linda sands

  From Europe from a Backpack, edited by Mark Pearson and Martin Westerman.

This essay also appears on the ocular travel website and was named first place winner in the essay category of the 2004 Georgia Writers Association Annual Competition and will appear in the anthology, Georgia on My Mind.

The People You Meet

I was sitting on a bunk bed in a mountaintop hostel in Salzburg debating if I should try to find a market in town or pay for a dinner of questionable quality right here, when I heard someone say, "Switzerland."

Eavesdropping is a great backpacker tool. It helped me choose Bruges over Brussels, convinced me to take an Amsterdam detour, and warned me about the Spaghetti Bolognese in Stuttgart. So, when I heard the girl say she was headed to Interlaken, I introduced myself as Linda from San Diego, on my way to be married in Florence. Her eyes went big in a really-that’s-interesting way, said she was Debbie from British Columbia, traveling with a guy friend from work, and meeting up with her high-school pal in Turkey. That was all good, but then she said, "Have you met Cynthia?" Cynthia was from Canada, too, but the other side, Quebec. She had some boring insurance job, made a bunch of money, then four months ago ditched it all to travel around the world—the backpacker’s dream. My hero.

Debbie said, "Cynthia’s roommate, Cathy, knows the way to the Secret Beer Garden." Now, that was interesting.

We found her on the patio with Dennis, Debbie’s co-worker and Spi, a young blonde dude from California. They were talking Ireland, but seemed equally intrigued with the prospect of a Secret Garden, so when Cathy stumbled from her room an hour later, we were waiting. She told us with beer breath and wild arm motions, "Yeah, I know where it is. C’mon, I’ll take you."

All the way down the winding, tree-lined, mountain road into the streets of Salzburg, I never once doubted my new companions. I didn’t know their last names, but I trusted them with my life. There is a bond among backpackers that people with suitcases and taxis and reservations will never understand.

When Cathy walked up the church steps, I thought she was joking, until she said, "Shhh," with one finger near her lips and swaying just a little. We looked at each other, shrugged and followed her inside the church.

The Catholic in me felt a little uneasy, like the feeling you’d get as a kid slipping out the window at midnight, or now, when you make long distance calls on the company dime. I went last, right down the middle aisle, past kneeling nuns fingering rosary beads and the bowed heads of penitent locals. We followed Cathy behind the altar and like some cheap detective novel, through a hidden door to a damp, yet well-lit stone staircase. The walls were cool to the touch and the steps curved away and down. I hurried to keep up, following the slap and echo of shoes hurrying toward beer. At the bottom of the stairwell was another door, faint sounds filtered through the thick wood, a deep rolling laugh, a high-pitched squeal. Cathy said, "Ready?" then pushed it open.

The first thing that hit me was the smell—pure brew. Brown-robed Monks straight from a Friar Tuck book of stereotypes, were laughing and hefting large ceramic steins.

From what I remember, there was more beer than garden. Sure, some plastic tables and chairs sat under a sad-looking tree, and there appeared to be a few trampled flowerbeds in the shadows, but the focus of this garden was the keg. We paid the chunky Monk at the head of the table, selected a heavy stein and filled it to the brim. "Do like this," another well-fed Brother told us. So we did. We slammed our steins, "Proust!" and sloshed beer all over ourselves until the keg was spent. Then a tall, thin Monk rolled out another oak barrel and the rest gets kinda fuzzy. I remember a mallet and a poky tool, and the chunky Monk asking for a volunteer. I remember singing Waltzing Matilda and Freré Jacques and I remember those plastic chairs weren’t all that sturdy. But mostly I remember the long dark walk back up the mountain, and how perfect Salzburg looked, like a painted movie backdrop.

In the morning, my new pals invited me to join them on The Sound of Music bus tour. I really didn’t feel up to noxious fumes or the Trapp Family, instead, my plan was to really depress myself, with a trip to Dachau.

When I returned that evening, we sat around the hostel with maps of Switzerland, bright orange guidebooks and cold beers.

We left in the morning. There’s a lot more waiting around when you travel with a group. Not everyone eats or rests or needs a bathroom at the same time, and there’s the polite open-ended questions—"Should we take this train, or . . . ."

I could almost hear the groans of Austrians when they saw us coming—six young travelers in wrinkled clothes with sneakers tied to overloaded backpacks. Luckily, we found an empty compartment and were able to close the door. We talked all the way to Zurich, sang rock-n-roll with busty 15-year-old boarding school students in Bern, and by the time we reached Interlaken, we knew who wanted to live in Florida and who had a butt-cheek tattoo.

We hiked our raggedy parade through town right up to the doors of Balmer’s Hostel, past the tv room and laundry facilities to the wood-paneled dorm rooms, which separated boys and girls and required shared beds—miletary-esque wide bunks, three high. But, since we were here to play and not sleep, it really didn’t matter. We met up with the boys on the patio for pretzels and wine. Deb made friends with a Balmer’s employee who laughed at our jokes and after a few more glasses of wine, led us to the Hotel Interlaken for dinner.

We spent the evening going bar to bar, dance floor to dance floor and rearranging garden furniture in the yards we passed. By the time we flagged down the Balmer’s van in the street, I was holding a Swiss license plate and speaking with an Australian accent. We could have been going home to a bed of concrete and it wouldn’t have mattered. Although, I think our Spanish roommates would have disagreed. They found no humor in our late night arrival or our drunken whispers and giggles. They were all business, and Spanish curses.

The next morning, Spi and Cynthia had to leave, one to seek a rich relative, the other—a mountain. We kissed and hugged and promised to stay in touch, then Dennis, Deb, Cathy and I moved to a private room.

We hung our wet laundry from a makeshift clothesline, played poker using green beans as chips and drank red Swiss wine like water. Dennis drew tattoos on our ankles and the best mural on the bathroom wall. We swam in the freezing water of Lake Brienz, hiked the Geissbach Falls and made late night sundaes in the employee kitchen. I found the perfect dress for my wedding in a second-hand shop, and my friends pitched in to buy it. They would be at my wedding, after all.

Ten years later, we still keep in touch. Dennis is an animator in LA, Spi is a computer geek in Germany, Cathy is a married nurse living in Florida, and Deb is a single Mom in BC, looking for the perfect man. I’m still trying to find Cynthia. Last I heard, she was filming a travel documentary in a remote area of Mexico and would be unreachable for a while. She’s still my hero.