Wednesday 9 January 2008

Hitchhiking

It was a cool evening in Kiev after about two weeks away from home in Oster when Keith, Alex and I were on the metro heading east towards the final stop. When reaching this stop we stepped off the train onto the platform and took a left, quickly heading to the bus station for the final bus to Oster..we should have taken a right-hand turn. The three of us wander around the station and through a bazaar looking for something familiar that could lead us towards the bus station, but no luck. After searching and searching, we miss the final bus. Fortunately, we meet a woman who directs us to a place where more freelance marshrutkas (sort of like mini busses [like the JOs]) can be found.

Walking along what is similar to a highway, we find the bridge she told us to stand under, and to our surprise, this was the previous stop on the metro. There we found one marshrutka that was heading to Chernihiv and the driver said that Oster and Kozelets were stops on the way if we each paid extra. Sitting in the still vehicle, the three of us relax and watch a little Jurassic Park on the mini TV. It was of course voiced over...with one man voicing all characters and reading signs aloud. Excitement grew as the bus started and we began to move, but less than thirty seconds into the trip a car smashes into the back end of the drivers side, and we begin to sit to wait a bit more.

So another marshrutka comes to the rescue, we switch to the new driver's vehicle and head down the highway, but this driver is not going to Oster or Kozelets, he instead drops us off along the highway where the road to Oster passes over, we still have a good 20 Km to go. This is where the hitchhiking comes into play. We find a woman and her husband that were willing to pick us up and drive us into Oster at the cost of 50 gryvnyas. Long trip home, but I enjoyed it.

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