Our bus driver for Thessaloniki to Sofia was without a doubt, the worst bus driver I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter.

Boarding was greeted with a significant amount of confusion around one ticket being valid for two people, which is not normally something I’d nitpick if it weren’t for what came next.

As we set off for Sofia, we began to notice that the route we were taking was a bit unusual, moving on to exit ramps only to merge back onto the highway on the next on-ramp.

Things began to feel very off when we made a complete u-turn at a roundabout and ended up back in the narrow lanes of Thessaloniki (after several, confused, passengers had already pressed the driver on what route, if any, he was taking).

The situation came to a heat at this point, when, after cutting off multiple cars, the bus began to turn down a highway off ramp, from the wrong way.

Everyone was quickly out of their seats, many passengers shouting at the driver to turn around or back away, cars honking and off-bound traffic building against the impassible mass of the large bus.

At this point, stuck in an intersection with cars all around, one passenger managed to escape, another disembarked to return a few seconds later once the bus was clear.

Thankfully, a hero emerged from the shouting, and managed to talk the driver through the turns relaying from their GPS.

After calm had returned for some time, we encountered another obstacle.

A toll booth.

A seemingly foreign event for this driver, despite their extreme prevalence throughout the route. Luckily, our hero was on hand to provide some instruction.

I’m writing this from the bus, so if it’s the last blog post you’ll know what happened.

Update

Some people made an escape once we’d crossed the border, getting some friends to give them a lift.

We continued on our path, skipping both scheduled stops on the way as we marched closer to Sofia.