“I think it’s time to look for a bus.”
I drop the one-too-many-times-folded cardboard sign to my side. It reads “PORTO” in thickly-penciled letters.
The sun in Portugal was vicious, unrelenting in the cloudless sky. After walking the last twenty kilometers into Santiago, and then proceeding to hitchhike south into Portugal, my skin had been baked like tanned leather.
We were filthy. Dirt from the construction site we stood alongside caked with sweat on our faces. Our hair was ratty and matted; I hid mine beneath a grey cap I had acquired somewhere near Pondevedra. We stunk of several kinds of smoke, gasoline, and pilgrim funk. Evening commuters mostly looked scornfully at our motley crew or pretended not to notice us entirely. No one was going to give us a ride.
When Agnieszka and Hannah decided that we would hitchhike to Portugal, I was reluctant but enthused. This small town boy had never had a problem getting from A to B, and had certainly never needed to hitch. I imagined scoring a snappy pickup from a smiley, cookiecutter family in their caravan, on their way to the same sandy beach. They would have been very happy to help pilgrims in need. They would feed us and offer us sweating beers in the pounding sun. We would graciously accept and ride the rainbow all the way to Porto, laughing and singing ‘Kumbaya’. Wrong.
We had walked more than an hour to the outer rim of Santiago de Compostela before we caught our first ride. Miguel and his travel companion had made a hobby of photographing pilgrims. He enthusiastically offered to take us a little down the line, but only if we struck a few candid-looking poses before his 35mm. We graciously accepted, pretending to stride woefully down the sidewalk, and then packing into the back of his van. We sped south, and I took the time to become a little too familiar with Betty, the monsterous hound who had previously ocuppied the whole back row, but now forced into my lap. We became bonded very quickly, but eventually decided that there was no future for our love. She was a dog, and I am too much of a rambler to be tied down.
Miguel left us on a rocky turnoff on the edge of a nameless pueblo with a warm hug (and kisses for the girls) and his email, so that we could get copies of his pics. In spite of our short love affair, Betty the hound was happy to see me go, so that she could reclaim her row of hairy seats. The trio sped off across a set of traintracks, and again we were stranded.
On the street shoulder, we made a quick picnic, and the girls claimed the cardboard signs. We figured that their good looks and cheerful dispositions would be more attractive to strangers, and that my gruff appearance made me look as though I made a career of piggybacking transportation. So I sat quietly at the shady base of an old oak tree, watching car after car after car fly by. Agnieszka and Hannah would hold each other close and jump waving when an empty van or R.V. rolled around the bend, and then droop, a little lower each time, as the vehicles flew by.
The girls had nearly used up their enthusiasm by the time a beat up compact car veered onto the roadside behind us. We haggled with the two younger men about our destination, threw our bags in the trunk, and shot back onto the road. The passenger, bearded and with heavy gauges stretching his ears, did his best to make conversation in meager English, but eventually gives up and begins rolling a cigarette.
“You smoke joints?” He asks without looking away from his work. He spoke this phrase quite fluently.
“Yes.” Aga quickly replies, seemingly out of reflex.
The driver paid little attention to the white lines along the slithering mountain road. He may have been a rally driver in a past life. His phone rang, and he fished for his cell, and then answered. I looked to my right, and Aga was staring spacily at me, her eyes wide and unyielding. “Your face is sparkling…” she says, pulling a shiny golden boa from the window behind me and wrapping it around my neck.
As Aga continued to oogle my sparkling complexion, the driver bent the car into a roundabout. The three of us were sandwiched together as he pounded the throttle, cackling madly like a seagull. At this point, I thought to myself:
‘Sometimes people die hitchhiking…no….not you…”
We negotiated hurriedly to be dropped off at the nearest bus stop. The car sped off, throwing rocks down the road behind us. Hannah, Aga and myself stagger to the steps of the bus stop. We collapse, dry mouthed, hungry, and happy to be alive.
We took turns sneaking into the bus station to use the bathroom, and had a quick snack on the steps. As we rested, a pair of taxis took turns shuttling away folks who arrived at the station. Each time they returned, they eyed us.
“We know you want a ride…” They said without words.
No, we were NOT going to take a taxi. Thats too safe. Apparently we prefered to roll the dice.
Again we found ourselves poised on the roadside. This time we were lucky enough to be in the shade of a decaying building. Its windows were boarded, leaving the sills available to be used as seats for tired hitchhikers. We took turns holding the signs this time. Our last adventure had left the girls drooping a bit, and myself more so. After another hour, José came to something I will reluctantly call our “rescue”.
He stopped his white panel van in the middle of the road in front of us. Traffic immediately began to pile up as we exchanged the now familiar netogiations.
“Porto? No? Where? WHERE?”
*Insert nervous glances at one another*
“Okay sure!”
I try the sliding side door. The handle moves but the door doesn’t so much as flinch. José reaches back and tries from the inside. Nothing. Traffic now extends around the corner, and our savior climbs into the back of the van and begins kicking the door. The whole van is now shaking as he pounds hopelessly over and over. I quickly realize that the side of the van is caved in and scraped over with caution-yellow paint, as if José had run into something.
I look back to Aga and Hannah who are equally enthralled and completely speachless. I hope that one of them will finally wave our savior off and wait for the next ride. Neither of them do anything.
José now leaps out of the van and rounds to the back as horns begin blaring. He swings open the rear doors, revealing a nest of clutter, and motions for us to climb in and over the back seats.
“Dont you want to sit in the front?” Agnieszka asks, grabbing my arm as I toss my back into the van.
“No, that’s fine! You can have it.” I reply all too quickly, my mind still hazy from our previous generous hosts.
So the pilgrims climb into the back of the dirty demolition van with the greasy-haired Samaritan.
As we pull off, I realize my mistake. Aga sits quietly in the front, next to José. She stares out the passenger window, and José stares at her, only taking safety glances back at the road. He stares her up and down, chewing his lip.
I wonder if this guy is actually a psycho. We crawled into his van, he got us.
On the floor I spot a wrench I could use to disbatch José of his consciousness should he make an unsavory move. The same wrench would work fine for making an exit in the window of the conviently jammed door. If GreaseBall tried something, I was ready.
Of course, I was wrong. He drove us for almost an hour without incident, far down the line, and left us safely at an underpass. We all released a stale breath as the van pulled away.
What were we doing? How in the hell had I let myself wind up just across the Portuguese boarder, in fading daylight, with no sense of direction or guarentee of a bed come sundown.
Again we plopped down on the side of the south-bearing highway ramp. Construction had torn most of the road up, creating a bottleneck for departing traffic. I finished the last of my water. My phone was almost dead.
The sun in Portugal was vicious, unrelenting in the cloudless sky. After walking the last twenty kilometers into Santiago, and then proceeding to hitchhike south into Portugal, my skin had been baked like tanned leather.
We were filthy. Dirt from the construction site we stood alongside caked with sweat on our faces. Our hair was ratty and matted; I hid mine beneath a grey cap I had acquired somewhere near Pondevedra. We stunk of several kinds of smoke, gasoline, and pilgrim funk. Evening commuters mostly looked scornfully at our motley crew or pretended not to notice us entirely. No one was going to give us a ride.
“I think its time to look for a bus.”
I picked up my sign, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and turned my back to the traffic. I had no idea where to catch a bus in this town, but there were no other options. The girls had begun to collect their things as a shiny black car pulled up next to us in the traffic. The driver rolled down the passenger window, and crisp, conditioned air poured out. The driver, a beautiful woman with floeing black curls smiled out at my companions and I.
“You are going to Braga? Hop in.” She said in near-perfect English.