Adrift and Adventuring

The first time I hitchhiked we caught a ride out to the Karpas National park in Cyprus. We ran wild on the beach and dunes, dug holes to hide from the wind, found caves and made them liveable. Why on earth we didn't think about food and water is beyond me. We had a loaf of bread and some bananas, but after two days we ended up going to the one establishment that was open, and ordering one burger every day (because that was all we could afford, with no money and no ATMs) . The turtle-nesting beaches that we spent all day on had these broken needles along the tide line, washed up from Syria, and when we ran we had to keep our heads down to avoid stepping on them with our bare feet.
One day we hitched a ride out to the S. Andreas monastery with a couple of American biologists. We climbed all over the cliffs and got sprayed by the smashing waves, and became separated and lost, and I remember that the utter freedom we had was terrifying.
After a week we left. We departed in the early morning, walking on the side of these country roads with our backpacks, through fields, in the sun, and across stone bridges. We walked for a long time, and took a break under a big tree, when finally a white van approached behind us, and we stuck out our thumbs and he stopped for us. Chris and Dani loaded into the empty, dusty back of the van, and I sat in the front with the driver who spoke not a word of English but I managed to communicate that we wanted taking to the nearest town, Dipkarpaz. So for an hour or so we drove through the afternoon, and the windows were down and I stuck my hand out the window and hoped that Dani and Chris could breathe and weren't too scared in the dark.
He dropped us off in front of the big stone building where we had sat and watched a movie be filmed some days before. We sat again on the pillared veranda, and drank tea, and smoked cigarettes, and decided to try to go back to Famagusta, the nearest city.
After a few hours of fruitless waiting to see if a bus would come, we set off again. We walked to the edge of town, and then found a highway that seemed to lead back in the general direction we wanted to go (South), and again we walked for about an hour. Finally a tiny car stopped for us, with two teenage girls in the front and a sullen, shy teenage boy in the back. Somehow we managed to cram all three of us plus our bags into the already tight car, and again, no English was spoken but we didn't care where we ended up, as long as it was somewhere.