On my last day before I started hiking, I went to the beach with my CouchSurfing host. It was the Baie des Trépassés, close to Pointe du Raz, where I would start hiking the next day.
Laetitia looking over the Baie des Trépassés
It was a warm day and the sun was nice. The water was cold, but I went in just to get my feet wet anyways.
Gettin my feet wet at the beach. Laetitia didn’t want to go in the water.
There were few people at the beach. Some playing with their dogs, others playing in the water, and one playing with his dog in the water.
There was a group of retired people eating baguettes and tuna. They had a hiking guide. Right after they finished eating, they all took out their walking sticks and followed their guide. They didn’t have backpacks with them. “That was easy”, I thought to myself.
There were a few ruins that were probably from World War II. Whenever I see ruins made of concrete that look military in one way or another, I assume they’re from World War II.
And that was my day at the beach. I got a very mild sunburn, but it was already better a couple of days later.
Five cities, six days, 19 rides and 1700 kilometers.
On June 12, 2014, I started off in Berlin towards Brussels. Hitchwiki showed me there was a good hhiking spot in Raststätte Grunewald. It’s such a good spot that there were already two hhikers who had recently arrived. One of them was a Berlin Tramprennen organizer, so he was quite experienced. I was still too shy to try asking the drivers in German, so they did the talking at first. In less than 5 minutes they got a ride to Mirchendorf for all 3 of us.
The experienced hhiker had a map of all petrol stations in Europe. He explained to me the best way to get to Brussels and had me take pictures of his map all the way to Brussels.
Map with stations on the way to Hanover
They were still doing all the talking and another hhiker showed up in Michendorf. There were now 4 of us, each going to different directions.
The first two hhikers eventually got their rides. The other one wanted to go to Göttenburg. He saw a car with a GÖ license plate passing by us and ran after it. He didn’t return, so now I was alone, and had to talk to people myself.
I started by repeating what the other hhikers were doing earlier. I didn’t understand all they were saying, but basically it was a warm greeting – “Guten Tag” -, followed by asking the drivers if they were going to the city we wanted – “Fahren Sie nach Hanover?” -, or asking them wheter they were going in the direction we wanted – “Fahren Sie in Richtung Hanover?” -, or through a certain road – “Fahren Sie aus die A2?” -. If affirmative, I asked for a ride, with “Können Sie bitte mich mitnehmen?”.
Asking was easy. The hard part was understanding the replies. I would try to follow-up the conversation as much as possible, but sometimes I had to ask to switch to English.
After some time, I got my first ride. A couple drove me close to Hanover to a Tankstelle – petrol station – I had on the map.
The driver was Ukranian and she wanted to practice English, so we switched languages. She mentioned she wanted to spend her vacations back home in Ukraine but the political situation there made her change her mind.
So, I was close to Hanover in a petrol station and started asking for rides again. This time I was more confident. I got a short ride until just after Hanover, in another big petrol station.
I spent some 20 minutes there talking to people with no success. At some point, a car pulled over, and a guy with long white hair offered me a ride. This was Michael, from the city of Titz (he says all English speakers laugh when he says this). He was going back home from Berlin. His MP3 player’s battery had just died, so I plugged in my solar charger and we got music. The selection was really good: lots of Blues, Jazz, Rock, and Country. He left me close to Titz, in a small rest station which he said he used to hhike from all the time in the 70’s.
Laetitia riding in Michael’s car listening to good music
That was my first big mistake. I didn’t follow the picture I had from the map. It might have been a good place in the 70’s, but it was a horrible place now.
Laetitia waiting for a car from the 70’s
It took me over an hour to finally get a ride out of there, which left me in another small station inside Belgium, close to Aachen. As soon as we crossed the border, my mobile data plan ceased to work. It was good only inside Germany. So I couldn’t access hitchwiki in any form anymore.
After some time there, a worker from the station told me that was a bad spot for where I wanted to go, that he was going back home and would drive me to a better station in the way.
Waiting with a full moon isn’t so bad
In that station, I met the first French-speaking drivers. That’s when I realized my French was bad. Another hour spent there. I got a ride for some 30km to the next station.
At this point it was already quite late. It took me another hour to get a ride, from a Dutch guy who had already been driving for 10 hours and was quite tired. He left me in the Zaventem Airport close to Brussels.
It was midnight, the last bus to the city centre had already left. I got a bus to the Botanique, quite far from where I had to go. The only way left was walking, with the 17 kg backpack. Hey, I actually want to hike, right? This was training.
What have I learned from this? That a hitch-hiking spot that was good in the 70’s might be a horrible place now.
What happened to Checkpoint 4? There are no pictures. I had a hard time hitch-hiking out of Paris and missed Rennes. I got a late ride to Nantes though, had a place to sleep and left early to Pont-Croix.
I love Bretagne so far. People are really warm and welcoming. I had some great “moules à la bretonne” to eat…
