Thumbing My Way

My Polish friends invited me to hitchhike to Slovenia with them.  I was a bit intoxicated when this invitation was presented to me, so of course I gladly accepted.  However, when a follow-up phone call ensued the next day, surprisingly, I was still just as interested in going.  I justified the whole thing by reminding myself that I had only one more day before lessons began, and I really should go on another adventure before I had any real responsibilities.  The funniest part was that I wasn't exactly sure where we were going, I assumed that the Poles simply wanted to venture into Slovenia because they absolutely love the place.  They had raved to me about how they could understand all of the street signs and everything in the supermarket had the same name as in Poland.  I did notice when I was in Slovenia, how consonants seemed to be thrown around with reckless abandon just like Polish, and my friends confirmed my suspicions about how similar the two languages are.

I made my way down-town and met the five Poles, who's names I will not try to butcher at this point.  We took a bus up the mountain to Opicina, which is a suburb of Trieste, and even closer to the Slovenian border.  They assured me that this would be the best place to hitch and also informed me that we would be breaking up into teams of two, as the six of us would surely have a difficult time catching the same ride.  The plan was to meet up in Pistonja, a Slovenian town about forty kilometers away (I still have no idea how many miles that is), because apparently, "Pistonja Jama" is one of the largest caves in Europe.  Perfect, I thought, we at least have a common destination, now we just need a ride.

Kamila and I, being the youngest and least experienced hitchers, were to go first.  The other Poles hid a ways back from the road and the two of us got started.  I used the thumb out, big smile technique, while Kamila perfected the jumping up and down approach.  Many people returned our smiles and outstretched thumbs, but no offers for a ride.  After about twenty minutes, we heard a yell from the concealed Poles.  We turned to our right and saw that a small, blue Volvo had pulled over a few feet ahead of us.  We ran over with delight as we were greeted by two Italian men.

"Where are you going?" One asked, in decent English as he shuffled some of the car's contents into the trunk.  Kamila and I looked at each other, we had said the name Pistojna over and over so we would not forget.

"umm Pis- Pis-,"

"Pis-tojna Jama!" thank God she remembered.

"Oh belissima."  The Italians beckoned us into the car, where a small wooden ladder occupied the seat between us.  I asked them how to say ladder in Italian.

"Legno, diciamo legno."  I proceeded to ask them why they had a ladder in the car, and could not get a straight answer, they preferred to answer my questions with some of their own.  We told them about being exchange students in Trieste, and how I knew a bit of Italian and Kamila did not.  

As we crossed over the border into Slovenia, the driver (who spoke no English) told me that they could not bring us all the way to Pistonja, but that they would bring us about five kilometers in the right direction.  We thanked them and came to the unfortunate realization, that this would take more than one ride.  The mountains surrounding us had a bit more color than the last time I was in Slovenia, and again I was reminded of Vermont.  I listened to the Italians speak, picking out bits and pieces of their conversation. 

The passenger was complaining about someone smoking cigarettes in his house, the driver could not understand the problem since he claimed everyone smokes in the house.  The passenger added the fact that this was in the morning, when he first woke up, which seemed to make the driver understand his pain, and then there was a bit about running or chasing that I did not quite understand.

As time continued to pass, I got the feeling that we were going farther than the five kilometers we had been promised.  At one sign that showed a fork between Ljubljana and Pistonja, the passenger beckoned the driver to go toward our destination.  The Italians even drove the extra 2.5 kilometers from the town center and dropped us off at the cave itself.  We thanked them profusely, and had a coffee while we waited for the others, patting ourselves on the back for being professional hitchhikers.

After about half an hour, Voytek and his girlfriend Agata arrived (I have seized my opportunity to terribly misspell their names, I apologize).  Like us, they had only required one ride and considered themselves lucky rather than skilled.  We waited a while for the other duo, all female, who called at one point to let us know that they were waiting for their fourth ride, and had been propositioned for sex by two separate drivers.  We had let them go last because they were by far the most experienced, one of the girls had hitchhiked all the way from Poland to Spain.  Outside the cave entrance there was a skeleton of a prehistoric bear, which was mildly entertaining, but a better way to kill time lay beyond the extinct creature.  

Voytek and I dove into the giant blue and yellow legos and then began constructing man-sized robots.  When we were finished we had a father with no hands and very square features, standing next to a child with no neck.  We posed for some pictures with our creations until at about five minutes to two, the girls arrived and we hastily bought our tickets and hopped onto the tram to enter the cave.  The tram raced us through the beginning of the jama, with Voytek repeatedly turning around to tell me,

"Noah, there is no safety on this roller coaster!"  We all threw our arms into the air and then quickly pulled them down, the cave had very low ceilings.  

Kamila and I sat very close to each other to take advantage of body heat (only eight degrees celsius inside the cave, which means absolutely nothing to me).  After the tram ride took us through chambers past stalactites and mites, which were very impressive, and a few rounds of humming the theme music from Indiana Jones, the tram stopped inside the cave, and we were beckoned to get out and find a guide.

We stood in a vast chamber, and looked around at signs advertising tours in various languages. Since the Poles don't speak any Italian, and I am not yet fluent in Slovenian, we compromised on an English group, which included of the six of us and about forty Japanese tourists.

Our guide was a red haired Slovenian woman (reddish-purple to be more accurate, the Slovenians are very fond of dying their hair) who spoke completely broken English.  I am sure that her amazing sense of humor was lost on everyone but me.

"OK so it take ten sousand year for stalactite and stalagmite to meet and form a peelar, so we come back in ten sousand year with new haircut."  These hilarious one-liners were delivered in a spectacular monotone, making it impossible for anyone but me to realize when punch-lines arrived.  Our guide took us through various, impressive chambers, describing the history and geology of the cave.

As we walked, she repeatedly told the Japanese tourists not to take photographs.

"OK no pictures please, because you will disturb the animals.  We have over eighty-five specie of animal."

"What sort of animals?" I asked, curious because I had not yet seen any sign of non-human life down here.

"There are many animal.  Eighty-five specie.  They are below us, in the river.  They feed on spider."  As the Japanese tourists continued to snap pictures left and right, our guide became more forceful, which was impossible to tell as her tone never changed.

"OK if you do not respect nature, please respect me, because my eyes are accustomed to dark and the flash iz very bad."  After a while she gave up and returned to being hilarious.

We reached a small corridor where we were forced to walk single file.

"You want to see natural beauty of cave?"

"Yes,"  I replied alone.  Our guide walked over to a small breaker and shut off the lights around us.  The place became so dark that I could not even see Kamila's blonde hair in front of me.

"OK see you later," said the guide and I laughed hysterically.  

When the light returned, she showed us a small tunnel, blocked off by large, steel doors.  She explained how the military used to hide troops and supplies in these caves and how they had built this escape tunnel some years ago.

"OK, so if anything bad happen, we run through there.  Small problem, we lost key many years ago."  This time I could not contain myself.  I started crying I was laughing so hard, and had to steady myself by placing my hand on an old Japanese man's shoulder.  He paused from his prohibited picture taking to give me a look of disapproval.  I removed my hand from his shoulder.

Our tour ended in the concert hall, which was an enormous chamber, capable of holding eight thousand people.  There was a small stage on one side, and a tremendous echo to anyone who wished to shout, whistle, or clap.  The Japanese politely clapped in unison as if they were at a golf match, and then began a chorus of "Ahhhhs" when the sounds returned, pointing their cameras up toward the ceiling to snap pictures of the echos.  I tried to ask the guide to explain to me how flash photography bothered the mysterious animals below us, but loud concerts were not a problem, but I don't think she understood the question.  I could not even get her to tell me if the animals were birds or fish or bears or what.

After the enchanting jama, we had a kebab and prepared to hitch home.  Again, Kamila and I were to go first.  We tossed our thumbs out and again were greeted by honks and smiles, but no rides.  The most excited people to see us seemed to be Slovenian farmers, who drove their tractors past us and waved madly.  One such tractor, pulling a load of what looked to me like the wood chips found in the bottom of a hamster cage, stopped and beckoned us inside.

"Where you go?"  The driver asked, as his overall clad son looked on.

"Italy."

"No, no, not Italy, come I take you one kilometer."  We declined, although I sort of wanted to check out a Slovenian wood chip farm.  

Like clockwork, after about twenty minutes, a blue Volvo pulled over to the side of the road, and sure enough it was the two Italians again, this time with Voytek and Agata in the back seat. We squeezed in, forcing the guy in the passenger seat to hold the ladder between his legs.

We exclaimed for a while about the unlikelyhood of meeting twice and told them about how much we enjoyed the cave.  I asked them what they had done that day, and the Italians told me that they had some lunch somewhere in Slovenia and then walked somewhere else, they could not remember the name of the place.  When we reached the border, Kamila had to duck as there was one extra person in the car.  After avoiding trouble with the polizia, we returned to Trieste, discussing everything from the upcoming sailing regatta (the largest in the world) to the daily stress caused by Italian Wi-Fi, or lack thereof.  

Alessandro, the driver, dropped us off at the train station in Trieste, and we thanked him repeatedly, agreeing that this would not be the last time.  Maybe Croatia next?  As I exited the Volvo, I tried one more inquiry about the ladder.

"Perché il legno?" 

"Sí, legno...our legno."  We slapped hands and I was satisfied with his answer, the first English word I had heard from Alessandro all day.