That easy-erase board was our best friend as we embarked on our journey from Toulouse to Strasbourg a few days ago. Armelle had told me how (relatively) easy and fun it was traveling by hitchhiking and I've always wanted to after reading books by Jack Kerouac and other Beatniks. Given that I had zero experience yet plenty of enthusiasm she was the perfect companion, battle-tested and a French native (my French is coming along, slowly but surely).
We began by taking a bus from Madrid to Toulouse through Basque Country, changing buses in San Sebastián. The climatic differences are amazing, it's so green! Madrid is a sub-desert climate, you look everywhere outside the city and it's beige, the way you imagine parts of Mexico or Arizona. The air is arid, in the summer your laundry can dry within hours of coming out of the washing machine. It rarely rains and hardly ever for days on end, it's a stark contrast from the humid, marsh climate of New York. The landscapes are breathtaking, rolling hills, lush countrysides, ubiquitous trees. I'm definitely going to return, this is a Spain I've yet to see though the one other stark contrast was the language, Euskara is something else! Speaking English, Spanish and understanding a bit of French has helped me but nothing has prepared me for Euskara, it's a different beast. In any case we caught our bus to Toulouse and were on our merry way, seeing the country change from Basque to French. We even made a stop at Pau, France, the site of my buddy Jason's month-long stay over a decade ago while studying abroad.
We arrived in Toulouse on Thursday night, hungry, tired, stiff, but being that I'd never been I still desired to walk through the city to our destination, passing the Capitole, crossing the river and on to the flat of Armelle's friend Anita. After a bit of bumbling about and a kebab in our belly we made it to Anita's apt, she welcomed us with a drink, banter and a futon to sleep on. The following morning we made a few errands before heading on our way, a stop at the post office was in order. It was entertaining (and time consuming) to say the least, she needed to deposit money and I needed to get a French SIM card so we waited on the line and discussed our plans (in Spanish, as usual). An elderly gentleman asked me if I was Spanish and I explained to him that I'm not but that we live in Madrid and had just arrived recently, the rest of the convo went like this:
Old man from Salamanca: Tu eres de Madrid?
Me: Sí, vivimos ahí.
Old man from Salamanca: Real Madrid... Chuletas de ternera, copas de champán, fumando cigarros puros... Y 5 millones de trabajadores paradas... QUE GUAPO!!!
As he shuffled away with his cane it took me a second to digest what he meant, but obviously he was upset about the millions that Real can splash for international Galacticos and yet so many spaniards are suffering on the dole. He grumbled these sentiments to me and although it was an amusing encounter it was also illuminating, perhaps the man had moved there during the Franco years, perhaps he still had family there... it's these small conversations with complete strangers that make these trips worthwhile.
We took the metro to Ramonville and walked a mile next to the road in tall brush and hay until we passed the toll. At the toll we wrote the next town we were aiming for, Carcassonne, and hoped for the best. Within 10 minutes we had our first ride, a couple in a beat-up coupe looking to go fishing. The young woman had various tats, a rose on her left forearm, wings on her upper back, she was red from sunburns and wore sunglasses, Oakley-style, most of the time. Her boyfriend wore short hair, blonde, he had a kind of dirty Vincent Cassel look, the way he portrays most of his characters, scowling most of the time with an occasional smile. He had his middle and ring fingers bound in gauze and I'm guessing that's the reason he wasn't behind the steering wheel. They seemed a bit white trash, a bit dangerous in a way, but of all the gleaming, expensive cars to pass by with their snotty owners staring down at us they were the first ones to offer us a ride and even went out of their way, literally taking us 10km past where they were going. It wasn't until after they'd dropped us off at a rest stop that Armelle told me that in fact they'd made some disparaging remarks about Arabs and, well, that's the way of the world, sometimes. It's an irony, no, they were so kind to us and yet what if we were Arab, at least visibly so?
We ate at the rest stop, it was noon by this time and the sun was baking everything in its glare, and after a nice lunch of jamon iberico, queso curado and bread we searched for another lift. Armelle felt that if we approached a car owner that was clearly from the region we were heading in, due to the number on the license plates you can determine their region of origin, we might be more likely to secure a ride. The problem is that my French isn't good enough in this respect, the only thing it's good enough is small banter, and so she'd be the only one able to do this job. After trying out this approach, and suffering from standing so long, I suggested we wait at the exit of the rest stop where cars would have to pass through. We found a nice spot underneath a tree and hoped for the best, within another half hour our next driver picked us up, Stéphane.
Stéphane was a middle aged man, I'd put him in his fifties, with brown, thinning hair but an easygoing air to him, he smiled easily (even if half the time I didn't know what he was saying). He'd been to many parts of Spain and could speak a bit of Spanish, he smoked like a chimney and drove quickly (I liked the latter most). He took us from Carcassonne to Montpelier, he wanted to leave us at the toll but it didn't work out so he left us at a crazy roundabout. From that roundabout we found another driver that wanted to take us close to Nimes but he found that he in fact couldn't help us so he took us to another roundabout on the either side of town. There we were a bit lost so after buying some fruit and roasted ham (and asking for help from the vendor) we hiked up from the roundabout to another one where we managed to get a driver heading to an area between Montpelier and Nimes. He definitely helped us but at the same time this rest stop was far too close to Marseille, because of this many drivers weren't heading in our direction.
We spent hours at that stop, trying her method, trying my method, trying out different cities on the erase board to see if one worked better than the other. We arrived there around 6:30pm and after hours there with no luck the sun was going down and the temp with it. Our goal was Lyon for the day and we were a good 250km away, I didn't want to spend the night at this rest stop in te middle of nowhere with no tent, no sleeping bag, no proper clothing for roughing it and not many prospects. I consider myself an optimistic realist but my optimism was rapidly running out and the fun that this trip offered starkly became something else, fear. She kept me optimistic, even though we had different ideas about what we would do should night fall she was confident we would make it through. We entertained ourselves during this time by insulting the various drivers who not only rejected us but either ignored or sneered their uppity faces at us, it definitely helped pass the time. Salvation came just when my enthusiasm was nearing its end, Nathanaël with his cousin picked us up and were going to leave us in Avignon but we didn't know a soul there so he offered to let us crash if his girlfriend was ok with it. It's a small world but his girlfriend, Cecile, is a Spanish teacher there and when we arrived we soon became acquainted. It was awkward, there's no doubt, but the fact that these complete strangers took us into their home, fed us and then gave us a futon and room to sleep in is something I'll never forget. They restored a faith in humanity for me when I'd given up hope and I plan on repaying that kind of compassion to someone in the future.
We ate dinner, spoke well into the night, as their daughters watched Koh-lanta (the French version of Survivor), and took showers to wash off the film of road dust from our bodies. The next day we awoke, ate breakfast with the two young daughters (I inadvertently scared the younger one with tales of crocodiles in Florida) and prepared for another arduous day on the road. Cecile drove us past the outer wall of Avignon, it's an ancient city but unlike Carcassonne, which was rebuilt after the war, its ancient part is still lived in, still a main part of the day to day. We saw the famous bridge of Avignon, extending to nowhere, and continued on to the toll where Cecile left us.
Here again we didn't spend too much time, it seems that tolls on the main highway of France are excellent places to get picked up whereas rest stops are hit & miss. After 15 minutes, or maybe a bit longer, we were picked up by an middle-aged woman and her teen daughter in their way to Lyon. This would be a good 200km, luckily I didn't have to speak much and slept through most of it while Armelle chatted with our gracious driver.
Lyon is a beautiful city from the glimpse I caught, we were supposed to spend the night there instead of in Avignon but that'll have to be an adventure for another day. In Lyon our loquacious driver left us near the Musée des Confluences and there we spent a half hour by the side of the road with the sun baking everything in sight. We set our sights on various cities, in the beginning shooting directly for Strasbourg but bit having much luck with that. Armelle had mentioned that Muslims typically pick up hitchhikers because they're obligated religiously to help others, especially with Ramadan fast approaching. And so it was, two Algerian men, one Berber and other Arab, picked us up in a minivan along with a gentleman from Niger they'd picked up using Bla Bla Car. It was a relief, they had AC, offered us a frozen bottle of water (that soon melted) and blasted Middle Eastern rap and ballads the whole ride (some of those we're bangers). They were really kind, at one point offering baklava and a similar tasting muffin. The Berber gentleman, I sadly have forgotten both their names, had been to New York and various cities all over the US and world, they were both affable and easygoing. The Arab fellow, he was very typical in his dress and gestures, he danced to the songs, had one of these heavily gelled hairstyles with a bit of his front combed down and didn't speak much French but gave off a friendly air. We spent hours in their company, at times I vibed with the music, at times I passed out, Armelle really assumed the duties of speaking with the drivers as my abilities in this realm were limited but I gave it a shot when proposed (typically I'm the chatterbox for the two). They left us in Metz, approximately 150km from Strasbourg and it was still 6:30pm, Strasbourg was achingly within reach. We got a ride to the peage (toll) and there languished for what seemed an eternity, we each had different yet similar goals, I wanted to arrive as soon as possible in order to not miss the Champions League Final (my Barça was playing and I was miserable that I'd possibly miss the match, they were on the verge of completing a historic second treble and... And... I couldn't consider missing it). She wanted to make the most of her vacation and spend as much time with her family as possible, she also knows how much the game meant to me but of course family comes first. We both wanted to get back soon but as the sun descended and the breeze became cooler desperation began to set in. Our saviors arrived in small sedan, the driver a tall blonde-haired guy with short hair and billy goat beard. His girlfriend, blonde as well in a light brown dress,were very kind, they were young like us, strasbourgois, and even played the game on the radio for us as we made our way to Strasbourg. I heard on the radio when Rakitic scored the first goal of the game 4 minutes in (translated as I'm not well-versed enough to catch it all on a radio broadcast) and looked forward to stopping in at a bar as soon as we got into town. They lived pretty close to her parents' home and we even ran into her brother Benoît as we started walking a bit. We'd made it.
The experience of hitchhiking is no longer as idyllic as it once was in my head, there were very serious realities that we weren't prepared for (I think a waterproof tent and sleeping bags could've helped for starters). Then there's the idiots who honked their horns at either Armelle (for being an attractive female) or at me (for possibly looking Arab or Asian or in any case non-French). There was also the incredible kindness of those who wanted to help a young couple, especially Nathanaël and Cecile. I promise, this to the universe, to pay forward their hospitality and generosity, there are still good people out there.
