Hitchhiking Adventures – Part 4

I waited for half an hour and then an old broken car with three men in it stopped. There were two young men and an older one who was the driver. I saw right away that it was exactly the kind of a car where I planned to say thank you and not get in. But for the past 20 hours I had only made it 30 miles. I got in. The young man who was sitting next to the driver went to sit in the back-seat, so that I had my place next to the driver, whom I could only look into his face after I had sat down next to him. He didn’t have many teeth and were nasty scars across his face. That was how I imagined a criminal to look like.

The journey started and the three men continued drinking beer. They also offered me one, but it was too early for me to drink. The driver asked me: “What happens if you are driving drunk and the police stops you?” I said: "Then you can say goodbye to your driver's license for a long time." He said, while letting out a dirty laugh: "Well, I do not have my driver’s license anymore. I would have to go back to jail." While I was still thinking about why he might have been in prison before, we suddenly turned off the highway and drove slowly down a bad road with broken buildings on the sides, a scenery like in a bad movie. A perfect place to commit a crime. I thought to myself: “Now, Achim, now you are in trouble. Don´t break your own rules!”

I had the door handle in my hand. I was ready to jump out of the now only slowly driving car. My backpack was in back in the trunk. Goodbye, backpack. Did I have the most important things with me? Passport, money? Yes! The car stopped and I stopped breathing.

Only the driver got out of the car. He walked for a few meters, stopped by a tree and peed. He came back, got in and we went back on the highway. I was really relieved and I was still alive. All right, that was the perfect place and opportunity for them to kill me or beat me up, and leave me behind, taking my belongings with them. Now I felt safe and started to relax. After about 15 minutes and a beer later, we left the highway again. And again, we drove into an abandoned neighborhood. Seems like Montana is full of these places that are good for a horror movie. Now I felt even worse: “Okay, when we first left the highway, it was just a test of how I would react. They understood how stupid I was. Now it's my turn. Now they'll do something to you. I am sure.” After maybe 300 meters, we stopped at a run-down car repair garage. I wasn’t sure if it was still up and running. Nobody was there. After leaving the highway I did not see anybody who could help me and who would see anything. Somehow everything had come down to this. And there was no one, just me, alone with the three men in the car. The driver got out again. He knew the place and what to do. He was not in a hurry. He found a water hose and took it. And with the water hose in his hand he came back. And what did he do? He opened the engine hood. And then he sprayed water from the water hose onto the engine that got far too hot during the drive. A unique way to take care of a car and to scare me.

When he was done, he went back into the car and we were back on the highway. Now I was sure that the three didn't want to harm me. The driver even invited me to stay at his place. "You can stay at my place over the night, you look like you also need a shower and something to eat," he said. I started to like them and their beer.

Beer & Pavarotti

We drove for a while. Slowly, the straight highway turned into a winding one, and we drove into the mountains. And the three men drank beer after beer. Now, I was no longer afraid of the driver, but of a drunk man driving. We stopped at a parking lot, and after all that beer all three had to go to the toilet. When they disappeared into the restroom, I took my backpack out of the trunk, walked away a few meters and waited for the three to come back from the toilet. Before they came too close, I called to them and said that it was such a nice place here and that I decided to go for a hike a bit in the mountains around. I thanked them kindly without waiting for them to come much closer. The three were a little angry and probably didn't really believe me either. "You do not like our company, right?" They called something like that back. I waved nicely and made sure I made some distance between them and me. They got in their car, drove off and I was again on my own. A few minutes later I talked to a pensioner who sold his house in Canada, bought a caravan and decided to travel around North America as long as he would be able to. He invited me for a ride to Yellowstone. But before that he wanted to eat something for lunch. A little later we were sitting together in his caravan, eating pasta and watching Pavarotti singing opera on his TV set.