For my first job at the new company, I was assigned a long-haul load to Pamplona, Spain. In the previous article, I wrote about why I changed companies and started driving to Spain. It was not just a simple transport from point A to point B. For me, it was my first big journey as a truck driver, and another moment when I realised that I was no longer sitting somewhere in an office behind a computer.
From Slovakia to Germany
I started early in the morning, around five o’clock. It was foggy, damp, a little rainy, and the whole morning had that typical November feeling. From Slovakia, I drove towards Brno & Prague in Czechia, and then further into Germany towards Nuremberg.
The first day was mostly about getting as far as possible, but still safely and within the rules. Around Prague, you can almost always expect traffic jams, because one of the main transit routes towards Germany goes through there. I spent my first night in Germany, before Nuremberg, at a rest area.
After that grey Slovak morning, the atmosphere slowly changed. The weather improved, and in the evening I had a beautiful sunset in front of me. I was standing with the truck somewhere in Germany, the engine was quiet, and I had that feeling that I was really out there on a big road.
France and the Feeling That This Was Real
The next day, I crossed into France. It was the beginning of November, but to my great joy, the sun came out. After that damp start in Slovakia, it felt like a completely different world. I turned on a local radio station in the cab, listened to French music, and slowly started to realise where I actually was.
I spent the second night in France, near Dijon, at a large rest area. France surprised me in a very positive way. The truck rest areas there felt much better developed than many rest areas in Slovakia or Czechia, and where I stopped, there was even a small forest area where you could take a normal walk.
While I was there, my new truck driver friend Jakub texted me. He was on his way back from Spain to Slovakia, and we realised that the next day we would be very close to each other. So we agreed to meet in the morning at a service station for coffee.
A Wrong Turn into the French Countryside
In France, transport companies sometimes plan journeys outside the most expensive motorway sections to save money on tolls. One of these alternatives is known among drivers as the old Portuguese road. That was also the way I was supposed to go.
The problem was that I was still a new driver. I did not know the exact route, and I relied on my Garmin truck navigation. I told myself that it had truck maps, so surely it knew what it was doing. But very quickly I understood that navigation systems are great helpers, but sometimes they can also send you somewhere where you really do not want to be with a truck.
I turned where the navigation told me to turn, and suddenly I was off the ideal route. I was driving on narrow roads, through villages, past horses and cows. It was a kind of romantic French countryside, but slightly different when you are sitting in a truck and you are not completely sure whether you should even be there. And then came the bridge.
It was an unmarked bridge with no height shown, which is a special category of stress for a truck driver. I looked at it with the confidence of an “experienced” truck driver with a few weeks of experience and told myself that I would make it. I drove very slowly, thinking that if I heard anything happening, I would stop and reverse back.
In the end, I made it through and met Jakub. When we started talking about this experience, he told me an important rule:
When you get lost or take a wrong turn, don’t keep going blindly. Go back the way you came!
Sunday in France
In the evening, I parked near Bordeaux. It was Saturday, and I knew that trucks were not allowed to drive on Sunday, so I had a day off ahead of me. After those days on the road, I slept for a brutal eleven hours. When I woke up, there was beautiful sunshine outside.
I was parked at a rest area near the village of Cestas, on the A63 towards the south, at Aire de Cestas Sud. I found an open gate from the parking area and walked to the village. It was Sunday, calm, sunny, and there was a local market in the village with food, seafood and a very pleasant, lively atmosphere.
I walked among the people, went to a local grocery store, and bought some typical French things: Dijon mustard, fresh French baguettes, and wine as a gift. For someone else, it might have been just an ordinary walk to a village, but for me it was my first small exploring trip during a trucking journey.
I did not want to be only a person driving from ramp to ramp, seeing everything else only through the windshield. I wanted to stop somewhere from time to time, walk around, see real places, and for a moment be part of the world outside the window.
Pamplona at Sunrise
After the free Sunday came another early start. It was shortly after four in the morning when I crossed the French-Spanish border. I even made a short video of it, because for me it was a huge moment.
My first time crossing into Spain as a truck driver, shortly after 4 a.m.
At sunrise, I arrived at the company in Pamplona, where I was scheduled to unload. I had 2,237 kilometres behind me and several days on the road.
After unloading, I still did not know what would come next. I was waiting for the next instructions from the company: when I would load back, when I would return to Slovakia, and what the plan would be for the road home.
For the moment, I was simply standing in Pamplona. The load was off, the truck was parked, and the next part of the journey had not started yet.