TRAVEL WORDS

After breakfast the next day we wandered along the beach where it was very windy and there were very few people about. Later back at our tent we met two German guys who had pitched their tent next to ours. They made us a cup of tea (although I don’t actually drink the stuff, but it would have been impolite to refuse) and then took us out in their boat. The sea was full of jelly-fish which explained why no-one was swimming and apparently there had been quite a storm whilst we had been in Turkey. Later they bought us an ice-cream. In the evening we went to a disco, wearing our one and only dresses, and finished the night having coffee with a couple of Swiss guys who were pitched opposite us listening to Woodstock (again) and Led Zeppelin on their cassette recorder.

We didn’t do a lot for the rest of the week. Went into Thess a few times, visited the White Tower, bought food. Sunbathed, swam. Got picked up by several lads, including a couple of American air force men who took us for a beer. There wasn’t a shortage of men on this trip that’s for sure! Not sure where to go next. We needed an incentive to move.

Then along came Barney. A student teacher from Solihull who had us in stitches talking about his teaching practice – something I ought to have remembered in future years – he made us coffee and talked so enthusiastically about Athens, where he’d just come from, our decision was made. Athens next.

Departing early the next morning by the time we had got through Thess it was almost noon. A few lifts later and we reached Pydna where we met up with another three Brits. This time they were from our own county of Yorkshire! Welcome to Steve, John and Charlie! We spent an hilarious evening with them at a campsite near Volos. Drinking retsina (disgusting stuff) and being thrown in the sea fully clothed! The sea was warm though and perhaps our clothes did need washing by then.

They were staying on for a few days, but we wanted to get moving as money was tight and we were lucky to get a lift with a Greek couple and their young son all the way to Athens arriving at noon. It was unbelievably hot. We spent a long time trying to find a bus going to Dafni as we had been told there was a campsite there. It also happened to be next to a wine festival which was no bad thing, although neither of us were particularly wine drinkers. Our usual tipple would be half a pint of Tetley’s Mild. The only wine available in the northern cities was some horrid sweet Australian stuff from Yates Wine Lodge with its sticky sawdust floors!

We were so hot by the time we arrived we just flopped into some shade, too tired to even put the tent up. And just people watched. When we did pitch the tent we ended up bending half the pegs because the ground was rock hard. Showered and fed we popped round to the wine festival where we met quite a lot of English travellers – some very drunk.

We ended up staying at this campsite for a week. Bussing into Athens several times to visit the Acropolis (of course) and the Plaka district where we bought more sandals and learned to love Gyros – slivers of meat sliced from a giant roasting spit served with salad and pita. We lived off it and it was so very cheap. We also discovered yoghurt and honey for breakfast, spaghetti with meatballs (we were from the north you know, and the only spaghetti we knew came from a can) and lovely stuffed tomatoes and peppers. We had never eaten so well.

We learned to ask for Nescafé for coffee and not just coffee as that was the thick Turkish drink with the dregs that you do not want to enter your mouth. We had many conversations with people who had just returned from the islands and decided that we would like to see them too.

Next stop: The Cyclades

The road to Istanbul is pretty direct from Thessaloniki and we were confident there would be plenty of traffic. After a couple of lifts in a row we found ourselves on the eastern side of Xanthi where the first of our troubles began. We were taken to Alexandroupoli where the driver and his mate expected us to stay in a motel with them and we had to virtually fight our way out of the car (remember the tent mallet?) Our first warning about accepting a lift with two males.

It wasn’t our day as the next lift was equally problematical. Although there was only the driver in the car, he took us off road and through woods to a place where he met up with some friends. No friends of ours though. Once again the mallet proved a deterrent. And we were left in the middle of nowhere with only a couple of houses and a petrol station nearby. We slept at the petrol station feeling very vulnerable and upset.

The next day however was much better, we got several good lifts including one in a Land Rover driven by an American accompanied by his young daughter who took us quite a distance into Turkey. The countryside was quite pretty before we entered Turkey, but from there it was quite barren and the road was dead straight so you could see for miles ahead. It was quite boring, but at least it was a safe ride.

When they dropped us off after buying us a meal in Tekirdağ we got a lift with a very eccentric lorry driver whose load was watermelons. He was very hands on should we say, and not always on the steering wheel. Once again the trusty mallet came to our rescue. I’m not sure who had the most bruises though. We called a halt to the abuse as we neared Istanbul and got out close to a camp site with one very large watermelon for our troubles!

After an exhausting couple of days we remained in the camp that afternoon and night happily sharing the watermelon with other backpackers. And on the following day we headed into the city by bus. It was busy. So many people of so many nationalities. We were soon approached by a young Turkish lad, about sixteen I’d say, who decided to be our guide and took us around the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and then the Grand Bazaar where we bought sandals and a kaftan.

He expertly protected us from all the older men who tried to harass us. We enjoyed sipping ice cold real lemonade and eating sweet cakes and visiting the infamous Pudding Shop where travellers placed adverts looking for a partner. Many were American draft dodgers heading for India. Handing our young guide a tip we happily returned to the campsite to spend our last evening there.

The evening was spent in the company of a lad from Leicester who was with a Eurobus expedition. He joined us and played his guitar for a while and he was also a musician who played in a band back home. There seemed to be a lot of them on the road at this time.

The next day we were back on the road and got a lift almost immediately with a man in a rather beautiful car (I was not at all au fait with the different makes and models at the time, but I knew this one looked expensive.) He said he’d take us as far as Tekirdağ, but on reaching the crossroads outside the city instead of heading straight ahead towards the Greek border he turned right onto the road to Sofia in Bulgaria. It took some not too gentle persuasion – and yes the use of the mallet – to get him to pull over and let us out. It was the threat of me smashing his rear window that helped to change his mind.

It wouldn’t be the last of our difficulties in getting back to the Greek border. By 4pm we were roughly 50km from the border at Ipsala and we were stuck. It looked as though we’d be there for the night when we got a lift together – it was amazing how many people (men) stopped and offered to give one of us a lift. This was from another two Germans who looked harmless enough and we had had several good lifts from Germans – remember Harry and Ben? They took us to Alexandroupoli where we stayed the night close to the sea and then continued with them the following day to within 100 kms to Thessaloniki.

We rested for a while by the side of the road in the heat of the day. It was quiet. We relaxed in the sweet scent of some unknown flowers nearby and picked ripe blackberries, glad at last to be out in the fresh air after being cooped up in cars for so long. The decision to head to Istanbul had proved to be both traumatic and exhausting.

Not our best idea.

We eventually arrived in Thess around 3pm and made our way back to the previous campsite at Agias Triados which almost felt like home.

(for some reason I have hardly any photos of Istanbul from this journey – maybe I was out of camera film)

We were thankful to still be in one piece, not to mention alive or be sex slaves in Bulgaria!

Time to reflect.

The following day we set off after breakfast on what we thought would be the most difficult part of our journey to Greece. We needed to get across the mountains up into the central part of Yugoslavia and Skopje which was the closest major city to the Greek border. We got a lift quite quickly with a German couple, Ben and his girlfriend Utie in a lovely VW campervan. They also had a huge Great Dane, Sara. We stayed with them all day and continued down to Ulcinje which is the southernmost point of the country, bordering Albania which at that time was closed off to westerners. We ended up staying the night with them as they were so friendly. Drinking wine and listening to radio Luxembourg around a fire pit. We had a shock though when we woke up the following morning to find we were on a nudist beach! For two innocent lasses from Yorkshire this was fairly mind boggling!

We left Ben in the afternoon to find out about buses to Skopje and discovered that the next one was at 6pm. Whilst waiting for the bus we hunted for a bank (more difficult than you’d imagine) to get some currency for the journey. It was around £5 for the two of us. We came across some young locals who were keen to practice their English with us and stayed with us all afternoon even waving us off when the bus departed .

The bus journey was hell (though a couple of years later I would discover an even more hellish journey). We kept being badgered to give up our seats, but we took no notice. We’d paid for seats and we were keeping them. It was an 11 hour journey and although it was a luxury coach, sitting all that time was not fun. We arrived stiff and cramped and tired at 5:30am on a very dull, grey day. A fortnight after leaving home.

After finding a bakery open and buying fresh bread (the only time to eat it as later it became as hard as hell), we followed signposts to the road leading to the Greek border. It was a fair distance and we got a few odd looks from people on the way. We did manage to get a lift quite quickly though he wasn’t going all the way to the border and traffic on that road was very light with pretty much only an odd tractor every half hour. We eventually reached the border 6 hours later where we took advantage of the facilities to get washed and comb our hair after the unsettled night, find biscuits and milk before crossing the ‘no-mans land’ to reach the other border post.

With luck we spotted a car with a GB sticker so quickly raced ahead to try and get through the border before them so we could try and get a lift. And with more luck it stopped for us. Three lads from one of the home counties who happily agreed to take us to Thessaloniki and a camp site there. It was actually so nice to have someone to speak English with after two weeks. We pitched our tent close to the boys and spent several days there. It was a lively camp site with fire pits and lots of music (Woodstock mainly – this was 1971 after all) and we spent our days on the beach or going into Thess and walking around. There was an International Fair on whilst we were there so it was very busy. One downside was that I got very badly bitten by mosquitos which made me feel quite ill.

For some reason we made the (bad) decision to head over to Istanbul rather than down to the Greek islands. So after saying our farewells to the Brits who were heading homewards we continued our hitchhiking journey on the road to Kavala.

And this is when the “fun” began.