Hitchhiking – Part 2

Let’s start at the beginning.

I slowly prepared myself for new victories in the morning. I didn’t rush with breakfast, as there were still very few people around. After waiting for about an hour, I managed to cadge a ride to the next lay-off that was also the last one in Italy. I was all crammed in the car with the backpack in my hands, so I couldn’t write down the names of the drivers who contributed to that part of the picture, but I remember that the female driver, just like me, went on an Erasmus exchange in Coimbra. It was nice reminiscing about that eventful year. Before turning off the motorway, she dropped me off at the Gran Bosco, km. 18, lay-by where I got stuck again for a while.

There was minimum traffic and, after talking to lorry drivers, I realised none of them were headed to France. The lorry drivers were few because the tunnel toll was expensive, so they avoided this route and rather opted for the coast instead, which was a great lesson for me, at least for when I’m about to travel alone. You can’t count on the drivers if you’re travelling in a pair because there’s only one free seat available.

The lay-by had a bridge and, after a few hours of waiting in vain, I was determined to simply move forward and head towards the coast, should bad luck persist. I wouldn’t have cared about what that would entail, as it was again better to move forward than to stay in one place indefinitely, even if that meant taking one step forward and two steps back. I also wondered what was happening at the border and hoped that it wasn’t a protest or anything of that kind because seven Carabinieri vans and a bus full of soldiers stopped at the lay-by, which made me think that it really wasn’t my day. The Carabinieri were even talking to each other about picking me up, which would’ve been splendid, had it actually happened.

When I finally got a ride, I issued a sigh of relief as the two people who picked me up mostly talked to each other, and I could admire the wonderful Alpine valley, which was one of the largest I’ll see again on my way back to Slovenia. I have to say that trip was a true gift when it comes to enjoying the scenery offered by such narrow valleys. I didn’t manage to write down the names of the two people as it would require a little extra effort because they were both Moroccans. The male had been living in Italy since he was little and had a real north African look, while the female was from Tangier and had more Latin American features. I hadn’t been the only one who happened to ask her if she was from Colombia or Venezuela, even though I knew you could come across all kinds of faces.

They were headed to Orleans, towards Paris, which meant that they were going to drive north for a while, going up one of the busiest roads in the country that connects Paris to Marseille, which was good news. I was afraid I’d had difficulties trying to reach the coast if I stopped outside Grenoble, so I had to find another solution like turn onto the Autoroute du Soleil. It somehow escaped my mind then that there was the Les Cheres lay-by north of Lyon with a bridge, so I later found another lay-by a bit further north of Mâcon, but it was only then that the story took on another dimension.

The weather near Lyon wasn’t exactly nice, but I decided to heed the advice of my drivers who told me that I should stop at the toll station near Villefrance-sur-Saône that surprisingly had an overhead walkway, so I didn’t see any problem in that.

But the problem I never even thought about soon presented itself when I tried to reach, despite the signs for restricted access, the bridge above (a rather large) toll station, which was obviously locked behind closed gates. What now? I took a look at the map and saw that the city was quite near, so I waited for the rain that just began to fall to abate a bit, so I went for a walk. I was lucky enough to have already reached an exit a little further from the toll station that was connected to the other side of the motorway and the path was well-trodden.

I reached the other side drenched in sweat, so I changed my clothes and realised I wouldn’t be able to hitchhike out in the open, as it was constantly raining, upon which I was restricted to only those people who came by the toilets. Surprisingly, it only rained for about an hour and a half and I was saved by a ride that took me back to Les Cheres where I had been freezing in January when Aga, a girl from Poland, and I were on our way to Erasmus exchange. The lay-by had a bridge as one side was completely self-service and encompassed nothing but a car park and toilets, while the other side had a restaurant where you could stay at night and take a shower for a low price. I can tell you that the coffee from the vending machine was good and at a reasonable price.

The rain stopped and I could actually walk up to everyone who showed up, which was quite a challenge, as it was hard to cover the large area between the toilets and the petrol station all on my own. The problem was also that people seemed to avoid the self-service petrol station and rather continued their search for petroleum, retaining the human element.

As I was standing between the fuel dispensers, hoping I’d be able to continue towards the coast that same day, a large four-wheel Nissan car with, mind you, Spanish car plates pulled up. I checked a few times because I couldn’t believe my eyes. I approached the man who just stepped out of the car and asked him if he’s headed south and if he could take me with him, at least for a while. “No hay problema,” he replied and confirmed that with “déjame que rellene y nos vamos,” so I knew right away that I heard it right. He was going to visit his “finca” near Tortosa above the Ebro Valley in the far south of Catalonia, which meant that I was able to hitch the last ride of that trip, as there was no other route than the one past Girona where I was headed. It took me two hours to even get a ride, which wasn’t a lot considering the circumstances I found myself in, and definitely not considering the reward I received for my patience with all the stupid things I did along the way; on that wonderful day, I wasn’t sure anymore if I was just making rookie mistakes or if it was time for me to stop with these endeavours because I was long past my expiry date, as my mother would say.

Marc was just the right person for such a long ride; we travelled together for 560 kilometres and he first started travelling at the age of eleven when he went hitchhiking to eastern Europe with his father, who had already started hitchhiking during World War II. I really couldn’t have found a better person to complete the journey with, the journey that ended in the emergency lane near the Girona O exit on AP-7, which I’d used as the entry point to the beautiful city so many times before. I travelled another 1470 kilometres and then happily crashed on my friend’s couch. He, just like me, had taken a holiday around that time which prompted me to spend short holidays on the sunny side of the Pyrenees.

The destination isn’t the most important, what is more important, as it seems when visiting the places I’ve already been to, is the journey, though the destination had its purpose in this case. I was planning on spending a day or two walking around the city, stopping at various accommodation establishments to ask for a work placement, but more about that next time.