Epilogue/Prologue

Epilogue

On April 11, back in France, I still had not heard from the boys. They had left Mopti for Timbuktu on the 30^th of March, attached to a motorized boat. They had been told it would take five days. I started to worry, mostly because of the increasing danger to tourists the closer you get to Timbuktu. North of Mopti had become a no-go zone, according to western governments, and tourists, aid workers and businesses were steering clear because of kidnapping threats. Knowing them, they would have arrived to Timbuktu, and just camped right in the open. They would be sitting ducks. When I realized how long it had been I tried calling them every day with no success. I even checked news reports to see if anyone had been kidnapped. The problem with that, though, is that nobody would have noticed that they were gone for quite some time. On the 13^th, I finally got a hold of Jonathan, and they were all quite safe in Bamako.

I spent nearly three months in France. It would be hard for me to imagine a bigger change for my day-to-day life. I went from living in a tent to living in a house. My diet went from rice and camping food to baguettes and cheese. Days were filled with reading, lots of internet, relaxing, instead of…well, doing whatever I had been doing for the last six months. Whether I was in Paris or Lise’s home in a small town outside of the city, nothing about my life was the same. Except maybe the occasional meal made to resemble the recipes we had created on the river with the limited resources available to us.

Lise was working on her master’s thesis, so I was mostly on my own during the days. It felt bizarre and weirdly too calm. I enjoyed it for a while, though. In a way, I treated it like any other traveling experience that tosses you into weird situations and you are forced to adapt. Because Lise was always busy, I busied myself with a lot of housework. I did most of the shopping, cooking and cleaning, although I regularly failed at the last one.

Little in my life moved forward, not that it had in Africa, but being stationary in a foreign land left me restless. I didn’t really have a lot of desire to travel, though. Being stationary felt good for the moment. A big blow to me came when I found out that I did not receive the Fulbright grant that I had applied for in October. My life at that point had made sense. I would travel for a year, and then either have a grant to do a photo project in Kenya for nine months, or I would join the Peace Corps. I had hesitated, though, in submitting my Peace Corps application. In January I had been told I was a finalist for the Fulbright, which gave me a very good chance of receiving it. So when I found out that I had been denied in late April, it hit me, extremely hard, that I had no backup plan. Even if I submitted the Peace Corps application now, it would take a year. I also realized that I couldn’t stay in France forever. My visa would run out in the beginning of July, and I would have to be out of the EU for the following three months. I had decided that I wanted to be with Lise, but that was not getting me a job. Forget working in France; I looked into it and it seemed like a dead end. On top of all of it, I had had my 25^th birthday, which led to all sorts of questions about how my life is actually progressing.

For days I moped around, feeling like I had no future. It was the first time in my life that I felt like I had no options. I began looking into other grants and photo jobs at newspapers in America. I applied for nearly a dozen jobs (all at tiny papers in towns you’ve never heard of), not even getting a response from any of them. I spent nearly a month looking for opportunities for the next stage of my life, with little to show for it. Yes, things seemed to make a little more sense paddling on the river.

Meanwhile, the former crew was slowly trickling back to Europe. When I left them, they all had grand ideas of all their future travel plans, the most ambitious being to travel to South Africa via a whole slew of dodgy and corrupt countries that are incredibly difficult to get visas for. I had a lot of doubts at the time, but was still surprised with how quick they came back. Blai and Fura returned home to Barcelona just days after selling the boat. Jonathan and Jordan spent some time in Guinea and Guinea Bissau, which of course made me jealous. Then Jordan caught a flight from Guinea Bissau to Marseilles a day in advance ($800!) to catch a concert with some friends. Jonathan was the last man standing, and saw little reason to stick around. He traveled up to Senegal, then The Gambi and back to Senegal to catch a cheap flight to Barcelona.

So now it was looking like everyone was converging on Europe, more specifically Barcelona, and they wanted me to come down for a reunion. Jonathan would be arriving on May 21^st and Jordan would be getting there around the same time. I had a mission that seemed pretty clear-cut.

I left on the 21^st with high hopes of being able to hitchhike to Barcelona in one day. It is about nine hours driving, but with my success in hitching to Marseilles, which is about the same distance, in September, I thought it was highly plausible.

After taking a train to the south of Paris, I had my thumb out by 10:00 AM. I was picked up by the third car, which seemed like a good start, but the young girl driving was only going a few km. I took the ride anyway.

A few hours later I wasn’t much farther. A couple of flamboyant young guys who had no idea which roads went where had ignored my instructions on where to drop me off had taken me about ten km in the wrong direction. I had them leave me at a rest stop where I asked a Macedonian truck driver to take me to the next gas station so I could get turned around. The Macedonian was super nice and it was a unique experience.

Some hours later, I still wasn’t that far from Paris. I was in some rural area surrounded by fields without a town in sight, and hardly any cars passing. I was getting frustrated. I started to wonder where all the cute young girls on road trips were that would love to have an adventurous guy young guy along for the ride, you know, like in the movies. I was usually getting rides by middle-aged dudes who had been in my shoes in their younger days. But then the travel gods smiled upon me and I saw a big van come careening around the on-ramp and seemed to head straight at me without hesitating. It screeched to a halt and the passenger window opened. The two girls asked where I was going and then invited me along.

Unfortunately they weren’t going to Barcelona, but they could take me as far as Orleans, an hour in the right direction.

They left me at a tollbooth at about 4:00. It seemed like a good spot, and several cars stopped for me. The only problem was that they were all heading north to Paris. I waited hour after hour. It began to rain, and then it rained harder. Thunder and lightning came, and things were not looking good.

Finally at about midnight a car heading south pulled over to pick me up. The guy was going an hour south to Bourges. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could smell alcohol on his breath, which normally would have made me think twice about staying in the car, but I was pretty desperate. He drove fine, though and all was good.

Waiting at the tollbooth, I was getting cold. Again, the first car pulled over, but it was going in the wrong direction. By three AM the cars had stopped coming. At five they started to trickle in again. I had thought about sleeping, but I didn’t want to miss any chance.

After ten rides, I was only 200 km south of Paris and some six or seven hundred clicks to Barcelona. I would only be able to spend a couple of days in Barcelona, and time was ticking. At 10 AM I gave Jonathan a call. He insisted that I stop wasting my time and hop on a train. I told him I would give it another hour. I had no idea if there were even trains that went from this town to anywhere near Barcelona. I was ten km outside of the town and had no idea how big Bourges was or how I would even get to the station.

At noon I gave in and tried to hitch into town (being Sunday there were no busses). An elderly man in a nice Citroen drove me into town and even took me directly to the station. He was great and said he had done a lot of hitchhiking when he was young. I kept being reminded that hitching was dying in France (or maybe all of Europe) but it really used to be a common thing that everyone would do. At least it didn’t die because of violent incidences like in America.

I got lucky with the train. There was a train leaving in thirty minutes for Lyon, from where I could connect to Montpellier, only three hours from Barcelona. It was expensive, though. 90 Euros! I hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours so I grabbed a doner kebab (gyro) before boarding.

On the way to Montpellier, I realized my train was going all the way to Perpignan, an extra hundred km toward Barcelona. The problem was that I had only paid to get to Montpellier. If I stayed on and a controller came to check my ticket, I would have a hefty fine to pay. I decided to risk it, and it worked. I got to Perpignan at 10:00 PM and found that there was no further transport to Barcelona until morning. Lame. So it was back to hitchhiking. I desperately wanted to make Barcelona by the end of the day, but I would have to get lucky.

I got a quick ride to the first tollbooth out of town. At 3 AM I got another ride, though only 20 km. And now I was close to the border at an enormous tollbooth. One van full of hippies stopped for me, but after they discussed it among themselves they said they didn’t want to cross the border with me since they didn’t have enough seatbelts.

I counted down the minutes to sunrise. I had been freezing. At 7 AM, just as it was getting light, I got into trouble. I had pulled two all-nighters in a row standing in freezing cold and was in seriously bad shape. At one point I dozed off and started to lean forward only to be woken up by a semi truck rushing past my head. If I had dozed a few seconds earlier, I might have fallen right in front of it. I was hungry and dehydrated as well. I started to hallucinate. I could see people moving around the tollbooths off in the distance, even though I knew they were unmanned. When I saw a dog run halfway across the 12 lanes, then just disappear, I knew it was time to give up completely.

I walked towards what seemed like a town, in search of some sort of café or gas station. Eventually I ran into a guy who was waiting by the side of the road. I asked if he was hitchhiking, and he told me he was waiting for a bus to Girona, just north of Barcelona. I waited with him, completely willing to pay the 20 Euro fare.

A few hours later I was changing into clothes more appropriate for the balmy Spanish weather at the Barcelona bus station. When I caught sight of Blai and Jonathan all of my feelings of exhaustion and delirium dissipated and I was raring to go again. We did a little dance in the street, all in my pink pants and went to find a beer. I told them I had barely eaten since I had left two days before and desperately needed food before beer. No worries, though; it’s Spain! Tapas! Food and beer, all for one low price. We knocked back a few beers, then went to go to the beach. Fura was waiting in Blai’s truck, and she was so happy to see me. She is also one of the few dogs that I would be so happy to see as well.

At the beach they filled me all in on what had happened on the way to Timbuktu and why it had taken them some nine or ten days, when it was supposed to take five. I should not have been surprised, as that is just how things go in Africa, or most developing countries for that matter.

Basically, the boatmen who were tying our boat to theirs got a little greedy. They were transporting sacks of millet and had overloaded the boat. I think they even wanted to load our boat with the sacks, but Jonathan wouldn’t let them. Because the boat was so overloaded, and the water was about as low as it could get, they were constantly getting stuck on sandbars. Repeatedly they would have to unload the boat, carrying the grain sacks to shore, clear the sandbar, then reload the boat. Not only did it take twice as long, they were moving 24 hours a day, so they were having these sandbar problems at any time of day or night.

Apparently it got pretty ugly, and there was not much camaraderie between the Africans and the crew of the Guidron Queen. It seemed that tensions were high most of the time, and by the time they reached Timbuktu, none of them wanted to see the river or that dry Sahelian landscape again. They sold the boat as quickly as possible, and the fact that they had been to Timbuktu was probably the smallest footnote of their trip. They ended up getting less in Timbuktu than they would have gotten in Mopti ($380 instead of $400). That was naturally annoying to me, since I had not trusted that business move in the first place, but it wasn’t my call. And the difference was insignificant. So in the end, after we calculated our loss, we got a boat for close to three months for a cost of less than $70 each. Not too bad, I think.

Hearing all this, I felt like I had dodged a bit of a bullet by leaving early. Honestly, I had really wanted to have the satisfaction of Timbuktu, and witness the change in climate and culture as the boat moved north. However, after hearing about this, I think I would have felt uncomfortable the whole time. It sounded like there was constant fighting, and Jonathan really had animosity towards the guys driving the boat. I would have been too forgiving of the boat drivers, even though they really did make an idiot mistake in overloading the boat. We hadn’t seen any other boats having trouble with this, so it was shocking to me that they had had this misfortune.

Anyway, Jordan had my share of the boat cash for some reason, and he wasn’t even here. They told me he was in Croatia for some reason, and wouldn’t be getting in until the 26^th. I was planning on leaving before that, but decided that I would just have to wait. Not for the money, I wanted to see him.

That day at the beach would be the most united that the Guidron Queen crew would get in Barcelona. The next day one of Jonathans girlfriends, from Sweden, flew in to see him, and he spent the next few days with her.

I stuck around with Blai and hung out in home in the mountains outside the city. He is no longer squatting because he has this huge truck, like half the size of a semi, that he has made extremely livable. He has running water, a kitchen, a bed, a couch, shelves, a door, a window, and a psychadelic/anarchist paintjob on the outside. The setting was calm and beautiful, but was still close to the city. He was living the life, at least by my standards.

On our second day Blai started feeling sick. By the afternoon, he went to the doctor. They did some blood tests, and said he had something, but they couldn’t tell what it was. They said he needed to go to the hospital. His symptoms were actually very similar to something I had had a few weeks before. Nausea, weakness, sore muscles, mild fever. In fact, we had been sharing a lot of the same symptoms since leaving Africa. I had felt much healthier, in general in Africa, and we had both seemed to weaken upon returning.

The hospital tested him for a bunch of things. “Well, it’s not malaria, and now I know I don’t have AIDS,” he told me, “even though AIDS isn’t real anyway.” There Blai goes again with his conspiracy theories.

We spent some time with his family, giving me a good chance to exercise my Spanish (still better than my French). They were, like most people I had been with in Europe, hospitable and extremely kind. And of course, we ate very well.

Compared to my first time in Barcelona, I was really starting to like the place. It was far cheaper than France, the people, although sometimes a lot less friendly and a lot more gritty than the French, were definitely more fun and had a lot of attitude.

We also spent some time at a big protest going on at Plaza Catalunya. Basically there had been a consistent occupation of Barcelona’s biggest square for about a week, day and night. They had started by protesting certain candidates in the elections, but after the elections, they continued. The themes were, predictably, anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-government, anti-shower (just kidding! But seriously…), and the people were far more…colorful than at the French protests I had been to. Blai, with his long dreadlocks, fit in, while I felt a little over-dressed. No matter, people weren’t judging too hard, and the free food vendors happily heaped on a big pile of vegetarian food on my plate.

The day Jordan was supposed to arrive, we waited for him to call all day. Finally, late in the day, after Jonathan and his Swedish girl had joined us, we got an email from him. He apparently had overdone his last night in Croatia, causing him to miss his morning flight. I was really disappointed. I just wanted to have one night with all of us together, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be. We stayed at the protest until late at night, though I couldn’t really enjoy myself. It didn’t feel right. We bought lots of 1 Euro beers from the Pakistanis roaming the square and played some of our old card games. When everyone started to pull out their sleeping mats (I dissed everyone that brought a sleeping mat, as I still think they are the most useless piece of camping gear ever, I am a snob), we decided to head home, saying goodbye to Jonathan for the last time.

I read in the news later, that the plaza had been evacuated the next morning. Apparently it is also where the city’s soccer fans gather to watch Barcelona soccer games on giant screens. Barcelona was playing Manchester United the next day for the finals of the European Cup (or whatever it’s called). Obviously the city had their priorities, and I watched video of riot police beating protesters with bats and shooting rubber bullets to get them out of the square. It was crazy that they would make it violent just because of a soccer game (not the official reasons I am sure). Jordan made it to Barcelona a couple days late, but just in time for that big soccer game. He got to enjoy the fruits of the riot police’s labor with Blai as they partied with fellow soccer fans at Plaza Catalunya.

I actually got to meet up with Jordan a week later as visited Paris before flying home. Anthony was in town* and we met up with Jordan for a few beers in the park. He gave me my cash, most importantly, and we got through most of the issues we needed to. Jordan is the kind of guy that really likes to know. He wants to know what you are going through and he wants to help or give advice. He also wants to share his problems. It always makes for great conversation and bonding and we really didn’t have enough time to get through everything. When we left, I wondered how long it would be before I saw anyone again.

Blai was already back in Africa. He was traveling to the Gambia to sell another truck and visit his friends that had been jailed there nearly a year before. His next move, after getting back, would be to fly to Canada, travel to America, buy a car, sell it in Mexico (my advice) and hitch all the way to the end of the earth in Argentina.

Jonathan was left looking for boat work in Barcelona’s ports. Last I heard he had found a job on a boat that leaked worse than our river boat. He would be sailing for Turkey via Croatia soon. He was also getting some sort of sponsorship with the boat owner, so he could actually get a working visa for Europe.

Jordan was back in Australia, doing a few months of work. He seemed like he had all sorts of business plans (he always does). The beauty about his work, though, is that he is always doing some high-priced contract work, leaving him to make a quick 10k, then escape to some part of the world for six or 12 months. Plus, the Australian dollar is now somehow higher than the American dollar, so he is doing very well.

As for me, when I left Africa to be with Lise, we had debated the idea of me waiting for her in Africa for her to be done with her thesis, after which she would join me. We decided, though, that I would come now, and afterword we could go somewhere, like Africa, although she said she had always wanted to travel Eastern Europe. During my stay, I kept making off-hand comments about flying to Senegal, or how we could hitchhike to Ukraine, take a boat to Georgia, and travel through Central Asia. She never responded to my ideas, until one day she finally said, “why do you keep talking about these things, you don’t have any money!” Apparently I had overstated my poverty (plus I had just gotten an unexpected heavy tax return (thanks Obama?)) and was ready to travel again. When she realized I was actually serious, she was shocked, but excited. She said she was too busy to plan anything, so I put myself in charge of creating some travel itineraries. Some included flying to Cote d’Ivoire, then traveling the coast (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Morocco, I call it the “instability tour”), traveling across Europe, Central Asia into China, then India, flying to Thailand and traveling overland to Australia, and a few others. They were generally a little too ambitious (read: hard on the wallet and the watch) for us, and we realized a better idea would be to pick one country that sounded good, and just rent a basic apartment and live cheap for a few months. I didn’t care too much about where we went, so I researched airfare to any feasible country. Senegal, India, Thailand, China, Jamaica, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Brazil, Venezuela, Ethiopia, etc. The cheapest flights turned out to be to the Philippines, Brazil and Ethiopia. So we thought and we thought and we thought. Lise wasn’t so interested in Asia like I was. She wanted Brazil, but after researching cost of living, we decided it was too hard. Ethiopia would have been too hard for me to get back home (one way from there to Seattle is off the charts expensive). Then we thought of India. It’s not too much like Asia, and it’s cheap. We discussed more and more, and then decided the Philippines was best instead. I don’t remember why, we just did. The ticket was about $550, one way. We hesitated for the day, and that killed us. When I went to buy it, it had shot up to $950. Philippines it was not. So I found a ticket to Malaysia for the same price. And since Malaysia has the Asian equivalent of Ryanair, we could get to just about any country in Asia for less than $100 if we wanted to. Philippines, Sri Lanka, Burma, India, overland travel to Indonesia or Thailand. It was the perfect location to get anywhere. So I booked the flight.

And I guess the long and the short of it is, that is where I am now.

I realized I had learned a lot on this trip. Although I didn't learn the types of skills that are marketable, I have found many of them useful in everyday life. Here are a few things I learned, in no particular order.

If you are going to travel with donkeys, don’t. But if you do, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT get a male donkey and a female donkey.

How to remove ticks.

A lot about who you can and can’t trust.

How to remove ticks from donkeys (considerably more difficult)

How to behead, pluck, gut, and roast a chicken.

A lot about who you can and can’t trust.

Not how to fish like the Bozos. Regrettable, but an excuse for another trip.

How to make a grill out of green branches.

How to clean a really dirty house. Yes, it took me going to Africa to learn this.

Sewing.

A little bit of Arabic, quite a bit more of Bambara and a whole bunch of French.

The paddle stroke to make your boat going straight while paddling on only one side.

That peaceful (and probably all) African countries are not nearly as dangerous as most people would have you believe.

It is rarely necessary to pay for a hotel room in Morocco if you play your cards right.

The most efficient way to move sand with grain sacks and less shovels than people.

Lots of good camping recipes that will make Malians’ (at least DJ Bako’s) mouth water.

That there is always a way. Whatever it is, even if it seems impossible or impractical, there is always a way. Believing this is true is more than half the battle.

That wine in a bag, even when hot, is still worth drinking.

To ask to make it sure it is a free ride when hitchhiking in some countries.

At least a little about sailing.

That mashed mango, fresh milk and sachets of rum can pass as a daiquiri if you refer to them as such.

Fashion, both desert and river.

Moroccan police can be some of the world’s best and worst.

That if you can actually get rides in Mali, they will be far more comfortable than public transit. I did not learn if this is true in Morocco or Mauritania, as I never took public transport.

That the turtle doesn’t really beat the hare, but he has a hell of a lot more fun.

How to make a mortar and pestle out of an empty gas canister and a stick.

How to make a whole bunch of clever things out of used 20 liter cooking oil jugs.

A lot about relationships and friendships.

Even more about camping.

The best way to sneak into a music festival in Mali (hint: I learned it after the festival)

How to seal a leaky wooden boat (to a point).

How to sand-ski behind a randy donkey.

If you have bad charcoal, mix it with good charcoal or throw it away. Don’t pour way to much gas on it and almost burn your house down.

Donkey travel is harder than you would imagine.

River travel is easier than you’d imagine.

*Somehow I had a steady flow of friends in Paris. I thought I was going to get lonely while Lise was working on her thesis, but, being the most touristed place in the world, I had enough traveling friends to keep me from being too lonely.

How to get to Spain with your thumb

Lise left Marseille on Monday, and on Tuesday I was back on the road. Meeting up with Jonathan was still proving complicated, and he was caught up in Turino, Italy, and decided to just fly to Morocco from there later since there were really good fares. So I decided I would try my best to hitch a ride on a long distance ferry from either Sete, France or Barcelona, Spain. I had heard this was possible by talking to the truck drivers before they board, since they pay per truck, not per passenger.

So I left my wonderful couch surfing host Lia’s house early on Tuesday, though not as early as I wanted to due to alarm failure. By 9:30 I was in my spot, with my sign for Sete, and felt like it was a good start. Twenty minutes in, however, a girl passing by informed me that this was not the way to Sete, and that I should go to some other highway (one I was not familiar with). I actually knew that there were two routes to Sete, and I was on one of them, in fact the one that google maps suggested, but I would have felt foolish to remain standing there when all the locals knew that it was not the normal route. So I headed in the vague direction she pointed and looked around desperately for signs for the other highway heading west instead of north. I won’t go into the details, but I eventually found it, and it didn’t begin close to where I had started at all. I walked for at least an hour before I had found my new spot, where there was actually a sign that said “Montpellier”, which is right before Sete, which was comforting.

I was happy it was not raining this day, but after a few hours of waiting, I could feel the sun was just killing me, and I was almost out of water. I grew unsure of my hitching spot, until I found a cardboard sign that read “Marseille” on one side and “Montpellier” on the other side. This was a good sign, literally and figuratively, so I adopted it, and held it up for good luck since it had worked for someone else.

As I waited, I grew fascinated with the people I saw walking back and forth on a trail that led somewhere under a freeway overpass. It was like an anthill. I would see these disheveled people, most wearing worn out and obviously found clothes, walk off the trail and onto the streets and disappear for maybe half an hour and then they would return with random objects. They mostly seemed like makeshift building materials. Scrap wood, a door, piles of cardboard, buckets, whatever they could pull together from whatever the streets had to offer. I wanted desperately to see what was going on, or at least more about them. I wondered if these were gypsies, a people I have only heard bits about over the years. They seemed to fit the description of the fringe of city livers straddling a line of a nomadic artistic people with a rich culture, and an oppressed and impoverished homeless people. Eventually one of the guys, about my age or younger, who was wearing a shirt about two sizes two small, with pink glittery writing on it summoned me to the corner to ask where I was going. I showed him my sign and said Montpellier. We hobbled along in conversation for a few minutes before we both realized that this was because neither of us spoke much French. He asked where I was from, and I said America. “Oooh la-la”, he said. “Me, Roma.” So that answered my question that these were indeed gypsies. Now that our origins were established, he felt it was proper to ask me for some money, which I said I didn’t have (well, I had a 20 euro bill). He persisted, as did I. Then he said something that I didn’t understand, but he pointed toward wherever they were living. I imagined that this was an invitation into their living space, but I could not be too sure. Then he asked if he could come with me to Montpellier. This caught me off guard, and I said that I was then going to Sete, then taking a boat to Morocco. I thought this would deter him, but it only seemed to confuse him, and then persist that he wanted to come with me. I think if I would not have been so caught off guard I would have considered it, but at the moment, it just seemed like it would just add stress, and also make it harder to get a ride. If you have been following the news, gypsies are not always looked upon favorably in France.

After he left, I regretted not asking to see their home, but it was too late because I was almost immediately picked up. He wasn’t going far, but after 5 hours of standing in the sun, I was happy to be on the road.

He dropped me off at a roundabout, which had a snack bar (looked like a taco truck) tucked away off the road. I considered going there because all I had eaten was a bit of saucisson, but before I got a chance, the car pulling away from it was stopping to pick me up. And he was going all the way to Montpellier! And he was listening to Rihanna!

The boat from Sete was supposed to leave at 7:00, so I knew it would be a long shot to get there in time. We would getting to Montpellier just before 6:00, and Sete was another 20 or 30 minutes away on a different road. My ride did not think I had a chance, so I decided to point my thumb toward Spain, and try to get to Barcelona overnight.

I was dropped off in a truly terrible spot, so I walked along the highway for about a kilometer and a half (dangerous, yes) because there had been a sign for a tollbooth in a kilmoter. I don’t know what happened, but it was not there. So I got off the freeway and hit the nearest onramp for the highway in the direction of Barcelona. The only problem was that for all the traffic getting onto the freeway, they were all going east, while I wanted to go west. At one point I counted cars for about twenty minutes, and there was a 27:1 east to west car ration.

At 9:00, having still not eaten, or refilled my water bottle, and needing to pee, I walked to the nearest gas station, assuming that I could complete all these tasks while also getting some badly needed road information. I purchased a ridiculously over-priced tiny sandwich (there was no price tag) assuming that this would get me rights to the bathroom, water filling and road information. No bathroom, no water, but I did find out that the tollbooth was about two km further down the highway. It seemed like my only hope.

A long walk back to the freeway, then a long walk along the highway in the dark, and as expected, she had underestimated the distance. After 20 minutes of walking I arrived at the first sign saying that the tollbooth was in 2 km. I took comfort in knowing that they would at least have water and bathrooms as they always seem to. In this process, I found out that I walk, with my pack on, about 1400 steps per kilometer. Very useful information. Truck drivers would occasionally honk at me as they passed, though I am not sure for what purpose. To let me know they were there? I knew already, this just scared the hell out of me every time. It was probably to tell me to get off the road, but maybe if a truck driver ever stopped to pick me up I wouldn’t be so desperate as this.

When I got to the tollbooth I was horrified to see that there was no rest stop portion, nor a good (safe, visible, or legal) place to hitch from. I gave it my best shot, and after a couple hours, very close to what I had designated as my sleeping time, 1:00, a small diesel truck stopped for me. There were two guys, who were speaking Spanish, a relief to me, and an even bigger relief that it was not Spain Spanish. They were from Peru and Ecuador, and the three of us were delighted to have met fellow Americanos. This was actually very comforting, and it seemed like a familiar face in this long and depressing night. Their names were Alberto (the more personable driver), and his companero, Juan, or as Alberto called him “Yackie Chan”, for obvious reasons. It felt good to be speaking a second language and having it actually work, plus these guys were just typical fun-loving Latinos just loving life. I had expected to sleep immediately, but I easily stayed awake for at least an hour and a half. They were transporting equipment from Germany. They said they could drop me off at a town near the border, because they were going to sleep before heading on to Barcelona. Eventually, though, they offered for me to sleep in the back of the truck and then take me all the way to Barcelona the next morning. Sounded perfect to me.

They woke me at about 8:00, and I was still excited to have not had to sleep in the grass on the side of the highway the night before. They even cooked me a breakfast of rice and tuna, which was surprisingly amazing, though I was surprised that they weren’t eating. I offered to share, but they insisted they would get something on the road. They also insisted that I have one of their Beck’s beers that they had brought from Germany. Might as well enjoy the rambling life!

Alberto had a unique creative streak and improvised a plane from a bottle and some cardboard.

An hour and a half later, they dropped me off in a suburb of Barcelona and gave me the warmest wishes for my travels. This will be one of my more memorable rides, with some memorable guys.

Troubles in Hitchland

After finally getting in touch with Jonathan, it sounded like picking apples in Italy might not work out. But I did found out where in Italy he was, and that if I headed there, we could keep looking for work, otherwise, I could just hang out in France. I decided that since hitching had worked so well thus far, I could probably make it all the way to Trento, Italy in a really long day of hitchhiking.

It took me about two hours to get from my couch surfing host’s house to a proper hitching spot in Marseilles. It was a bad start, but I was still upbeat as I waited in the friendly Mediterranean sun.

Two hours later, no progress. The passing people seemed indifferent to my thumb, but sometimes almost confused. I walked to the train station to use the McDonald’s free wireless to find out a better approach. I got kicked out of McDonald’s. A new and hilarious experience, but either way, I was able to get the info I needed.

I took the train north for half an hour to Aix-en-Provence, which would put me in the right direction. Plus, my couch surfing host informed me that they never check tickets on this line, so I didn’t have to pay. Thirty minutes of walking, and I felt like I had a great new hitching spot. People passing by looked amused, friendly, and often apologetic that their car was full, they were going a short distance, or they just didn’t feel like stopping.

After two hours, I was approached by a young frazzled looking guy with a gas can. He didn’t speak English, but explained that his car had run out of gas, but if I walked with him to it, he could take me to the tollbooth, which he said was a better spot. His name was Antoine. On the way we communicated in a mix of Spanish, English and French. He was a college student in the town, and also liked to travel by thumb. He shared a package of cookies with me. By this time it was after 5:00, so I realized that I would not make it to my destination by the end of the day, but if I hitched through the night, I could make it by morning.

This tollbooth was huge and the cars seemed to be moving too fast to see me. It took an hour, but I got a ride with a guy, William, in a big dirty van going Antibes, a town between Nice and Cannes, a little over an hour away. He was going there to buy a motorbike.

So at 9:00 I started again at a tollbooth, but after an hour, security came and said that it wasn’t safe for me to stand there (which was ridiculous, if you could see where I was standing, and how small of a toll booth it was) and that the cops would kick me out if I stayed. So I changed spots, waited another hour or two, then changed spots again.

At 1:00 AM I was freezing. I had packed for Africa, not for hitching to Italy to pick apples. Cars had grown rare at this hour. I realized that even if I did get a ride, it would not be far, and I would be out in the cold again. I decided to get into my sleeping bag and stay warm for a few hours, then give up the Italian dream, and turn back around to Marseilles, where at least I have a couple of couch surfing hosts and beaches. I was unable to sleep, so at 3:00 I decided I would endure the cold again in hopes that I would get a ride, since Marseilles, less than 2 hours away would be less ambitious than going to Italy.

At 5:30 a van stopped, and when I opened the back door, and an empty beer can fell out, I should have refused the ride. But I was cold and desperate. It was three young guys. Wasted. With a dog. They said they couldn’t take me far, but at least get me to a better spot to hitch from. They dropped me off about 2 km away from a tollbooth. I still don’t know if they did me a favor. I mean, it is better to be at a toll booth, but these guys did not know what they were doing, and could have dropped me off sooner. Anyway, I didn’t mind the long walk as it warmed me up. When I got there, I waited intently for the first moments of daylight so I could warm up or be seen by more cars.

By the time the sun rose I felt like a zombie on drugs. I was barely awake, sometimes falling dozing with my thumb out. When I gazed at the asphalt, it seemed to swell and shift like a weird hallucination. I felt panicked that I looked as crazy as I felt and would never get a ride. After about three hours of waiting, I got picked up by the first girl of the trip. Her name was Alexandria and, by American standards, she would have been too young and petite to be picking up hitchhikers. But it is a different story here in Europe where it is a dying, but still common practice for practical purposes. She said she often hitchhiked from her home to where she studies, about an hour and a half away. I was unbelievably grateful to have the ride. She took me all the way to Aix-en-Provence, where she is from, and where I could take the train (for free) back to Marseilles.

After the train ride, I got to the beach as quickly as possible, and proceeded to sleep for several hours. When I got up, I wandered back through the city, and at 8:15 I gave a ring to a potential couch surf host. She said she wasn’t home, but that she could still host me, although she already had two surfers from Lithuania, so it would be crowded. I had the option of either waiting outside her apartment for her to come home, or to come to her friend’s apartment, where she was hanging out. I confirmed that I was welcome, and hopped on the metro to where she was. She and her friends all welcomed me warmly and offered me beer and wine. We hung out until close to 2:00 in the morning, at which point we headed back, where I had a small cot waiting for me in the living room floor.

Lias shoes

I had just started to fall asleep, when the door opened and I realized that the Lithuanian couch surfers were finally arriving. In my grogginess I started talking to them, asking them if they knew about Šarūnas Marčiulionis, the glorious basketball star that played for the Sonics in all of his mustachey glory in the ‘90s. The two girls informed me that he is a hero and he will always save you, wherever you are. They were hilarious, and we stayed up for an hour talking silliness about goat cheese and hitch hiking (they had hitched from London).

Lithuanians

The next day the four of us joined forces in the morning over a simple breakfast of coffee, bread and cheese. Still loving this French eating. We did a mix of sight seeing and errand running. We went to the Notre Dame de something. Sorry, but when it comes to these kinds of sight seeing things, I remember the people and the experience more than what we were actually doing. There was a great quote from one of the Lithuanian girls that is more fun out of context, “It is really hard to be a deaf gay”.

Tourists

The two girls left soon
after to hitch hike up to Amsterdam. They were on a few weeks of vacation from their jobs in England. They were very good hitch hikers, and I was impressed with how efficiently and casually they traveled. For me, hitch hiking rugged or hardcore way to travel Europe, but they just had this attitude that it was an obviously convenient way to travel for cheap. They never seemed to have problems getting rides, and would always try to travel at night to save money on accommodation. I was impressed, but at the same time, they said they got a lot of rides from truck drivers, so it obviously has something to do with their gender, as I have very rarely gotten a ride with a truck driver while hitching.

After we all parted ways, I went to the train station to pick up Lise, as she flew into town for the weekend to visit. The Air France connection continues to pay off. It was her first time in Marseilles, so we wandered around the streets for a while before joining Lia and her friends at a tucked away folk show. It was sort of cliché music, but I liked it, and it was cool to be watching it in a venue that was tiny and virtually invisible from the street.

This night there were two new couch surfers, and Israeile couple who were also traveling by hitch hiking, couch surfing, and sleeping wherever. They were great to chat with, and seemed to make a point of not being the stereotypical Israeli traveler, not that I cared much.

Marseille food

Lise and I spent the next day just wandering around the city. We really enjoyed the neighborhood known as the “panier”, or basket, which seemed like it must be one of the oldest districts of the city, with colorful building and a network of mazy streets. It is true that the narrower the streets, the cooler the neighborhood.

My cliche bike in front of cool wall Europe photo

On the way back, we went through another protest, again against the rise in retirement age. Dynamite sized firecrackers (not exaggerating) shook the streets. I thought it interesting that they didn’t tone down the explosives in response to all the warnings of potential terrorism in Europe. Or maybe they did tone it down.

At around 10:00 that night, Lise, the Israelis, and I set out for a big street party that would be part of an annual celebration in Marseilles. Getting out of the metro and emerging to streets in chaos was a welcome shock. There were makeshift bars and food carts all over the streets to fuel the crowds dancing to different bands or DJs on every block. We wandered block after block looking for Lia and her friends, and on every street it seemed to be a different kind of party with a different kind of music, like all the bars and clubs had just been turned inside out. It was impossible for me not to think of the Grateful Dead song, France. “When the club can’t contain the beat, it just rolls out in the street”, which is specifically referring to the south of France. During the whole night, I think I saw one security officer, not even a cop. I couldn’t imagine how this sort of thing could actually exist, and not erupt into violence or riots. Or maybe that is just what we are told would happen in America. I mean, relatively mild 4^th of July celebrations in parks are crawling with security and law enforcement. At big events, with bad reputations, police bring what seems to be a portable jail or drunk tank. And I am sure it sees plenty of use. So I know that the ability to have unregulated and uncontrolled parties in the streets is not the type of “freedom” that freedom lovers in America are referring to, but damn, it feels pretty good.

Because it was Lise’s first time in Marseilles (though not the south), there was a lot of discussion of the differences between the people. Both sides seem to think of the other as less friendly, for whatever reason. I did find it more difficult to make eye contact and greet people in Marseilles, but I eventually realized that it is because everyone has downcast eyes as they watch out for the frequent dog poo that litters the streets. So I can’t fault them for that. The conclusion I have come up with is that while there might be a difference, there are bigger and more noticeable differences between communities within a location. For example, hanging out with Lise’s friends, to me, felt not too different than hanging out with Lia’s friends, or my friends, or other couch surfers or traveler types that I have met. And in the same way, there are huge portions of the population in Seattle that I might not get along with, as would be the same with Lise in Paris. So trying to generalize people by location seems like a general waste of time, though it is always tempting.

On Sunday afternoon, Lise and I took a relaxing trip to the outskirts of town to visit a former fishing village that Lia had told us about. We wandered around, and yes, it was cute, but it had obviously grown far away from its roots as a blue collar fishing place and was now selling its catch. Elderly tourists were abound to wander the white rocky surrounds that Marseilles is famous for, before eating at one of the many fancy seafood restaurants. We didn’t spend much time there before deciding that we preferred the less quaint town our bus had stopped at on the way. So we hitched a ride back to it and had a basic kebab dinner at a very unpretentious diner populated by heavy smoking middle aged townies playing cards. This was an authentic scene that I think Lise and I were both glad to be witnessing. A different side of France that definitely had a familiar Americana parallel. We really aren’t so different after all (though don’t tell that to Lise).

My last 12 days in Paris

I will try to be a little less detailed in my next posts about Paris.

My second day was spent around Lise’s town of Gouvieux, cute little village not far from Chantilly, famous for horses, whipped cream and their castle. Yep, we saw the castle (didn’t go inside, 12 euros!), snuck into the horse museum (can you really picture either of us paying 8 G.D. EUROS to see horses?).

Lunch: Baguette, Saucisson, cornichon, butter.

Growing up, I always thought that Peugeot was just bikes. Also, the logo looks like if a lion was in Thriller.

On Thursday, after Lise’s classes in Paris, we went to Pere La Chaise, the cemetery where I made my pilgrimage to Jim Morrison’s grave. The whole cemetery was actually worth seeing though. Some pompous 20-something New Yorker musician was just hanging out by the grave, drinking wine (he was being so culturally aware) making obnoxiously bold statements about…whatever popped into his arrogant mind to whoever was polite enough to listen. “Yeah, L.A. sucks, except for weather” “New York sucks…except for music.” “French people are good at English” “German people are bad at English”. “There’s a lot of hot girls coming to visit the grave”. Annoying that he is part of this memory.

Here lies a dead Hipster

That evening we wandered through Belleville, a neighborhood known to be a little rougher around the edges and comprised mostly of immigrants. It was visible (as it always is with me) by the food. Rows of couscous shops, halal butchers, kebabs (ok, those are everywhere in Paris, probably Europe). We went to a bar that was recommended to us for happy hour. I was excited that with our eccentric server served our beer with a little dish of peanuts mixed with…Corn Nuts! Yes, THE Corn Nuts! Lise had never seen them before, and neither did the friendly man next to us, who told us all about how great Pittsburgh is. I had no idea.


That night we went to a party at the apartment of one of her classmates. Not much to say about it, other than that everyone was really friendly, and quickly relieved my intense nervousness about my poor French skills. Nobody seemed to judge me for my lack of French, and they all were more than happy to conform to a foreign tongue for my sake. Somebody brought a girl from Jersey, who was interning at a fashion magazine in Paris, and Lise and I agreed that she more reflected the Parisian reputation of pompousness than anyone else at the party.

After a day of wandering and exploring on Friday, we headed to the Seine, the river that snakes through the center of Paris to meet with an array of Lise’s friends and drink some wine. The sunset was gorgeous, and what can I say about the surrounding scenery. I mean, jeez, it’s Paris. It was a different crowd of people than the night before, but again, they were all very warm and most spoke really great English. After a couple hours, the wine and beer ran out, and there was rumor of a block party somewhere far away, so we hopped on the metro with a couple peeps. Then Lise got tired (as did I), and it seemed that this block party might be more of a rave or club thing with a steep cover, so we headed to Lise’s friend Noemi’s apartment, where we would be sleeping. When we got there, however, she didn’t answer her door. We knocked loudly and repeatedly, but there was no answer. Long story short, with no place to go, we were forced to walk for about 45 minutes through some not so savory parts of town to get to a party that one of Lise’s friends was at. There were three guys and three girls in this small studio, and while they were all fairly friendly, they gave me an uncomfortable vibe. Everything about the guys gave the impression that they were stereotypical frat boy types, which was actually an interesting change in pace for what I had seen so far. We hung out and sipped cheap champagne (or as they call it, “wine with gas”) until the first subway ran at six AM and headed back to Noemie’s apartment. Apparently she had accidentally fallen asleep.


Eating at Lise’s family’s house has been an experience in itself. I have had three formal dinners with them, and it seems they really give me the royal treatment (or basic hospitality as it is here I guess). My first night they served an appetizer of foie gras on toast with champagne. The meal of pork in mustard sauce and scalloped potatoes was followed by a baguette with an assortment of strong cheeses. I don’t remember what the dessert was, but it was rich.




Other things. We saw a castle. It was old and interesting.






We made the obligatory trip to the Eiffel tower, and I have to say it was pretty forgettable. I kind of regret going.

Nice ad placement, Australia

Looks like a tourist trap

Here's me and the Eiffel Tower

There was a protest and strike one day. It forced us to get up earlier because of the reduced train schedule. After Lise’s class, we went to the protest with a bunch of her classmates. It was far more organized, raucous and impressive than anything I had ever seen in Seattle. There were flare guns, people selling mixed drinks and beer, and kebab trucks. I would go to that without the protest. The reason for the protest was that the retirement age had been raised from 60 to 62. Boohoo France. Just kidding. At some point we ended up at an Iris pub (weird, right?) and it just so happened that it was Guinness’s anniversary. What are the odds?

Air France sent a fleet of Airbuses in support

France is so free you can buy Mojitos from children

On Saturday we explored the 18th arrondisement (sp?), a district in the north of Paris. Lise planned the day perfectly and was a great navigator. We started at what I think was called the Marche Barbes, a flea market that would make you forget you were in Paris entirely. To me it felt like a Mexican market or southern California style swap meet, substituting Mexicans for Africans and North Africans. People were selling corn and chestnuts, roasted on their makeshift grills, and music booths blasted the latest hip-hop sounds from Africa and the Arab world. Oversized t-shirts with flags from Congo and Algeria were on display. Lise and I should have felt out of place, but we didn’t. At the end of the market, there was a large gathering under an overpass. It was the most makeshift aspect of the market, and some of the most downtrodden-looking immigrants and refugees from all over were selling boxes of extremely second-hand clothing and household items. Lise said they gather their wares from garbage cans in one of the nicest districts of Paris.



Moulin Rouge.
Sacre Coeur.

A space invader, one of many of these famous street arts found throughout Paris, and the world.

And another. Note that this is a tourist under the space invader. The only people I have seen wearing this kind of beret here are the worst of tourists. Put your white sneakers back on, you're not fooling anybody.

After the Sacre Coeur we walked into the primarily African neighborhood. What a mind trip. It really felt like somebody had taken a West African city like Accra (if it was Francophone) and dropped it in a street in Paris. The women were wearing a mix of western and traditional clothing (just like West Africa), and many were packed into the numerous hair salons for socializing and getting an elaborate new style. People were selling produce on the sidewalks, and many of the items were things that I have only ever seen in Ghana. Everything was filthy. I can’t think of a more trash-ridden street that I have ever seen in a western country. Young boys set up cardboard boxes in the street (cars seemed to be informally banned from this street) as tables to sell bootleg CDs and DVDs. All of a sudden a giant garbage truck appeared. As it started to turn the corner onto the street, a quick rush of panic took over as everyone quickly picked up their box tables and moved them out of the way. As we continued to walk, the population faded from Sub-Saharan African to North African, in a neighborhood known as Barbes. The only notable thing that happened was a lot of guys on the street trying to sell us cigarettes. And all of a sudden it was dark, and we were back at the train station we came in on. We rested on a nearby sidewalk for a while, and watched as a cop pulled over to question a guy selling roasted corn. The cop left him alone after a few minutes, leaving us confused about why he stopped in the first place. Five minutes later, one of the vendor’s buddies brought us a roasted corn as a “cadeau” or gift, which we accepted, and used it as an excuse to find out about the cop incident. The vendor didn’t seem to speak French, but he looked Indian, so I tried English, and this was more successful. He was actually from Bangladesh, but in France illegally. Selling roasted corn on a makeshift grill sitting in a shopping cart is apparently illegal too. The cop just said he had ten minutes to leave (the spot, not the country). Apparently they don’t really mind if people are selling corn in the streets, just if they are doing it in nicer (whiter) areas. Ya know, it just doesn’t look good, right? Lise said she wished the cops were required to take classes in philosophy. We chatted with the corn vendor and his friends for a while, and they tried to give us all the leftover corn so they could just leave. We only accepted about half of their leftovers. We then went to a nearby restaurant for one of Lise’s favorite dishes, “moules frites”. It’s like steak frites, but instead of steak, it is mussels. I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about it, but it turned out to be really good, and the portion was huge. And it came with an appetizer of herring with potatoes, carrots and onions! Ooh it was a good deal.

Moule Frites

That night we went to a party with some people in Lise’s town. They are not her favorite people, the kind of people that never really got out of their home town, and have had the same friends most of their life. Not bad people, but can just be difficult to relate to. They were really nice, and fun, though less skilled in English, giving me the rare opportunity to practice my French. Most importantly, though, was that it further rounded out my perception of French people being…simply people. Lise’s classmates might have fit into my assumption that everyone was very intellectual and of a certain style, but it seems far from the case, and by the end of my time in Paris, I have found a lot of parallels to social groups that I can relate to back home.

Also, catacombs.


Because I am trying to cram 2 weeks into one long (and fairly uninteresting post), I am forgetting the important observations I met while here, and definitely many of the most interesting anecdotes. I may mention them as they pop into my head along the way.

A quick word on the elderly. They are very cute.

However, dogs are still standing by, waiting to make a meal out of them.

A quick word on French food, I like to play with it.

Steak Tartare

Saucisson

A word on bar soap...this is why it is not the only kind of soap we have.

"The French Language has been, is, and will be the most beautiful language in the world. Long live Boetie." This is mostly funny because they misspelled language, twice.

I Love Nothing. I'm Parisian.

Camembert is President.
I am super jealous of the sweet shoes Lise got for $.50 at a flea market near her town.

HaHA France! Not even your centuries old quaintness can escape the clutches of Paid Parking!

So on Monday, it was time for me to depart Paris. I didn’t know whether I would be heading to Barcelona or somewhere in Italy to meet Jonathan, but I had secured a couch surf in Marseilles, France, which gave me decent access to either location whenever I heard word from my travel partner to be. It would be my first voyage solo in Europe, and my first long-distance hitchhike attempt. I was nervous and excited, although sad to leave.