Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Afraid to ask what it would cost, I asked where to stay cheap. He nodded back up the alley
at the city. My flatbed driver waited. The mechanic spoke to him in casual Italian, and we were
off again in the flatbed, this time to a park a few minutes away, near the coliseum. I winced,
seeing the park crowded with campers. It was Pamplona redux but bigger with more exhaust,
body odor and garlic, a challenging blend of scents but infinitely better than shit. Maybe this
place had a sewer main.
I got out and shook hands with the driver. He hadn't mentioned a fee, so I asked, “
Combien
ça coute? Quanto costa?
”
He shook his head. I still didn't get it. What a country, to care so deeply for its youthful
motorcyclists out making contact with the world. The idea at hand was that a country should
care for its visitors who would carry home lasting impressions, visitors who were, after all,
spending money. The service seemed casual yet today is recalled as far away in a strange place.
A few thousand kids camped on the ground. I didn't know anybody but neither did they.
So I ambled in, looking for a few square feet to unroll my bag and lay down, comforted by
the easy move to horizontal, surrounded by an atmosphere both benign and welcoming. Yet a
random selection in a crowd of kids would foretell fate for the near term.
On one side were a striking couple, Erik from Scandinavia and Gretchen from Germany.
Very few young people had body fat then, because it was a more healthful time in general.
We'd grown up without computers or video games. We'd spent youthful years playing out-
doors, low tech games like tag, freeze tag, hide 'n seek, piggy wants a wave, red rover, crack
the whip. A hallmark of youth BC (before computers) was the parental call at dusk.
You get in
here this minute, and I mean now!
That was in from outdoors, where pulses surged and life was
vital. Thinness was also part of the youth culture because of the speed freaks, but recreational
drugs seemed less tragic than the obesity epidemic a few decades down the road.
All the rockers were skin on bones, with a standard physique useless to any purpose under
heaven except for twanging electric neon Jesus out of heavily amped guitars and banging on
drums. Erik was better built than most, handsome and suave with blond hair, blue eyes and
a perfect nose that looked superior. Erik turned to Gretchen, whose blue eyes, blonde hair,
perfect nose and stunning posture could make men twitch in fear and longing. Together, they
were like data meant to prove an Aryan theory.
I imagined her in form-fit leathers with a whip. “
Veh iss yoh peppahsss?
” She spoke with
soft deliberation, commanding the eyes of males, a dominatrix to make men cower, to make
men give and hope for some discipline too.
She took my hand and gazed into my eyes. Erik asked if I was traveling alone. I said ya, I
mean yes. He looked at her. She watched me. She asked, “Do you have the Eurail pass?” Maybe
a third of the kids traveled by train that summer. A Eurail pass was a few hundred bucks de-
pending on class of service and countries covered. For one price a pass allowed open travel
within certain boundaries and dates. “No. I have a motorcycle.”
