The Hitchiker's Guide to Morocco

HITCH: DAY 1










Plan: leave Leodis residences at 9:30 AM
Actual Departure time: 1:30PM, Steph and walk outside the door and complain to Jeff that it is far too cold outside, as the skies threaten to rain. We run back inside the door
ACTUAL departure time: 1:35PM

We walk for about 10-15 minutes to the nearest 'motorway' behind our residence, each of us carrying a large backpack, myself an army bag that bears an unsettling resemblance to a terrorist. After our group discussion of what the heck have we gotten ourselves into, and our admission that we had NO idea what we were doing, we flag our whiteboard sign in the air, written on it "M1 South". About 15-20 minutes later, we are picked up by a lady who offered to drive us to the actual on ramp heading south to London. From there we are soon picked up by a man who offered to take us to a roundabout on the highway. From there we end up at a service station. After quite a bit of effort, we are picked up by a nice man driving to Nottingham, and from there almost immediately found a ride to Leicester.

The average number of hitches it takes to get all the way to Morocco is 15. We've had four on our first day, and are moving along at a pace analogously on par with a snail, but at least we are getting the hang of things. For one, it is not nearly as scary or unsafe as it seems, and so far, we've been a bit amazed at the fact that people have actually stopped to pick us up. As I write this entry in my journal, we are sitting at a service station, in the middle of the M1 eating a bargain bucket of KFC chicken. Jeff is wearing my sunglasses, looking like quite the metrosexual, as we are playing poker with a flask of vodka (this is our emergency ration to keep warm and it was freezing in that service station!). We ended up sleeping there that night, as it is quite unlikely that anyone gets picked up after dark. We walk to the attached motel at the service station, The Days Inn. They wanted 100 pounds for 2 rooms between the 3 of us, which as poor students raising money for charity, we could not afford. We went back into the service station, a bit disappointed, when one of the staff working there, with whom we had made friends with, asked what happened, and offered us that we could sleep undisturbed in the lounge chairs. We were about to crash for the night, when one of the staff managed to get for us a room for 3 for 35 pounds or so, which was less than the price of a single room. Numbed at this point to the bone by the freezing cold, I was elated at this point by the thought of a warm comfy bed and a hot shower. Apparently the hotel does have a charity button on the cash register after all...

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HITCH: DAY 2










One really good night's sleep later and we are on our way, out of the hotel by 9:30 AM. We're really starting bright and early these days, there will be no repeats of the prior day's failed attempts to rise and shine. We are soon picked up 20 minutes later en route to Northhampton. Our cold journey towards the southern sunshine continues. We are almost picked up by a trucker who agreed to take us, however this would have meant an inconvenient diversion to port Dover, and would probably take us into Paris, where we have been warned not to go, for it is supposedly hard to catch a ride out of there- the hitchiker's no man's land. Steph is reading over my shoulder in the car at the moment, I hope she doesn't glance across the part where I say such horrible things about her... (for those of you who think I might be serious- just kidding)

At the moment we are feeling a bit nervous, wondering if perhaps we should have taken that lift to Dover... The ride we caught instead of that one didn't take us too far down. He was a construction worker. Luckily, however, we did manage to get a ride down to Portsmouth, where we could take the ferry across the English channel, via a really nice guy who actually drove us all the way to the port, which was further than he initially had intended to drive us. At this point we are feeling so very thankful a bit smug with ourselves for being quite the charming bunch. *wink wink*. We arrive sometime around 5PM to find that the cheapest ferry available is at 11:30PMm and had we gotten there a bit earlier we would have paid 10 pounds rather than 17. We bought the tickets after trying our best to lobby motorists to take us in their cars and after we were warned by ferry staff that this was, in fact, illegal (ie. the sign above, 'no ferry for charity'). whoops.

At the ferry we have quite the rendevous with all the other hitchers. Later that night, the waiting area was literally flocked with herds of groups of hitchers waiting to get on the 11:30 ferry to Le Havre, France. After catching our breath for a bit, we set out on a trek to find food. After finding the nearby pubs a bit pricey, we set off in search of Sainsbury, the grocer, for some munchies, but alas, it is by then after 8PM and Sainsbury was sadly closed. So we walk further, pass Charles Dicken's birthplace, in the lovely, dark streets of Porthsmouth, Steph, Jeff and I, lugging around on our shoulders our 3 heavy bags, and find refuge at McDonlands and their 2.70 pound cheeseburger (x2) and fries (x2) and of course, a Cadbury Creme Egg mcflurry to top it all off and eat and chat away until the lady working there kicks us out after she asked whether we have homes to go to, and after she alluded to Canada as being part of the United States. We assured her that we are indeed not homeless, and left slightly dismayed that we could not do anything to enlighten her lacking awareness of global geography...

Our ferry was delayed for an hour, Steph and I managed to sneak in an uncomfortable nap in barely reclining seats, a bit cold without a blanket, until being awoken by Jeff, inviting us to party with the other hitchers. How could we say no? We joined our friends Matt, Jess and some other hitchers for a drink or two. At some point we tried to hang out in the bar, but apparently, people had decided to sleep there on the couches and were rather upset that we were using the bar for its invented purpose, ie. socializing... I mean she tried to kick US out, for heaven's sake, not the other way around... I didn't sleep too well in the reclining seats, with the tunes of my Mp3 player playing in the background, I felt far too chilly and uncomfortable to properly sleep, dozing off here and there to the soothing sounds of Sarah McLaughlin as I rock along to the calming waves of the ocean...


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HITCH: DAY 3














This morning I awoke, if I was ever asleep at all, to a barrage of hitchers trying to squeeze their way out of Le Havre.... Bienvenue a la France, by the way, we've left the UK. So after getting our passports stamped, we knew that there would be a little competition for rides at this point. We decided to play it cool, strategically, as well as out of exhaustion and bide our time leaving immigration and getting good local advice for getting out of there. We tried our luck, after a bit of a walk, hitching opposite a McDonalds, which I think was a really bad strategy considering we were so hungry to the point that I think secretly none of us wanted to get picked up. So luckily enough, 20 minutes later, we were having a 2 euro egg mcmuffin and coffee breakfast in McDonalds, reveling in how exciting the little things can be when you are traveling (mmm coffee) before trying again near the gas station. So after a relaxing start to what could have easily been a very hectic morning, we ended up getting picked up literally 3 minutes after arriving at the gas station by a young French garcon with dreadlocks and a car that was falling apart and a gas tank gauge reading empty, but we were willing to take anything at this point. His name was Tristian, and he was nice enough to drive us to Le Pont Normandie. On the way we passed by a group that was almost right next to us who had probably been standing there for over an hour while we enjoyed breakfast and got immediately picked up... we felt bad, but don't worry, karma would soon come back for us...

We arrive at the bridge, go for a mini nature walk in the little public park built in by the bridge next to some fields and a pond, snap up some photos, and then it begins to feel like the Amazing Race because we stumble upon at least 7 other groups on the bridge trying to hitch a ride... Let's just say it took us about 4 hours to get off the bridge, and we tried hitching from several locations, to no avail, Jeff even did cartwheels. At one point, we even made Jeff hide in the grass so that maybe some trucker wouldn't hesistate to pick up the lovely Steph and I before realizing we had a guy with us. Yes, we are sneaky. Eventually, finally, at last, we were picked up by a family, Cedric, an anaesthesiologist, and his wife from Dallas, (forgive me, I forget her name), and their adorable daughter. They even took another group along as well in their van, and drove us even further than they had originally intended so that we wouldn't end up stranded in the middle of France. Eventually we got dropped off at a little stop on the highway where there there was a grocery store, and of course, we were so hungry and now very happy. After roaming the aisles and admiring the tasty looking section of jumbo bread loafs, and not to mention, cheap wine, we bought chocolate, apples, bread, cheese, cold cuts, and some pastries of course. We competed with the other group for a ride out of this place, taking us maybe 45 minutes, but we got picked up from Caens by this extremely generous man, Nathaniel, who even invited us back to his home for some "Moroccan tea" in the quaint French countryside. I want to live in a place like this someday. We met his two sons, Maxime and Simon, and Simon played the Moroccan drums for us, and was just fantastic. It was such a generous display of generosity, I couldn't have been any more humbled or touched. (we later sent him a postcard from Morocco).

Soon after this, we picked up one more hitch, bringing our grand total of hitches, after only three days, to 12 hitches, and note here, the average number of hitches to Morocco is 15... At this point we are in Le Mans, after a short bus ride, ready to sleep the night away in our nice hotel, with some more sandwiches, and 1 Euro champagne. Jeff goes out with Matt and Jess who happen to be staying nearby on their trek (Steph and I "have low iron", Babushka needs her sleep)... ah a shower and warm blanket....

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HITCH: DAY 4








The only way I could do this day justice is to explain just how much this day seemed to be riddled with irony. We left our hotel sluggishly late in the morning after a redbull and apple breakfast and walked a small trek with our bags to where we thought the highway stretch would be, only to realize shortly that we were walking through a huuuuuge couple of KM long construction zone. It didn't help that we didn't speak enough French to figure this out for ourselves from the construction workers. It seemed there was a detour for cars, and a detour for pedestrians. We certainly weren't going to walk all the way to Morocco.... Our only solace was some yummy chocolate pastries for breakfast. We were lucky to hitch a ride after at least an hour or 2 of walking, although it was a bit of a short one, out of Le Mans. wooo hoo.. We arrived further down the road where a nice lady picked us up and drove us even further through spectacular scenery- beautiful farms and French countryside. From there we did a fair bit of walking while we hitched- it was such a beautiful day for once, and after what seemed like almost a whole afternoon, we got picked up by a couple and rode in the back of their minitruck, which was very bumpy but fun! We then got dropped off in the middle of the highway, bought some food and champagne, where our next hitch took us from there to a highway onramp. We were a bit stuck there lol, we had fun trying to entice the drivers to pick us up while we watched sprialling army planes taking nosedives over our heads. We finally, and I do mean finally, got picked up by this gentleman named Noel, who dropped us off literally at the next on ramp where 85% of the cars weren't even heading on the highway. As he dropped us off, I think he realized that he may have done us a disfavour as he pointed us to the nearest hotels the other way. It was quite ironic to watch the beautiful sunset on a gorgeous day with a not-so happy ending... it was a bit saddening and depressing, but Jeff cut up some apples and cheese and poured some champagne on the highway as we tried our luck with the few cars going by. We cozied up in a 0-1 star hotel, and no I'm not kidding, which looked more like a bunk cabin you might find on a cruise ship or something, and made some sandwiches and called it a day. At least the hotel only cost us 11 Euros each, and it actually wasn't too shabby of a place. At this point, I laugh my cares away as I am thankful that this is the worst thing that has happened to us thus far..

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HITCH: DAY 5







After three days of unkind weather, followed by a day devoid of any luck at all, though having made the best of things, the three of us awoke in the spirit that today held good things in store for us. After checking out of our tiny tiny hotel room, things at first did not quite seem to turn around for us. The driver of the cab we called to take us to a busier on-ramp spent 5 minutes talking to Jeff about where to go, running the meter up to 7 euros before we had even set an arm or leg into the cab. An hour later after sending this cab away, we managed to hop into another and realized the futility of our efforts, as this one's meter was already at 7 euros. It seems that in France, you are charged for the cab's travel time from dispatch to your location... would have been nice to have known that before... A 6 euro cabfare each and one massive communication breakdown later, we arrived at a more central and northern ramp (aka we went in the opposite direction) in order to try our luck there. Although cars did pull over for us, none were heading in our direction, but were going north to Paris instead. Since a couple other hitchers up the road from us weren't having much luck either, we convinced Katrin and Jonny from Wales to split a cab with us to the nearest service station rather than waste anymore time. After arriving there, while I was busy pitching to police officers who probably had no room in their vans, Jeff and Steph managed to convince a nice truck driver, Dennis to pick us up. He drove us south to Anguleme, and thanks to networking, Jean-Michel picked us up immediately and was supposed to drive us to northern Spain. We had great conversation with him, in French surprisingly, as he told us about his paratrooping days. Although he couldn't get us a ride into Spain because his colleague refused to drive us (you really only are supposed to have 1 extra person in the truck anyways), he drove us to a Shell service station and even bought us some cafe (coffee) and tried to find us a ride. The guy at the counter at the station found us two trucks going to Bordeaux, but that meant splitting up. After hearing some horror stories from our last truck driver, we conceeded that we'd rather not split up for our safety and sanity, and turned it down... following the rules, our moral intuition was about to pay off, big time.

Steph and I tried our sign flashing and French skills and eventually found a driver willing to take us all to Bordeaux, but then we immediately found Jose who would drive us to northern Spain!!!! We arrived by dark, as Jose literally snuck us across the border. Steph even heard him speaking on the phone in Spanish, assuring "it's ok don't worry, it will be fine".... thankfully he didnt get in trouble for helping us out... We holed up at the hotel by the border, which cost 60 euros between the 3 of us for a double room.. .a bit expensive, but we'd rather save some money and squish 3 of us into one bed.. it wasn't horrible and it was a reallly nice room.

At this point we've had 21 hitches, and only just now have we been succeeding in hauling in the truckers- that's 3 in a day!!! Just as karma would have it... At this point I think I seriously underestimated the amount of physical and mental endurance and stamina necessary for hitching through horrible weather and little tiffs here and there. The most exciting and unsettling parts of this trip have been the 'known unknowns', as Donald Rumsfeld would put it. Not knowing where you were going to sleep the next night, where you'd find food next, or what was going to happen the next day is both the scariest and most rewarding thing of all...

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HITCH: DAY 6







So here we are in Spain, feeling quite a bit smug with ourselves today, so we woke up today feeling relaxed, ate a bit of the small amounts of our food remaining, and eventually wandered out in search of a ride. And then we found life, or Leif rather, the Danish trucker, and literally, our savior, as he was going to Sevilla, very southern Spain. We eagerly hopped onboard, wandering if this was almost too easy, considering all the trouble we had gone through before in search of getting lifts. After a day on the truck, we stopped and spent the night just outside of Madrid, and booked ourselves a nice hostel alongside the highway for 20 euros each. Lief bought us a couple of beers and a bit of food as we watched Denmark lose 2-1 to Spain in the football match. Poor Lief.. he wasn't too happy about that, but I think he got over it. Having a bit of security for once was a really nice change... *sighs*

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HITCH: DAY 7








So we met Leif for breakfast in the morning in the Salida/restaurant of the hostel. Perhaps now is the time to mention that my Spanish, by the way, is simply non-existent. Thankfully the same cannot be said for Steph. I was feeling a bit ill this morning, so I bought a baguette to nibble on as we left for Sevilla.

We probably should have asked Leif to drop us off at a service station along the way, but when we couldn't find one when it was too late, Leif, who had been nice enough to drive us for 2 whole days, ended up almost deserting us (although we love him) in the middle of nowhere at a highway crossroads, stuck somewhere between Sevilla and Cardiz as 50,000 motorcycles zipped by returning north from a huge race that had gone on earlier.

Despite my apprehensions, after maybe an hour, we did get picked up by Padre Raphael, a priest, who drove us 20km south to a service station- perfectly and conveniently located by food and a hostel :)

After maybe 45 minutes of trying our luck hitching on the road, it finally occured to us to start hitting up all the truckers that were pulling in. Steph spotted Julio who was going to Algeciras, which was exactly where we wanted to go to take the ferry into Morocco. Although he raced inside quickly, we caught him on his way out. We pulled out our charity hitch brochure and translations leaflet, and after looking it over for not even 5 seconds, he cracked a smile and without hesitation motioned for us to come with. At this point, my heart overfilled with joy and happiness, of a long journey suddenly in a moment made worthwhile. Jeff and I were smiling like little kids on Christmas morning (or Hannakah for that matter). :)

2 hours later, we were in Algeciras. We walked for an hour to the ferry, over a huge bridge, not for 10 minutes like Julio insisted.. It is fascinating how elaborate the whole trucking/exporting/importing scheme is- we learned quite a bit. We ran into 3 other hitchers who took a train from Paris to Bordeaux (we were told to avoid Paris from the start for difficulty of getting hitches) and then lucked out and ran into guys driving all the way to Morocco... We all headed to a cheap dodgy motel to get 6 hours of sleep before boarding the ferry in the morning. Some guy tried to sell us drugs like 5 times, the hotel was a bit dirty and run down, but only 10 euros. ah well, just ask Jeff what he found in his bed... *shudder*..

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HITCH: DAY 8

Well here we are, 23 hitches later, on board our ferry to Tangier, Morocco. The hitching part of our journey is over- it's official as soon as we text back in. Wish you could see the smiles on our faces when Julio offered us that last hitch. It's been quite a journey of highs (when someone offers you a ride when you don't expect it) and lows (when you get stuck in the middle of nowhere..ah Noel..). It's been sunny and warm, and at times freezing and uncomfortable. At this point I don't think I ever want to hitch again, but ahh it was AMAZING.

At the risk of sounding cliche, they always say that it's the journey, not the destination. Although the entire focus of this trip was to achieve our goal of getting to Morocco, it's been quite a ride... I am proud to say that each of us raised 300 pounds for Link Community Development, which suports children's education in Africa- thank you SO much to everyone who contributed. It is a great, wonderful cause, as I really do appreciate both the financial and moral support.

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