My Large, Bald, Bulgarian Taxi Driver Friend

“I like to use local transport, travel the back roads,” I had said to my husband’s friend Eric, whom we accompanied on a trip to Eastern Europe earlier this month. “I’ve met some of the nicest people on public transport. It’s the best way to meet locals.”

My hearty endorsement of anything that wasn’t a plane was the main reason that we didn’t book flights to get us from Romania to Turkey. Instead, we set out one morning by rail from Brasov, about 100 miles north of Bucharest, and used two connecting trains to get us to Varna, a Black Sea resort town in Bulgaria. We decided to stay two nights in Varna before continuing on to Istanbul by bus. The idea looked good on paper, at least.

Although the trains ran like clockwork, it was a long and rather monotonous day. Our train-compartment mates were either very shy (two ladies en route to Sophia) or didn’t speak English (an older woman doing crosswords in a newspaper with bare-breasted women on the front page). After a couple of brief exchanges, I was relegated to amuse myself by talking to Francis (I live with him, so we talk all the time, you know?) and Eric (he’ll never read this blog post anyway). Tick tock.

We reached Varna at 8:15 p.m., or 20:15, as they like to say in Europe. Upon hearing of our arrival, the last traces of sunshine had vanished and we were greeted by biting wind and rain as we stepped out of the station. Very Three Stooges-like, we made our way around the side of the building and through the parking lot, in search of taxi cabs. “There they are, over there, over there!” I yelled over my shoulder at Larry and Moe.

While there may have been a taxi rank in the train station parking lot (husband insists there was, but this has not been verified), I galloped over to the single-file line of yellow that was parked curbside on the main road. The driver from the last car, a large, bald man with ruddy skin, jumped from his car and popped the trunk open for our luggage. Dressed all in black, right down to his leather bomber jacket, he was an imposing figure. In my head, I named him Boris. Eager to escape the rain, we piled into the car and gave him the name of our hotel.

There’s something about taxi drivers in Eastern Europe and the multitude of tricks that they use to separate a tourist from their cash. We’d already been scammed twice by taxi drivers on this trip (I had another expression for it, but will refrain from using it here), so I had preemptively used my noggin and emailed the hotel the night before to ask how much it should cost to get from the train station to the hotel. “No more than five lev,” was the answer that was relayed back to me.

Although we were quite used to the ‘meters optional’ type of cabs, for some reason—tired, cold, wet, Stooge-like—we didn’t negotiate the fixed rate when we set out. The driver had to stop and ask one of his comrades (okay, I guess that was then…) for directions, and then before you could even say feta cheese, we were at the hotel.

“Ten lev,” Boris said as he started to unload our bags.

If there’s one thing that makes me go from zero to righteous indignation in about six seconds, it’s when I feel like I’m being scammed. The dollar amount is irrelevant; it’s the principle.  For me, it’s also like a sport—survival of the fittest, savviest traveler, or something like that. “What? Are you kidding?!” I yelled. “No way. Five lev. That’s all. Five lev.”

“Ten lev,” he growled.

“No, look, the hotel told me it was five lev. Come inside. Come on. Let’s go ask them.”

A stream of angry Bulgarian, with a “fuck you” thrown in for good measure, spewed from Boris’s mouth. He kicked at one of our bags. Two employees of the restaurant next door, out back having a smoke, looked on in amusement. I started walking into the hotel and Boris had no choice but to follow. Francis and Eric followed, too, but kept a healthy distance, like they didn’t know me.

I explained my predicament to the bewildered man at the front desk. Boris then told his side, arms waving, spittle spitting. The front desk attendant gave me a sheepish look and shrugged his shoulders.

In disbelief that I was just thrown under the bus by the hotel attendant, I realized that Boris had me backed into a corner. We locked eyes in a tense standoff (if I had horns, I would have locked them with Boris’s horns, but I don’t, so we just locked eyes). Seconds passed. The hotel attendant stayed seated, muscles tensed and ready to dive under the desk. Finally, I reluctantly withdrew a ten lev note from my wallet and held it out.

Boris snatched the bill from my hand and turned on his heel. “Yeah, well fuck you, too!” I screamed as he went out the door. Sighting him through the front windows of the hotel, I thrust my middle finger out in defiance and shook it at the back of his bobbing bald head until it finally disappeared.

I could see Francis and Eric out of the corner of my eye, hiding behind a pillar. I straightened my shoulders and smoothed down the front of my jacket. The front desk attendant finally stood up. With a forced smile and a tentative voice, he said, “May I help you?”

Postscript: I’ll save y’all the trouble of going to a foreign currency converter web site right now and tell you that the difference between five lev and 10 lev is $3.58 U.S. You can laugh. It’s the principle.