Minsk to Brest – May 20

I woke up at 11:00. I still had some rumbling intestines but at least my nausea was gone, so we decided to move. We started hitching at a spot where some hookers were looking for a different kind of ride. After 15 minutes a father with his two children stopped to eat some ice cream. Brecht approached them to ask if they were heading in the direction of Brest. Anatool said he could take us to Stowbtsy, if we wanted to wait for him to finish his sweets. Five minutes later we were aboard our first free ride since Velikiy Novgorod, 9 days ago.

Yoshi, Jules, Brecht, Violetta, Anatool
Yoshi, Jules, Brecht, Violetta, Anatool

Anatools kids, Yoshi and Viloletta, spoke better English then their dad, so we communicated with them most of the time. Brecht improved on his English a bit by studying one of Violetta’s school books. When we neared Stowbtsy, Anatool indicated that he would drive us 70 km further, because he thought we are such cool guys. He dropped us at a gas station near Baranavitsjy, about 200km from Brest.

We drank a coffee and 25 minutes later we got a ride from Andre and his mother, Lindera. (It’s also possible that their relationship was more Davy-and-Lucrece-ish.)

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Lindera and Andre

Andre spoke some German, so Brecht managed to communicate with him. He treated us to lunch. Later he took us to the center of his hometown, where he made some strange detours which allowed us to do some sightseeing. During his random driving maneuvers he dropped off his mother (or old wife) at an apartment block and later he stopped at a bus stop where a shy girl entered the car, which turned out to be his daughter. Finally he dropped us at a gas station, in a pretty unfavorable position on the ring road around Kobryn.

There was a lot of local traffic driving on the ring road and it was getting dark, but after some time we finally managed to stop a car that would take us to the center of Brest.

Max
Max

The driver, Max, was a soldier in the Belrusian Military. He knew a couple of English words, but he was especially a master in body language. We didn’t discuss Einsteins relativity theory, but we had a pretty fun and interesting conversation non the less. He dropped us right in front of our hostel.

To be continued…