Hitchhiking to Morocco: Day four
Donde esta el bano?
So, to dive straight in after my last post, we basically woke up at 6 am as Jamil hopped off the top bunk, though we couldn’t see him or anything really- we were contained in the rather narrow confines of the bottom bunk by a heavy curtain he had drawn across us (the same one used to hide Tom from the authorities whilst we were driving the day before). Anyways, he did his prayers again, and Tom and I just lay there, trying to not move (that wasn’t hard since movement requires space to move about in), or make a sound. On an intake of breath Tom whispered, “I’m scared.”
I would’ve vigorously nodded, but Jamil then drew the curtains and demanded, “You finish?!”
It was time to get out of bed, I guess.
Somehow, he explained to us that he would find out where he was going by 10 am, so we could stay with him in his truck until then and potentially travel on with him. We asked for our map back and under the pre tense of looking up where we were we managed to both look with the full extent of our confused terror into each other’s eyes, just to make sure we were both on the same terrified page, which was all that was needed really to make sure we both wanted to escape. Jamil at this point was vigorously cleaning again.
Politely we thanked him so so so much for everything, and asked for all of our stuff back — especially the passports which he had taken off us, “but we really must be on our way, thank you thank you thank you!”
Two very short hitches later, and we were in Spain! We were dropped off in a bizarre town, El Sol, the likes of which I think you only ever really find on borders of countries: it had loads of massive supermarkets filled with the cheapest booze, chorizo, olives, oil, and paella dishes I have ever seen. And the sizes! I felt like I was in a weird Spanish version of “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” — I’m not kidding, you could have made a paella replacing the prawns with fully grown humans. The alcohol generally was contained in gallon bottles, which were literally the same price per GALLON as per litre in the UK! That’s the most frustrating thing about hitchhiking: you cannot stock up on cheap alcohol or food or anything. I FEEL CHEATED OF SO MUCH FOOD.
There were a few other odd things about this town. We stopped for a coffee (running away from Jamil’s over-hospitality was tiring) and were surprised to find the sort of souvenirs it stocked. Good coffee though. When we decided to move on from the town, waiting for a lift was slow but sunny so quite enjoyable… Unfortunately for us we weren’t the only ones using this moderately busy intersection to pick up cars. Yup, at 11 am in this tiny town, we were in direct competition for the attention of cars, with three rather conspicuous prostitutes. Maybe I’m being naive, but the middle of the day seems like a weird time to pick up customers, and three in such a little town on the same road… Again, I reckon that it has to do with it being a border town.
Anyways, we eventually got picked up and got taken to Figueres — I’m not going to lie, I don’t know who Salvador Dali is. But Tom does, and this place is significant… somehow. Hang on I’ll google it. Ah, it’s his birthplace. He’s a painter, as I’m sure everyone else knows. Also, look how long his name is: Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol. Woah. Anyways, we enjoyed looking around. There were a lot of weird knobbly bits on buildings that looked like warts and eggs to me. But apparently they weren’t.
Beautiful architecture, and so much sun! And actually, somehow, unintentionally, me and Tom were actually doing a tourist-stop town, rather than sticking to service stations and motorways! Unbelievable. It was like being on holiday or something. I think Tom even considered splashing out on an ice cream. And it’s the thought that counts with these things.
Then we were faced with the problem which all hitchhikers who have ever wandered from the motorway and into tourist spots, or towns or cities, must face: how to get out of this wretched place. Hours and hours of unsuccessful attempts to get lifts at various spots in and then out of the city, and so much walking further and further away from civilisation later… and we eventually got picked up by a postman. What a sweetie. He reminded me of a Spanish version of a Cali-dude surfer-dad mixed in with Postman Pat. Dropped us off in Giron, where once again, we faced a long long wait, before eventually we were taken to a tollbooth, which I actually can’t remember at all, but in my journal thing I wrote: “where we ate our oranges.” So that’s got me a bit worried that perhaps I am actually a fairly scatty writer who records not only confusing random details, like orange-eating, but that these details are also quite dull events. Definitely not a lonely-planet worthy moment to have recorded there Zoe. Learn to filter please.
Got taken to a toll booth eventually, by a Catalonian teacher who really educated me — Tom actually already knew about this I think — about the whole Catalonian independence fight. She was great, like really one of those socialist cool freedom fighting people you hope exist in the world.
From where she dropped us near Barcelona we were picked up by another wonderful stereotype: an organic farmer hippie dude delivering his homegrown vegetables (and other substances) in this rickety old truck thing. He was an experienced hitchhiker himself: he crossed the whole of Canada a few years back within 5 days! That’s like, 5000km! AMAZING. Whenever we were in a car I was super optimistic about humanity and hitchhiking and generosity of people, so I thought many a time during that ride that I would love to try to do that in beautiful Canada… But at some later point in our journey, whilst waiting a hell of a long time for our next lift in the freezing cold, I remembered that Canada is colder than Spain. So that’s never going to happen. Oh well. It was a nice thought.
We hadn’t been in a service station all day, and to be honest, we genuinely wanted to compare French “station-services” to Spanish “gasolinas” — that’s right, my Spanish vocabulary just expanded before your very eyes. Sadly, between Tom and I, we know pretty much no Spanish. Day one in Spain and it was already a bit painful when the drivers (understandably) couldn’t speak any English.
Anyways, we popped into a gasolina, and met a very… interesting… English trucker. Let’s just say, UKIP should be proud of their overseas representative. He was quick to warn us that everyone in Spain is likely to mug you, especially any Gypsies we may come across. Also the Mafia. Also Spanish people may stab us in the legs. Not sure why, but he was adamant about that one. Also, don’t eat any of the food here, because it’s all dodgy and inedible and barbaric. Also, cockroaches are the most dangerous bug in the world.
Other topics of conversation included: how he drinks 3 litres of coffee a day; the trucks he’s driven (accompanied by an entire album of photos on Facebook of said trucks); the rock business and how he’s been involved as a driver for stage components (accompanied by about 30 different Facebook photo albums); his favourite “rockstars” which include The Saturdays, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey; and his girlfriend who he met in a nightclub.
Oh yeah, and he was keen to make sure we knew how accepting of a guy he was, I mean to any gay person he met he would outright tell them, “I don’t mind if you want to kiss your man or whatever, as long as you go around the corner and never make me see any of it.” I mean, he has a gay daughter, for God’s sake, he’s a modern man! Totally accepting! He has to be accepting of his daughter, you see, because she caught him having sex with her best friend from school — I think she was grown up at this point but it was hard to tell — and so retaliated by coming out as gay (therefore, acceptance is not due to family ties, love, or anything like that).
And he wasn’t done there. He also demanded me to: “Make yourself useful, woman, and get me a cup of coffee.” I took his money and decided that I would get myself a coffee too, then motioned to Tom to get out of there, lest we have another trucker to escape from.
We left just in the nick of time, or else we wouldn’t have had the delight of a lovely old left-wing chain-smoking activist who was involved in all sorts of movements in Latin America in the 1970s — restored our hope and faith in humanity significantly. It was an uplifting end to the day.
