Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 5
ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD
Warsaw was grey and freezing when we landed. Soldiers with semi-automatic ma-
chine guns stood next to the aircraft as we descended to the tarmac. We had ar-
rived in the Western cliché of the grey, crumbling communist bloc. This first im-
pression was dispelled immediately as Suzi Quatro's
Devil's Gate Drive
blared out
from the terminal's speakers.
'Hey, they've got taste in music here. That's a good start.' Alan had a way of
snarling and laughing at the same time. When asked how you could tell the twins
apart, the answer was simple: Alan leered and Adrian blinked when they were
weighing up a situation. At that moment, the Burgesses were eyeing up the women
among the small delegation there to meet us which included Wanda Rutkiewicz.
[1]
The final member of our party was the wiry Mick Geddes, a highly talented Scot-
tish friend who had completed all the Munros by the time he was sixteen. Mick al-
most always had a fag in his mouth and we were all a bit wary of his penchant for
midnight winter epics on the Ben.
It was early March 1976 and for four days we stayed at the homes of Warsaw-
based climbers. Meals were offered at every house we visited and at first we as-
sumed there was plenty of food. Slowly it dawned on us we were eating a week's
ration of eggs and meat at every sitting. We walked for miles through Warsaw and
its parks, visiting the amazing palaces and museums. Best of all, we were enter-
tained by lively discussions about the nature of freedom and comparisons between
life in the East and West. These took place away from public places, when we went
bouldering on wartime fortifications in the woods around the city and had lunch in
small dachas hidden among the trees.
Warsaw fascinated us. I noted in my diary the resilience of the Polish spirit cap-
tured temporarily in a vacuum of booming socialism. Andrez Zawada was with us
at some point every day, taking us with self-evident pride to the old city that had
been completely rebuilt after it was flattened during the extended Warsaw Upris-
ing against the Nazis in the summer of 1944.
Young architectural students had sketched the buildings and captured the style
of the medieval centre before it was reduced to a pile of rubble; it was from these
drawings that the old city emerged in the 1950s and 1960s.
[2]
