Indy Adventure Contest Winner: #3
Last week, we introduced our first photo/essay contest asking for your best Indiana Jones moment, and we were delighted with the variety of results. Our first essay entry comes from Kimberly Lang of Washington, D.C. (and the Go Green Travel Green blog), who is the proud new owner of the Indiana Jones DVD box set.
It's 4 a.m. and 25° F outside when I stumble off the bus onto the streets of Ljubljana, Slovenia. I reach for my guidebook to lead the way to shelter. Crap! I left it on the bus—along with my daypack. And camera. And international cell phone.
"Chase the bus!" I yell at Elizabeth, my travel companion. With her 40-pound pack towering over her, she starts to run—more of a stunted jog, really—before looking back and realizing I haven't yet put on my pack. "You chase the bus!" Well, she has a point.
Off I go, sprinting after an oblivious bus driver down the pitch-black streets of an unfamiliar city, attempting to scream over a diesel engine. To no avail.
Out of the darkness, a car pulls up. The passenger door flies open and I leap in. Remembering I don't speak Slovene, I point madly ahead, yelling "Autobus!"
The cab driver assumes I'm German and reassuringly says something that includes "schlafen." I gather he knows where the bus drivers sleep and relax a bit as he drives me eight blocks to a parking lot full of buses. We find my driver still in the bus and I communicate my dilemma in a babel-like English-Russian-German combination.
I didn't duck out of the way of a 20-ton boulder or rescue the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis, but as the cab driver and I head back to Elizabeth—guidebook, camera, and phone in tow—I feel downright valiant. I victoriously exit the cab and don't even mind coughing up the driver’s exorbitant $20 fee. I may not have saved the world, but I did save us from spending a freezing winter night camping outside a train station.
Photo: "Three Heads" mountain, in Slovenia by John Blair. Via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool.
Great story!
Posted by: Marilyn Terrell | May 21, 2008 at 05:42 PM
These Indy stories totally rule. The tight word count, the heart pounding, the OH MY GOD ALL MY STUFF IS ON THE BUS.
They rule. I'm loving them.
Posted by: pam | May 21, 2008 at 05:47 PM
Thank you Pam! We were pretty bowled over by the high quality of the submissions.
Posted by: Marilyn Terrell | May 22, 2008 at 11:08 AM