Home is where the heart is...

I met up with some friends to go to a flamenco show? yup, I avoided flamenco my entire stay in Granada (Andalusia is its birthplace) and I ended up going to a show in my native country... oh well. I was impressed one bit, I don't like this kind of music but then he sang about Albayzín... my old neighborhood when I lived in Graná. Hearing the words about Albayzín brought a smile to my ugly face. Happy days.

Since the "lovely" people at the Mexican embassy didn't want to give me the stupid visa to fly from Cancún and since I was not going to book another connecting flight I had to come up with a plan B. Come up because like most plan Bs, they don't exist until you need them. 

I left JH more than a month before and had been working three times a week in a super nice and cozy pub that goes by the name of Whiskey Den. But the time had come. I had to leave. I needed to leave. It was not all fun and games in these 5 months in Guatemala. Had ups and downs but overall was nice. Met nice people. Met not so nice people, unfortunately.

My aim for the day was to get to either El Tunco or San Salvador. I was leaning towards the beach as it would be easier to leave from there than from the city. 

I probably wrote about this before but I cannot remember 100%. Even if I did, it was most likely in 2012. Hitchhiking in Latin America is super different to HHing in Europe. In LatAm you just need to look like a foreigner and put your stuff in front of you and that's it. My level or paranoia grew quite a bit during my times in Guatemala to the point that I was refusing many rides because I didn't feel confident enough to get inside the car. Surprisingly enough, I felt very confident in Nicaragua but I'll get to that soon.

I had to routes to choose from: the Panamarican Highway that would get me to San Salvador but I would have to cross Guate City with all my shit so... no.  The other route was to leave Antigua towards Escuintla and take highway CA2 towards El Salvador. It was a bit longer but nicer views and it would take me through El Tunco where a friend of mine was waiting for me. 

I chose the latter route.

It was 8 in the morning. I stopped at McRubbish for a coffee to go. By 8:30 I was already on my way. First and second rides came easy. By noon I was about 50 Km from the border. Unlike other times that I don't have a time frame I wanted to be in Nicaragua for the weekend meaning that I had to sleep that night in El Salvador. I was quite in a hurry given I had to take a stupid flight that would take me from Costa Rica to El Salvador to Colombia to the Dominican Republic. Success! By early afternoon I was in El Tunco. Next day's destination: León, Nicaragua.

León was not that far away, less than 500Km but that included two borders. Hitchhiking in El Salvador was a breeze. While I was in the queue for the passport check in the Honduras side of the border, someone offered me a shuttle bus, straight to the Nicaraguan border for 6$. "What time are we leaving?". "Now". That guy had a different concept of time than me. That now was almost two hours later. He was waiting for the bus to fill up. All the passengers agreed to paid 8$ so we could leave straight away. Yay, I was on the way to Nicaragua. The van was overheating so we stopped in some town in the middle to fix it. Yay, we lost almost another hour.

I knew that my tattoos would get me questions asked. Everything was fine until I said I was from Guatemala. Before: "gringo", "traveler", "welcome to Nicaragua". But everything changed the second after I said where I was coming from: "do you have more tattoos?", "what do they mean?", "are you in a gang?".

Finally I was in lovely Nicaragua. I stayed in a nice little hotel owned by an Andalusian guy, the name: Hostal Flamenco's...! León was nice. It was not like I remembered it but nice still. Nicaragua is quite cheap. I was craving for Gallo Pinto. I wanted to spend the most time in Nicaragua and the least in Costa Rica. There is a nice beach close to León, Las Peñitas. Then it was Granada. Not quite my Graná but still as nice as I remembered it. León was exactly the middle point between El Tunco and San José, Costa Rica. 

All good things have to come to an end. I needed to leave Nicaragua and somehow get to Costa Rica to take the flight to the DR. The flight was in the afternoon but I wanted to make it to San José the day before so I could check, double check and triple check everything.

A friend of mine arrived to Costa Rica the day before me. I wanted to meet with him so I went to the hostel that he was staying only to find out that he checked out in the morning. The hostel was overpriced (like everything in Costa Rica), not the nicest. It offered free coffee but it was only free if you ordered the, you guessed it: overpriced breakfast! The staff was far from being friendly: I was not shown the room, bathrooms, bar, anything! I found out what time was check out time through another guest. Horrible and expensive experience. I would've slept at the airport if only my flight was in the morning. 

Ahead of me were 18 hours of traveling, between flights and layovers.  I had to spend my last Colones in some overpriced coffee (3$!) because I couldn't change them into Dollars because they "don't have 1$ notes". First stop: El Salvador... where I was just a few days before! Two hour layover and a flight to Bogotá where I would spend the night at the airport. No point in going outside. Flight arrived at midnight and the flight to Santo Domingo was at 8 something.

 I had never been to the Caribbean. I didn't know what to expect. I had no idea about anything on the island. I knew it had amazing beaches and expensive all inclusives on those beaches. I arrived to Santo Domingo but the flight to Madrid was from Punta Cana, some 200 Km from the Capital of the Domincan Republic.

I had to no idea where to stay in DR. I completely forgot that it was Semana Santa so CS was a no no. Everybody was on holidays or already hosting other people. My older brother used to travel quite often to Santo Domingo a few years back so I asked him if he had contacts.

The DR has a lot of tourism, tourism made for rich people. There is no public transport to and from the airport. The taxi is about 30$ I've read somewhere that you could jump in inside a guagua (Dominican bus) and pay 1-2$ but lucky me, my brother still had some contacts in SD. That's how I had a driver waiting for me at the airport. The guy even held a sign with my name written in it! Never had that before happened in my life. I think it was the first time in the history of human kind that a driver was waiting for a sweaty and smelly backpacker. These people who I'm super grateful not only paid for the taxi but also for a small hotel in the old town part of the city. The hotel was really nice. Fancy, at least for me. I mean, for now. I've stayed in fancier hotels when I was younger and I was traveling with my parents but that was ages ago. I don't even remember when was this. I think I was still in high school...

I only had one night in DR. Or so I thought. I went out for dinner to a fancy restaurant and had a massive meal consisting in pasta. The restaurant was overlooking a very pretty square, everything was colonial, inside and out. DR was expensive, at least for me. Not for the flock of tourists that were drinking and eating everywhere.

The time to leave had arrived. I needed to take a bus to Punta Cana Airport. One thing caught my attention: From Santo Domingo to Punta Cana/Bávaro the bus stopped only at the Punta Cana airport, not the Santo Domingo. The same, coming back from Punta Cana, the bus would stop at the SD airport but not PC airport. What if you needed to get from one airport to the other? You either pay a taxi of you're fucked. I would've been fucked.

At this point I was not impressed at all about the DR. Well, at least not in good way. In Santo Domingo most of the people were rude and not nice. If I was standing in a queue someone would try to cut in the queue. When I was about to board the bus and was waiting for the driver to take my backpack someone try do cut the line!? for fuck's sake man, wait for your fucking turn, the bus won't leave without you stupid motherfucker...

I made to Punta Cana airport with plenty of time to spare. I had everything in order: I had the printed ticket to Madrid. I had a printer ticket out of Europe. I had my passport. I had everything... at leat I thought I had everything in order.

Dominicans are super racists: they had a queue for Latin Americans and one for non-Latin Americans. Finally I made it to the check-in counter:
- Where is your visa?
- I don't need a visa.
- Dominicans need a visa to get to Europe.
- I'm not Dominican.
- You will have to wait until the supervisor (decides to) comes here.
Ok, no worries. I don't need a visa, this will be solved quickly. Flight was at 21:15 and it was still not even 17:00. I still have time.

Well, supervisor showed up more than an hour later and confirmed what I was telling the ground personnel for the past hour: Guatemalans DON'T need a visa! Ok, with that out of the way she began the check-in. I have to say that I had already paid the 20$ in exit tax. "This is a one way ticket, where is your return ticket?". I showed a ticket from Belgium to Turkey. Let me talk to the supervisor (again). I talked to the arrogant and ignorant supervisor and she ignores me. She instead, take many people at a time to some room to ask them question because they suspected that their passports were fake! It was humiliating, I was sitting by a column while all the people were getting their boarding passes. I have to say that were a shitload of Spaniards on holidays taking that stupid plane. After about three hours and just before the plane was about to take off, that bitch tells me that they cannot let board the plane because the ticket is not valid. I try to reason with her that Schengen rules states that one need a return or onward ticket out of the Schengen area, not a particular country, that I could fly into Spain and fly out of Estonia if I wanted to. She doesn't know what Estonia is. Her ignorance is amazing. I mean, the level of ignorance she possesses is just unbelievable. She thought (and probably still thinks) that if a person flies to Spain, the return/onward ticket has to be from Spain because "Spain won't let out to go to another country to take another flight". I missed the flight. I tried one last time to reason with those idiots but there was another woman that was super upset. She was partially checked in but was not let board the plane. Her luggage was on the way to Madrid, she wasn't. FUCK YOU EVELOP. YOU SUCK! YOUR GROUND PERSONNEL SUCK! YOU ARE THE WORST AIRLINE! FUCK YOU AND GO TO HELL STUPID CUNTS!

I had to spend the night at the airport, obviously. I was too upset to even think about what I was going to do. I was stuck in the stupid Dominican Republic. I tried to get some sleep. I'll think of something tomorrow.

Morning came. I asked where I could eat something as there was only ONE restaurant in the fucking international airport! There is a shopping center about 10 minute walk from the terminal. I found a café to sit a loiter the internet. I ended up staying there until closing time. The ladies that work there were super nice. Specially one, Chavela. She gave me water without asking.  I was supposed to be in Spain Sunday morning, instead I was having a coffee still in the DR. Yeah, yeah I know. Why are you complaining, you're in the Caribbean, you're in paradise. Paradise? yeah, for rich people! I sent some couch requests to people near by but it was Semana Santa: every body was out or hosting someone already.

That whole Sunday I thought about what do do. I even thought to go back to Guatemala and send Europe to fuck itself. I was worn out. I was tired. I needed a shower. I changed tshirt because the other one probably (most likely) stunk. Went to the café again. Found another ticket, leaving Monday evening. I booked the ticket with the help of a good friend of mine. Fuck the ticket from Belgium, this time I had a return ticket to Guatemala. I was to leave the stupid island Monday evening at 22:10.

The time came. I showed up at the counter. Again, a queue for Latin Americans and a queue for non-Latin Americans... da fuq DR!? What's wrong with you? I gave my passport. The guy scanned it with some X-Ray/UV/IR device but that is not enough so he asks me for my ID. According to international law, the ONLY valid form of ID for a person in a foreign country is their passport. But I agree and gave my ID.  He scans it with the X-Ray/UV/IR device and finally give the OK. All's good. I've flown Wamos Air before and have no complaints of any kind before, why would I start now. Gave my passport and then I'm not in the fucking system!!! What the hell is going on for fuck's sake!!!??? Come on Wamos, don't let me down. I have high hopes for you, don't let me down.  Supervisor goes to two different terminal but this one is not a bitch, like the Evelop one. Everything's good. False alarm. I'm given the boarding pass. Everything is alright. I'm headed to the X-Ray machines and then to passport control. See you later suckers!!!

Not quite.

The police guy passport control man askes me were I was before. I'm confused and don't know the exact dates. He's testing me, he's looking at the stamps in the passport. He asks me where is my visa. For the millionth fucking time: I DON'T NEED A VISA!!! He then takes my passport to his supervisor. All this is happening when I'm trying to board out of the country, not getting in. The uniformed cunt says out loud, in front of me and other people: "I've always thought of Guatemalan passport as fake, I mean, look at them! they seem very fake to me". I said to myself: idiot. Then he asked me for my ID, which he liked more. While all this is happening the police guy passport control man is always looking angry and serious. Then another guy joins and ask where is the visa to what the uniformed guy says that Guatemalan don't need a visa. I'm nervous. He says that everything is OK. When we're about 1 meter from the control booth he called us back. "How much money do you need to get into Europe?". How the fuck should I know, a shitload that I don't have? I said 500€ minimum between cash and card, while showing my debit card. "OK, cool. I was just asking because not long ago there was a Colombian guy that wanted to go to Europe and didn't have any cash or card with him. I sent him back to Colombia". Hmm, I thought that at least I would get a free flight back to Guatemala instead of getting stuck on the island. Now, the police guy passport control man changed completely his attitude. Now he was smiling and even apologized for all that shit! I made it. Now I only needed to wait for a couple of hours more to board the plane and then 8 hours later I would landing in Madrid.

8 hours later I was landing in Spain but there was something that kept bothering me. I was in plane where half of the seats were occupied by Dominicans. There was probably a valid (and annoying) reason why DR is super tough in letting people board planes. Got to Spanish passport control. I gave my passport. Woman asked me if I had a return ticket to which I showed the ticket I was not asked to show leaving DR. Asked me where I was going to stay. I said hostels but the booking were in my mobile and the battery died. Stamped in. FUCK YEAH! I WAS IN!!

I didn't want to book the bus ticket to Lisboa just in case. I had to rush to the bus station. When I got there I bought the last ticket to Lisboa! It wasn't because during the whole ride no one sat beside me. More space for me.

I celebrated going to a café and bough tostada de tomate y café con leche. It was not the best that I had but I couldn't care less. I was back in Spain and by that time the next day I would be in Portugal, but that's for a different post.

That was the story of how I got back to Europe.

Finally I'm...

... able to breathe normally again? The days of anxiety and panic attacks are over? I'm back home.

Anyways, after a couple of days in Madrid looking for a solution to my problem: how to get back to Guatemala. The solution came in the form of my friends. You know who you are. Thank you. Really, specially you who have been by my side since last year.

I found a ticket to Guatemala through Colombia. After checking, double checking and triple checking the fact that I don't need a visa the ticket was booked. I spent 4 days in Madrid. It was a long flight but the plane was comfortable. It was actually the nicest plane I have ever flown. I think it was the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

A friend of mine was waiting for me in Bogotá. After telling her that I had a layover, she invited me to stay with her. With directions in hand I left the airport and took the bus to her flat. We waited 5+ years to have a couple of beers.

The following day I had the flight to Guatemala at 14:20. I had several hours to kill. Decide that I couldn't leave Colombia without having an arepa so I embarked on the quest to find one. I Spent two weeks in 2012 so it was not really a must to go sightseeing. I had my important shit with me so I decided to play it safe and eat at the first restaurant I saw.

After eating, I went straight to the airport. I still had like 3 hours left before the flight.

After clearing passport control and the X-Ray machine a policeman told me to go where he was. "We are going to do a routine drug test". Dafuq!? I started to panic. After bitch slapping myself (mentally of course). I sat and thought "why the fuck are you scared about? you don't have any drugs on you. Chill". Then another policeman asked me to walk with him. They put me through a fucking X-Ray machine to see if I had drugs inside my body!? Cunts. And to put the cherry on top, they made put my stuff through the X-Rays again! Like after being always surrounded by policemen I was going to smuggle anything inside. Idiots.

2,5 hr flight and I was back in "The Land of the Eternal Spring". It was sunny and warm. I wore a polar to cover my arm tattoo. Realized that the stigma of a tattooed person is nothing nice in Guatemala. I had to fill out a form upon entering right? Country of provenance: Colombia. I had to write that because I left the airport, otherwise I would've written Spain. There is this traffic light, you have to press a button. If the light turns green, you are obviously free to go. If it turns red, well, customs have to check your luggage. The guy saw that I was coming from Colombia and immediately told me to go left (where you had to go if the light was red). Finally I made it out. I just needed to wait for my big brother. He told that he would pick me up.

It's nice to be back, except for the stupid jetlag that it was hard to get rid of. Now I can't seem to get a brake, now I have insomnia! I barely sleep. I'm sleeping like 4-5 hours a day best case scenario.  Am I still stressed out, maybe. Although now is for different reasons.

For a reason, I always have a tough time when I'm back home. Circumstances. I hope I can change them soon... very soon. This time is different though. I've gone out and met many wonderful people. Haven't met many of my friends, except for a handful. I guess that they all have a busy life and just can't make the time. It's understandable, besides I have been back for less than two weeks. I'm going to give myself time to adjust again to the Guatemalan rhythm of life.

I feel the pressure in my chest  building up again. Fuuuuuuuuuu...

Guess what I'm listening at the moment? yup, Vodka Juniors. I'm only missing the litre of Alhambra...

Stupid visas

I thought that last week was the worst. Little did I know what was coming... The worst day(s) of my life my Sunday 27th September. And to a lesser lever, the following Monday, although it turned out to be way better than I expected. And I was expecting the worst!

Saturday night. I barely slept due to the fact that I was really nervous and I had to print the boarding pass for the flight to Guatemala. The boarding pass was only available 24hr before the flight. The flight was at 19:15 Mexican time. Sunday's 2:15. Finally managed to download the stupid PDF. I tried to sleep a bit longer with little to no success.

Now I have to find a locutorio (internet café) to print the stupid piece of paper. Note that I had to be at airport no later than 11, which is the time that most locutorios open on Sundays. I began to panic. I bitchslapped myself (mentally)  and went to have breakfast. There, while drinking coffee I remembered that there is a hostel not far from where I was. I used to send them guests when I was working at Makuto. I decided to go and ask if I could print the boarding passes there. The receptionist, a cool Colombian guy agreed to it. One thing was out of the way.

Boarding passes out of the way, onto the next worry: leave Spain. With that out of the way I only had a 10 hr. flight, 2 hr. layover, 1,5 hr. flight and I would be hugging my mum. Everything would have been over by 20:30 Guatemalan time.

But Mexican immigration had other plans for me...

Rewind a couple of weeks. I'm in Madrid. Applying for the Mexican visa. They told me that I had to go to the Mexican embassy in Portugal because my passport was stolen in Portugal. They could not accept the police document in Portuguese. They told me about another option: if you only take a connecting flight and spend less than 24 hr. inside the airport, you don't need a visa because it's only transit.

Now fast forward to Sunday's flight. After 10 hr. inside a Boeing 747 I finally landed in cloudy Cancún. Two hours later I had a plane that would take me home. As I said before, Mexican immigration had other plans for me. The immigration officer looked at my passport. I told him that the embassy said that I don't need a visa if it's only transit. The look on his face was telling me that things were going from bad to worse. I went to an office. I told the embassy story. They said that they couldn't take me to the terminal. Exactly the opposite of what the embassy people told me a few weeks prior. I start to get nervous. I start breathing heavily. I control myself to not have break down and have a panic attack. Success. Policeman took me to an office, maybe 3x3 meters, no windows, just a desk and two chairs, a light on the ceiling. Very sketchy. He asked me again the same questions. The he asked me how much money I had. Later I realized that if I've had enough money, I could've bought my way out of the airport. But I realized this hours later. He left the office and I stayed there for what it feels like 3 hours. I was a nervous wreck. I don't know really, maybe 15 minutes later he came back to the room and said "there is no point of you being here, let's go back to the office outside". I don't know, they saw that I was not well and changed they're approach, began to treat me like a person and not like a common criminal. They talked to some people from the airline but they didn't want to "risk" taking me to the other terminal as the ticket could be fake and it would be their responsibility if they don't let me board the plane.

I was told at the embassy that a policeman would escort me all the time. I don't care I said to myself, as long as make it to the plane. Even if this means being treated like a criminal and maybe even humiliated as this would happen in front of the entire terminal. My goal is to get on that fucking plane.

Boarding time was 19:45. A few minutes before, the policeman told me "I got bad new for you, we are sending you back to Spain". My legs couldn't support me anymore, my world collapsed... "When is the next flight" I asked, "who will feed me?". He told me that airline will "take care" of me as I was their responsibility, after all, it was their fault to let me board the plane without the "appropriate" visas. "When is the next flight leaving?". By this time I've already lost the flight to Guatemala City. "You leave in 20 minutes, airline people will pick you up and take you to the plane". My world collapsed once more.

It has been a dream or fantasy of mine to fly for free. I finally managed to do it but I was going to wrong direction. What is going on? I was being deported from a Latin American country back to Europe? Am I in some kind of parallel universe? I mean, I've heard or read on the news of people being deported from the States back to Latin America. People being deported from Europe back to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East. But for fuck's sake, I was being flown back to Europe!!!???

Third time on board a B747. This time instead of Economy Class I flew Business Class. At least I was coming back in style. I was utterly exhausted. I barely slept the night before not say during the flight to Mexico. The seats in Business Class had more space. It took one hour less to fly back to Madrid.

The anxiety kicked in again. What was I going to tell border police. I left Spain the day before and less than 24hr. I was back? "I forgot my laptop" was not going to work. My mind started to fuck me up once more. I began to think that I was not going to be let into Spain again. That they were going to send me back to Mexico. Mexico won't let me in again and they were going to send me back to Spain. And so on. And so on. I would be stuck in international travel limbo. Or, I would be thrown in jail without the possibility to tell anyone about my well being. I was supposed to be in Guatemala but I was back in Spain.

Finally my turn to go to passport control came up. Gave my passport. "Motive of the visit, holidays?", I answered that yes, it was holidays. I was not thinking clearly. He noted the stamp of the day's before date. I explained the situation. The policeman looked at me and said what it would translated into "what a chore" but colloquially would mean something like "tough shit" while he was stamping my passport. I was in! They fucking let me back into Spain!

It was rough. It's something that I would like to never repeat. Ever. It's actually the fourth time that I was held in a sketchy room for questioning: first time was leaving, yes, leaving Bulgaria. But after an hour I made into Turkey. The second time was in Slovenia. I even felt that my life was in danger as the policeman had his hand on his pistol, yet I made into Slovenia after two hours. The third time is utterly ridiculous and stupid. I almost never made it into Nicaragua... yes, you read it right: Nicaragua!!! Their argument? I could stay there indefinitely. Yeah, right. I'm going to stay in a country with a shittier economy than my own. Sorry if any Nicaraguan is reading this but that how things are. And now at Cancun Airport.

While staying at my friend's flat here in Madrid, I learnt that a good friend of ours had it much rougher than I did. He was deported back to Asia after spending 6+ weeks in an Eastern European jail. Compared to that my experience was a walk in the park, and it was still tough. I am grateful that none of that happened to me.

Maybe some of you will never understand this kind of incident because you were lucky enough to have been born in a country with a good passport. I'm not complaining. Maybe a little. It's just how things are.

I know that someday I will laugh about this. It's not today.

But to put the cherry on top. I still need to apply for the stupid Mexican Visa. Why? Because I will come back to Europe and where is the cheapest place to fly from? You guessed it right: Cancún. FML.

all roads lead to Granada, part III: Tapas!

When I told Christian that I had heard somewhere something like "when you meet nice people, you always meet them again", well, he didn't believe me. I met him in february in Budapest. We met again at the hitchgathering in august and now I was going to stay with him in the center of Madrid.

I kinda had the chance to go to Madrid a few years ago but I decided not to. I don't regret that decision but Madrid it's actually a nice place. People everywhere but still nice. Maybe it was because it was before Christmas but still. The only time I barely saw people was the day I left and it was because it was early. Train station was a bit crowed tho. 

I didn't know what to expect from this city except that I knew it was big. Didn't see much of it, mostly the area of Callao, in the middle of Madrid. There is a metro station really close meaning that the flux of people is huge. But the fact that is in the center and is a very nice area means that there is everything within walking distance: shops, pubs, restaurants, supermarkets.

One thing I really wanted to try was the culture of tapas I heard so much about. You order a caña and you get a plate of snacks that can range from simple fries to pork or steak or whatever other yummy thing you can imagine. I know refer to cañas a "cute beers". Why cute, because they are really small, I think they are about 20cl. If you order a tubo, then you get "the big beer": about 25cl. What the hell? a quarter of a beer? Funny thing is that the other day I had a cute beer and felt tipsy afterwards... don't ask.

Christian showed me around the area. Met his friends, his flatmates. All in all was a very nice stay. I also got the chance to meet again with Oscar, a friend of mine from Guatemala whom I hadn't seen hi in over 4 years. The last time I saw him was when I organized his farewell party because he was off to Spain to do a masters in something. Now, he's going to have a PhD in something. I actually don't know in what exactly but good for him. He's been in Spain for quite a while now. Happy that was able to catch up with him after that long.

I wanted to spend NYE in Portugal with some friends but the work exchange situation changed a bit. I was needed right away in Granada. So I had to leave. If I don't go to Granada I might lose the chance to volunteer over there. I had to take it. 

So many people say that hitchhiking in Spain is hard. This was going to be my first attempt at doing it and it was going to be alone and it's winter. The good thing is that is not very cold. Can get chilly but nothing I cannot handle.

The main issue with many people when they hitchhike here is that they don't speak Spanish and spaniards and not know for their english speaking skills. Spain don't really have a hitchhking culture and people are not really used to do hitchhiking like their neighbors for example. By neighbors I mean both France and Portugal. If you stand on the side of the road be prepared to wait a few hours before getting picked up. What works best is to approach drivers and talk to them so they will see that your mum was right in thinking you are a good boy/girl. One other thing: don't listen to truck drivers that most likely never hitchhiked before telling you that there is a petrol station 5 minutes away where there is more traffic and lots of cars and trucks stop to tank before heading south. DON'T LISTEN TO THEM! I listened to the driver and walked not 5 min but 30, an hour including the return trip. The other petrol station had more traffic, that is true but that traffic was in the vast majority local, like 95%. The remaining 5% was going the opposite direction, back to Madrid. Not really sure how can that be possible as the petrol station is on the side leading south. Anyways, that  's what that 5% of the drivers told me. Oh! and I saw only one truck. And to make things even more brilliant, there were some construction works do there entrance was also the exit causing a traffic jam. Fuck this shit, I'm going back to the other one.

15 min later I found a straight ride to Granada.

all roads lead to Granada, part II: wine country

previously on hitchhiking stories:

It took me the same amount of time to get from Berlin to Utrecht than from Utrecht to Lille and it's a third of the distance... hitchhiking works in mysterious ways. Finally I met Matylda, a friend of a friend of mine. We almost meet last summer for the hitchgathering but she didn't go. Only stayed one night in Lille but it's alright, I was there last year.

The 800 Km between Lille and Bordeaux seemed doable in one day except for one tiny little detail: Paris was in between...

and now...

The night before leaving, me and Matylda were checking google maps for a decent petrol station before Paris. What is next might not say anything to you but it did to us: there were two huge petrol stations on the A1 before Paris, one right after exit 11 and the other one after exit 7. I thought that getting to the closest one will increase my chances of getting a ride across The City of Light. 

After saying goodbye to all the nice peeps I met the night before, finally meeting and exchanging stories with Matylda, getting a few gigabytes worth of music and sleeping only for a few hours, I was ready to whatever may lay ahead of me. Of course I was hoping for the best. I thought that if by any chance I would get stuck in Paris it was better just to find a place to crash there instead of trying to cross it. It took me almost two hours to cross BXL.

By 8 I was already on my way to the first petrol station on the motorway and after a coffee and a baguette with Speculoos pasta I was on my way to the petrol station closest to Paris! But wait, this is still not a victory. I still had to cross one of the most populous cities in the world. The city that once took me 4 hours just to get to the place to start hitchhiking.

I was smoking a cigarette in front of the shop when a guy asked me, what I'm assuming since he had a cardboard sign, if I was going to Le Mans or Angers. I smiled and said that I also was going there. He kept telling me spells in french until I realized that he thought I was a driver and not a fellow hitchhiker.

So far I found all rides quite fast so standing for more than half hour I started to become anxious. Will I need to go into Paris? not particularly in my wish list for the day. I still had the sign that the couple in Kielce gave me, the one that had written "Kraków" in it. Now it had also written "Le Mans", "Angers" and "Paris". I was goofingly showing all destinations to drivers, didn't work in getting me a ride but at least I made smile more than half of the people I showed it to. Partial success from the making people smile point of view.

My saviour came in the form of a spanish/french speaking portuguese driver, Tomás. There was some kind of prohibition for trucks: they weren't allowed to cross Paris. Instead, they had to go around it, meaning that going on the ring road will add 1,5 hours to the already long 600 km gap. By 19h00 I was about 90 km from Bordeaux. So close yet so far away. Portuguese people "weren't" going in my direction (Bordeaux). Long story short: after a tasty baguette with eggs, ham and cheese with french fries courtesy of corsican driver, a coffee courtesy of a spanish driver and some fun talks with spanish drivers (including an ride offer to Sevilla) I accepted the fact that I was not going anywhere that night. I slept inside the truck, very uncomfortable in the passenger seat but hey it wasn't cold and I had a roof over my head.

Guillaume, a french hitchhiker whom I almost met earlier this year in Tallinn offered me an "emergency couch" if I ever made it to Bordeaux. Well, here I was, very close to it. He lives in a small town north of Bordeaux, a couple of kilometres to where Tomás was actually going! 

Staying with him and his dad and brother was something truly extraordinary. I felt at home all the time.  Guillaume showed me his city. We shared stories. I never got bored staying in Saint Loubès. We are very similar except that I cannot play one single music instrument and he can play 89 instruments. He's a wizard when he's playing the piano. He taught me the super basics on how to play the contrabass. It was harder than I thought.

Bordeaux is a lovely city. Big but nice. The center can be seen in a couple of days. It has some lovely architecture all over, multicultural neighborhoods. It's home to the longest pedestrian street either in France or Europe. Googling that I found that there is another longest pedestrian street in København, so who knows. The longest or not, it's a very nice street full of life. On one end is some sort of immigrant neighborhood, really cool. Full of kebab restaurants. The other end being the posh end of the street, not so cool but still nice.

I didn't want to leave Bordeaux/Saint Loubès without hitching with Guillaume. We tried to hitch to where his mum lives, Arcachon but no one picked us up. I guess the green hair was scary to many people maybe? Near Arcachon is the tallest sand dune in Europe, Done du Pilat. I have to see that, I have never seen a sand dune before. Hitching to Arcachon didn't work but I'm a stubborn bastard so the next day we successfully hitched the 15 km between Saint Loubès and Bordeaux. 15 fucking kilometers and it only took one hour and two rides! Regardless, it was fun!

Bordeaux is a hard place to get out from but Guillaume drove me several kilometers to the first petrol station on the motorway heading south. He said it was big but it was nothing extraordinary. Anyways, it was super helpful to be in that place. Many many truck drivers heading south to Spain... Spain, many people say it's hard to hitch. My first and only time hitchhiking in Spain was alright. I mean, wasn't slower than other places I've hitched but now it's winter. Things are different in winter.

I asked several portuguese drivers, nothing. Finally I found a ride with Vicente. Actually he was walking towards me to ask me where I was going... I was in Madrid before sundown.

Saint Loubès at 6 in the morning 

Guillaume playing the piano