.  According to my travel journal, we spent the night of November 12 in a youth hostel in Florence.  The next day, we toured the Medici Chapel and the church of Santa Croce in search of Michelangelo’s works, found a clinic where Jill could get the cholera shot that was required for entry into Greece (Cecelia and I had gotten ours in Paris), and stored our packs at the train station.  I stuffed my sleeping bag sack with a “blanket, sheet, t-shirt, and some underwear.”  That was all I would have with me for the three weeks it would be before I was able to return to Florence to reclaim my backpack.

We left Kay P in Florence and boarded a packed train to Trieste.  Here is my journal entry for that evening:

Looked in vain for a hotel in Trieste—all “completo”—ran into a man named Steve—a lieutenant in the Italian navy—he talked to a policeman who sent us to the police station for a place to sleep.  They were really cool and nice, but only one could speak English.  Two who couldn’t took us in a police van to look for places.  We ended up at a convent.  We had heat so I took a cold sink bath and washed out my clothes before bed.  They turned off the radiators during the night, so my clothes didn’t dry after all.

The map of our route through Yugoslavia

The next morning, a cold rainy Saturday, we set off for Yugoslavia.  It took many hours and four short rides to reach the border where we went through customs and then had sandwiches at a small restaurant.  Our first ride in Yugoslavia took us just the few miles into  town.  My journal account continues:

Walked through a small town with no luck.  The lightening, thunder, and rains came pouring harder and harder so we sought refuge in a small café with lots of other people.  The lights went out for a while even.  When the rain slacked up a little, we went back out and got our last ride into Rijeka.  The roads were awful—winding, narrow, and slick.  The driver was a beautiful Doctor Zhivago type who spoke no English.

Arrived in Rijeka in the midst of the worst rain of the day.  The tourist bureau sent us to a motel, and by the time we arrived, we were soaked through to our underwear.  We immediately jumped in bed to warm up.  Changed into somewhat drier clothes and went out for dinner, as the rain had stopped—but only for a little while.  Got soaked again and returned to the motel for sardines, crackers, and weak wine.

On Sunday we continued hitchhiking and the rains continued to drench us.  It took us two hours to walk through Rejika “by which time we were worse than soaked clear through.”  Luckily, we got ride for the 150 miles to Zadar.  Our driver was a nice man whose friend was the hostel director there.  The driver and the hostel director took us out to dinner and plied us with cognac.  We were the only guests at the hostel that night.  Jill and Cecelia shared a room, and I had the one next to it by myself. 

The hostel director came to my room and worked hard at getting into my bed.  According to my journal description, he “looks like Goober on Andy Griffith and speaks German but no English.”  Since my German was barely passable, I can just imagine how that “conversation” went!  I did manage to get rid of him at last, but did not sleep much the rest of the night.  The next morning “as soon as I heard sounds from Jill and Cecelia’s room, I ran and hopped in bed with Jill.”

We couldn’t face another day of hitchhiking, so bought bus tickets and rode to Dubrovnik—an eight hour trip and a welcome respite from standing by the road hoping for a ride.  Here is part of the day’s journal entry:

The trip was wonderful.  I rode with a guy from Dubrovnik named Mario, a sailor on cargo ships.  I learned all sorts of information about Yugoslavia.  The main coastal industries (we are traveling along the beautiful rugged coast of the Adriatic Sea) are fishing, wine, and sheep.  Mario is married and has a baby.  He goes away for a year at a time.  He has been sailing for four years (two of those were his required military service).  Dubrovnik, in his opinion, is the most beautiful city in the world.  Mario is beautiful with a precious smile.  He speaks good English with just enough mistakes to be fun.  At one stop he treated me to a sandwich and a big beer.  (Cecelia and Jill were across the aisle sleeping or talking the whole trip.)

My memories of the beautiful city of Dubrovnik were what drew me back 45 years later.  My first big retirement adventure was to what is now Croatia.  The Adriatic coast was as stunning as I remembered, but Dubrovnik was so crowded with tourists that it had lost its charm.

When we arrived in town on that bus so long ago, we once again faced the problem of finding accommodations.  Getting off the bus a woman asked if we needed a place to stay.  She invited us to her house and promised us hot baths.  We walked, again through the rain, through town to her house.  We had beds but the warm bath turned out to be a false promise.  “I got all set and jumped in—nearly froze!”

Me and Jill with our host's daughter

The next morning looked brighter as the sun was finally shining.  Our hostess sent her daughter to the bank with us so we could cash a traveler’s check and pay her for our lodging.  We headed inland from Dubrovnik to Titograd.  (According to Google, before and after the rein of Tito, the town was called Podgorica.  It is the capital of what is now Montenegro.)  We were charmed by the countryside.

We are heading inland now near Albania.  There are gypsy-looking people, burros, wagons, little farm houses, clothes drying on bushes and rocks, hay, cows, sheep, beautiful and unique countryside and an especially beautiful sunset.  Titograd was really a country town and we couldn’t find a hotel so someone showed us a little lady with a room to rent—a two room apartment with her in the kitchen and twin beds in the guest room.  She let us use her stove to finally cook the can of soup we’ve had for many weeks.

Our goal for the next day (Wednesday, November 18) was to get to Skopje, 180 miles further inland.  It was to be a trying day.  We waited for over an hour for our first ride which was in a truck pulling two trailers.  The three of us crowded into the cab with the driver and another man.  According to my journal, they “wanted to play kneesies and legsies” with us. 

Uphill we traveled at the breakneck speed of 10 mph, downhill we got up to 25 and 30.  After three hours and 50 miles of winding mountain roads (along which we were shown every place someone had gone over), we were let out in the middle of nowhere.  The crossroads to who knows where—we think Belgrade and Skopje but can’t be too sure since none of us could speak or read Yugoslavian.

After two hours we begged a van to stop for us and rode into Andrijevica. 

We stayed in the town’s only hotel for $8.00 for three beds.  It was so cold that we sat in the somewhat warmer dining room with our coats on and had tea, soup, a delicious dinner, and an orange drink.  Finally we ran upstairs and jumped in bed, too cold to even undress.  I even went to bed with my gloves on.  After finally getting warm and sleepy, we turned out the lights and the mice came.  I was so scared, I jumped in the double bed with Jill and Cecelia, in tears.

We were deep in the mountains now and it was snowing.  We weren’t willing to risk a repeat of the previous day’s drive through the mountains so took a bus to Pec.  There, we found what we thought of as a remote, backward town.  Here is part of my description:

The bus was full of live Yugoslavian characters:  a little old lady in black with tons of packages, a gypsy family with grandparents, parents, little boy, and baby tied to a board.  The road was paved for a while, then it was dirt and gravel.  It took us three hours to go about 50 miles as the crow flies.  We just wound in and out among the mountain peaks and over the snow-covered top.  We laughed and laughed.  It was all so rural.  We watched horses and carts and even two funerals.  The people walked along with coffins on horsedrawn carts.  Downtown mules were loaded with firewood, hay, etc.  There were little shops where people were spinning wool into thread and grinding grain.

Pec is located in what is now Serbia in the area known as Kosovo.  This is where some of the most blatant atrocities of the war were committed.  A report from the Human Rights Watch said that in 1999 Pec held a special significance for the Serbs as the site of several Orthodox churches and a 16^th century monastery.  The Serbs were a minority in Pec which was also home to a substantial population of ethnic Albanians.  The Albanians were forced from their homes at gunpoint.  Many were beaten or murdered in an attempt at “ethnic cleansing.”  Perhaps the people we saw there in 1970 were not gypsies but Albanians.  What did I know then of peoples and their origins?  Or of the divisions that would lead to war after Tito’s death?

Eventually that day we made it to our goal of Skopje, the capital of what is now Northern Macedonia.  After another “miserably cold night” in a hostel, we bought train tickets from there to Thessaloniki, Greece.  We were not sorry to be leaving Yugoslavia.  It had been an adventure, but not one we were anxious to repeat.  Our goal was to get to Athens and after that we would return to Italy via ferry.  The only problem with this plan, for me, was that I was out of money.  I would disembark at Thessaloniki and try my luck at hitchhiking alone while Jill and Cecelia stayed on the train to Athens.

My guardian angel, Jesus

As luck would have it, we shared our train compartment with two guys from Mexico City—Jesus and Augusto.  They would not hear of me hitchhiking alone so paid for my train ticket on to Athens.  They were to be the first of several angels that would see me safely home over the next two weeks. 

In Athens, I parted ways with Jill and Cecelia.  I cashed my last traveler’s check, purchased a ferry ticket to Italy, and gratefully accepted a $20 loan from Cecelia.  (I wonder if I ever paid that back?)  Jesus and Augusto stuck with me for a couple of days in Athens.  We did some sight-seeing:  the Acropolis at night, the Parthenon, the Agora.  They advised me against my plan to hitchhike to Corfu where I would get the ferry to Brindisi, Italy.  But I really had no other choice, and so I set off for more adventures.  

I encountered several men who wanted something from me that I was unwilling to give as well as several who generously guided me on my way.  Isn’t every culture made up of the good and the bad?  I believed then, and still do today, that there are more good people than bad in the world and that somehow I would find my way with their help.

I have told the end of my story elsewhere.  For those who are interested in reading the final chapter of this saga, here is the link:  https://lifeasserendipity.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-thanksgiving-memory.html