Day 4 - 29th April

Hitching Tip 119: Hold your sign upside down and pretend only to notice when a driver does, then laugh. If they laugh with you chances are your getting a ride!

10.30am, I’ve slept in and missed all the trucks but happy as possible and In love with the world I set off. The sun is shinning, I find a perfect spot to get a ride but decide to take it easy and read in the sun for a few hours.

Finishing the book, I stick my thumb out and smile.

Then he comes.

Dressed entirely in black, a hood pulled over his head despite the heat and a dirty old army duffel bag; hobo. He takes a spot IN FRONT of me and sticks his thumb out. This frenchie just broke the rules.

I decide to approach him and see if we can sort it out, I greet him in french and stick my hand out. He looks at my hand, grunts and turns back to the road. And I was going to share my pilfered bread and cheese with this wanker!

The man in black has just ruined my perfect morning. So options are, I can walk further along the road and hope my smile and cleaner look (it’s not often I get to play that card) will get me a ride that passes him, I can show him that we both know he’s broken the rules and I’m not going to take it or I can take another direction. In my opinion confrontations with hobo’s are best avoided, they’re reckless with nothing to loose and are frequently armed. Plus breaking the jaw of a person who is already at rock bottom over a breach of hitching rules would be pathetic. So option 2 is scratched. This guys giving me bad mojo so I decide to clear off and head towards Poitiers instead of Niort.

As soon as I’m walking away from him I feel great and half an hour later I’m sitting comfortably in the seat of another truck getting closer and closer to Spain. But it get’s better than that.

Santi a spanish truck driver can take me all the way to Irun the town where I’m starting the Camino de Santiago. His name Santi is short for Santiago.

Santi

I’ve lost the belief as I write this but at the time, I take the man in black as a ’sign’ to get me on the right path so Santi could pick me up. Sound crazy? It sounds a bit silly to me but I remember how strong the feeling to change directions was and then I’m taken to the exact town where I’m starting my camino Santiago by a man called Santiago!

We ride in silence for hours, I slouch in the comfy chair, light cigarette after cigarette and soak in the sun and beautiful views. I can’t stop smiling, life is great.

We make it within 60 km’s of the Spanish border before stupid laws require Santi to stop for the night. He’s hauling spuds so all the other Spanish truckers crowd around and we cook potato soup and chips. One of the truckers pulls out a guitar and another a harmonica and before I know I have a glass of wine in my hand and every one is singing.

Santi (right) and another driver cooking spuds in 

the back of his truck

All the different parts of Europe are represented in the truck stop. The German drivers are sitting quietly looking distrustfully at the Eastern group, checking their watches regularly to make sure they go to bed at the correct time for the most efficient day driving tomorrow. The eastern group (Polish and Czech mainly) is drinking a lot and I get along with them well, they love to laugh but also don’t let me refuse a drink so after a dozen knocks of Vodka I move on, unable to keep up. The French look like they've prepared quite a feast but give me dirty looks when I go to talk to them. Then I see some UK trucks parked together and wouldn’t mind speaking some of the Kings English so I go over to see what the craic is, but they’re all sitting in their trucks, beer in hand watching DVD’s.

The Spanish party ends pretty soon and I fall asleep in the back of the truck with the spuds.

7 hours=590km