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Thumb Drive

HITCHING is like a litmus test for national well-being: the poorer the country, the easier it is to thumb a lift. Progress begets stinginess--once the average household acquires its own wheels, individuals are far less inclined to worry about others. The exception is in rural areas, like Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, where merciful passersby rarely leave hitchhikers to the elements.

In my guidebooks, I counsel against hitching because I have to. Most travellers read their travel guides far too seriously and hold us authors liable for missed busses or a bowl of lukewarm soup at a café. To such I say that hitching is definitely off limits (Stranger Danger, blah, blah). For the record, I would never hitch in my own country, but any respectable traveller should occasionally go to a place where hitching is the only way out.

Flying Ryanair already feels a lot like hitchhiking—a similar mood of uncertainty fills the air, we are all apprehensive passengers wary of one another, and each of us is plotting how we will achieve our real destination from an obscure drop off point. Thus I travelled to Slovenia, thanks to a one pound flight from Stansted to the one room terminal of Maribor International Airport. Maribor is Slovenia’s second largest city, renowned for the personal visits by Adolph Hitler and home to the world’s oldest living grapevine. (Stara trta is at least 400 years old and still produces around 100 bottles of highly-prized wine every year—the current pope is said to be a fan.) Slovenia might be the cutest country I’ve ever visited--somewhere between Luxembourg and a Disney cartoon with the Julian Alps thrown in. The towns are all cobblestones and half-timbers, the mountains make breathtaking silhouettes and the brooks actually babble. More than half the country is covered with old growth forest, and every prim house is surrounded with a picture-perfect garden. Small-scale organic farming is the national past time and for nearly a decade, the country has been a declared GMO-free bio-region in Europe. The air is unbelievably clean, the restaurants serve beautifully fresh vegetables, the mountains are dotted with natural thermal baths, and I’m thinking the country has the highest flowerbox per capita statistic in the world. Indeed, Slovenians enjoy the good life and I was happy to partake, if only for a few days. Such healthy living has me convinced that this is Europe’s new green Mecca, especially considering a sturdy alpine chalet with a pristine view sells for under 60,000 Euro.

The only annoying thing about Slovenia is that weekends are totally sacred. Everything is closed by noon on Saturday and Sunday is the day of the dead. That goes for all public transport, which is how I became stranded high up in the mountains with a flight to catch some 50km away. In spite of my combed hair and trustworthy smile, I counted ten, twenty, then thirty cars that rushed past my outstretched hand without a nod. Begging a ride begs humility, but after more than a hundred missed rides, I began to take issue with post-socialist Slovenians and their general reluctance towards a distressed foreigner. Was this just a healthy distrust of drifters? Uneasiness brought on by the horrors of neighbouring Croatia or Bosnia? I’ve hitched in dozens of countries and never waited so long as I did in Slovenia.

In the end I walked for two hours before finding success. The kind gentleman who gave me a lift apologised for speeding (150 kph) but he had to get to nearby Austria before the shops closed. There was a sale on vacuum cleaners in Graz and he had a coupon for 10% off. I certainly hope he got his discounted hoover. As for me, I made it to the airport in 15 minutes and waited an hour before someone arrived to open the doors.