Misadventures ..... Part One

Shelley's boyfriend of a year, was flying over to meet her in Zurich. This presented a bit of a problem for her, because she was in Greece and had fallen head-over-heels in love with a handsome, young British guy.  "I don't want to go!  I don't want to leave John," she lamented.  But, Glen was coming over and there was nothing she could do.  Not having the funds to fly to Switzerland, and afraid of travelling alone, she cajoled me, her sister Arlene, into making the long journey with her. 

Having done our share of hitchhiking while touring the continent, we opted for the bus.  It was certainly better than the inherent dangers of accepting rides with sketchy characters, but it took some time to grow immune to the perfume of unwashed bodies and clothing that permeated the air and assaulted our sensitive, Canadian noses. The chicken and goat 'passengers' added a little intrigue to the bouquet.

The seven-hour trip to Thessaloniki passed without incident and after a short rest to celebrate Shelley's eighteenth birthday, we re-boarded a bus for Skopje in Macedonia. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by scores of the town's youth whose job it was to accompany passengers to several nearby hotels.  After waiting for them to register, they were then escorted to the town square where a delightful ritual took place. Around and around we walked, arms linked, following the hundreds of souls, young and old, whose habit it was to stroll clock-wise around the plaza, dressed in their Sunday-best, greeting friends and neighbours in an age-old, after-church tradition. They were handsome and kind and we were charmed by their old-world courtesy.  It would have been wonderful to spend several days there but Switzerland and the ever-looming date of Glen's arrival meant that a longer stop-over was not an option.

It was at that point that we decided to save a bit of money and try our luck, once again, at hitchhiking. We had never had trouble procuring a ride. In the seventies, we were young, cute and our skin fitted us perfectly!  The following morning, we were picked up by a young man and woman driving the ever popular Volkswagen van, covered in the ever popular psychedelic graffiti so typical of that time...bright flowers, a sun, fluffy white clouds, birds and rainbows, a yin-yang symbol, the words PEACE and LOVE and of course, the requisite Smiley Face. It was like coming home, and we boarded without hesitation. Due to a dearth of seats in the van, Shelley sat on a wooden crate and I perched on a cooler.  It was not the most comfortable way to travel, but it was free!  We learned that our hosts had just returned from Turkey where they'd spent the last six months.

Several hours later we arrived at the frontier of Yugoslavia.  Two armed soldiers looked in through the van's windows and waved us through. Once we'd crossed the border, the young man and woman started to cheer, whooping and shouting. "We made it!  We did it!" "What's going on?  Why so happy?" asked Shelley.  The driver pulled over to the side of the road and said, "Open the cooler and the box."  We did as told and found both full to the brim with hashish!!  The couple laughed, and the young woman said, "The whole van, the sides, the doors, the roof and floor are lined with hashish!"  We couldn't believe our ears. We were horrified to say the least.  "But, what if they'd stopped us and searched the van," demanded a very upset Shelley.  "That's why we picked you up. It looked more innocent with the two of you aboard!"  "But if they had, we would've been thrown in jail even though we had nothing to do with it!"  "Well, we didn't get caught, so you don't have to worry about it," said the obviously brain-dead girl. The two lawbreakers smiled at each other, a smug glow of self-congratulation brightened their faces. "We're out of here," and almost fell over each other in our hurry to exit the van.