Dear all,

Just in time for Christmas, Xin Hui and I have published the collected blog entries from the Morocco Hitch. The book includes entirely new material and previously unseen photos and maps, all in a neat little pocket-sized paperback!

Priced at just US$9.99, it's a wonderful gift for yourself, or the perfect stocking stuffer for your friends and family. Re-live once again our zany adventure, with all the crazy truckers, language confusion, and hours of standing by the roadside in the driving rain. Laugh and cry with us as we make our way across Europe, trusting our fates to chance, and experience once again our triumph as we wash up on the shore of Tangiers, bedraggled and exhausted but gloriously alive.

The profits of this book will go to the charity that benefited from our hitch, Link Community Development.

Thanks again to everyone who supported us!

Posted by PJ at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I first came across the Morocco Hitch sometime in Trinity Term of my first year. The concept was alluring – an amalgam of charity work and adventure – and I was keen to participate, managing to convince one of my good friends, Rachel, to come along with me. At that time, however, I was busy preparing for my summer volunteer work in Kenya and attempting to pass my prelims. The application deadline for the Hitch was also long over. As attracted as I was to the idea, further plans had to wait until after the summer. They were also predicated upon my not destroying my health in the course of my Kenyan village experience.

Summer came and went. Despite a couple of malaria scares and a yeast infection, I was in decently good health after returning from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. On my return to England, the Hitch seemed more and more like a very real part of my Easter vacation.

Filling out the paperwork necessary to register for the Hitch, I discovered that one of Link’s terms for signing up for the Hitch was that each group of hitchers had to have at least one member who was male. I could not hitch-hike to Morocco with Rachel after all. Attempts to convince male friends to embark on this adventure with me were abortive – the prospect of spending a week sleeping rough and being at the mercy of the trucker world did not appeal.

Thankfully, P.J. solved my problem for me. On hearing about the Hitch and the possibility of my wandering the Continent with some other fellow, he offered to accompany me. To be exact, he forbade me to go on the Hitch with anyone other than himself. I accepted.

The rest, as they say, is what you have just read in this book/blog. I think I made the right choice.

Thank you so much for your support, for helping us raise a grand total of £2055 and for being there with us all the way in spirit.

Posted by Xin Hui at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Looking back on the Morocco Hitch from the perspective granted by the passing of a few months, it is not the success of reaching Tangier which I remember most vividly, but rather it was little moments along the course of the trip which stand out in my mind.

For example, the first night we spent squeezed into the lower bunk of Eduardo’s cab, which was our first night on the continent. The previous night, spent on the cross-Channel ferry, was no different to any other night we’d endured on public transport over the years, but the second night was different. It was our first night on the road, at the mercy of someone else’s hospitality, in an unknown and uncertain location, far away from the world we knew. I was wedged up against the wall, and Xin Hui was curled up against me. As Eduardo slumbered on the bunk above us, Xin Hui and I whispered to each other. I remember the smell of her hair, the sound of her breathing, her warmth against my body in the cold cab, the dim glow of the lights outside peeking through the curtains, the breeze from the air ventilation system (and later of Eduardo poking at the switches with a stick so that he wouldn’t need to get out of bed to turn it off), and most of all the nervous thrill of excitement that had taken grip of my stomach and settled down to nest. It stayed there, ebbing and flowing as the trip went on, but never leaving till a few days after we reach Morocco, when it finally sank in that we were under our own power again. Perhaps it was the fear of the unknown, the thrill of adventure, and the excitement of travel, which heightened my senses that first night, but I remember it the most vividly of all our nights.

The other memory which comes back to me when I think of the trip is of the very last day, of that fateful morning when I made such a huge mistake of forgetting that my phone was not set to Western European time. The lowest point was not when I realised my mistake, nor when I ran to the service station and found Sayid gone, nor when I screamed my anger into the cold morning sky. It was a while later, in Seville, when the DHL truck dropped us too close to the city centre, and we were stuck for ages at a petrol station, and no one would take us further onward to a service station. I spent half that morning approaching people out of sheer desperation, and at my lowest ebb I sat down outside the station and buried my head in my arms, as anger and frustration threatened to overwhelm me. That was when I felt Xin Hui sit down beside me, put her arms around me and lean her head on my shoulder. She gently told me that it was okay, that she wasn’t blaming me, that I shouldn’t be angry at myself, that everything would be alright and we’d make it to Morocco.

I’d like to say I believed her then, but I didn’t. I didn’t believe her for a long time afterward. I suffered through more anger and disgust at myself for another half a day. But until that moment I had been at my lowest ebb, the very nadir of my emotions, and I was drowning in the waves of my own self-loathing. She reached down and took me by the hand and gave me strength to look up again. Her belief in me reminded me of who I was and what I was capable of. Sometime later – it might have been five seconds, it might have been five minutes – I got back on my feet and started moving again.

When I think about the Morocco Hitch it’s not the successful end I remember. It’s the moments of great emotion, where things were most frightening and fearful and uncertain. It was those moments which made the trip worthwhile, which taught me the most about myself and which revealed the most about the relationship between Xin Hui and myself. Sometimes all you need is for someone to believe in you, and sometimes wanting to succeed because you love someone else and want to repay their faith and trust in you can give you strength that you didn’t have.

Posted by PJ at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We managed to raise a whopping total of £2,055! Thank you so much everyone!

Posted by PJ at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

During the trip, we stayed in places where the communal showering facilities were both frequently occupied and very grimy, to say the least. The water supply further frequently terminated itself, usually when I was attempting to clean myself. As such, one way to avoid the showers while staying clean was to use copious amounts of powder to stay dry and prevent rash - after all, it's tried and tested in the Singapore Armed Forces. I used it everywhere, dusting it in my socks, shoes, underwear, clothes, and leaving fine white dust and lingering lavender scent over me. PJ, on the other hand, would just go ahead and use the shower, and complained about me not showering (never mind that the shower always seemed to work when he wanted to use it). He also complained about me leaving powder everywhere, and he complained about me using so much talcum powder. In fact, he complained so much that I finally had to tell him:

"Talc is cheap."

Posted by Xin Hui at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was standing at the Merenid Tombs overlooking Fes, gazing down at the ancient 13th century city spread out below me. Viewed from the surrounding hills, Fes' crowded, jumbled buildings merge into a sea of white sandstone, broken up in spots by the green of the mosques and the medersas (known in Southeast asia as madrasahs). I was reminded of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy walks out onto a rooftop terrace, ostensibly in Cairo but actually in Tunisia, and the camera pans over a medieval city in the late afternoon. It's the summer of 1936. There is a stillness in the air, as if the city has paused to catch its breath, and a heaviness caused by the heat of the afternoon that has not yet dissipated. Indy stands there, pondering his future and making plans for the upcoming archaeological excursion to find the Grail.

To shoot that scene, Steven Spielberg had to have every single television antenna in sight removed from the top of the square buildings. Beneath my feet, as I stood above another medieval city, like a mottled growth upon the fondouks, were hundreds of satellite dishes, their smooth, white plates provided texture to the white buildings they adorned.

That image helps give one an idea of what Fes actually is: a living, breathing, medieval city, where many people today live and work amidst the exact same buildings which were used by their ancestors 700 years ago. In fact, the internet cafe where I'm writing this is located in a building inside the Medina. Several hundred years ago, it was probably a residence of some artisan and his family, but the same building today connects me with the modern world. Outside, donkeys and mules continue to be used to move goods around within the cramped streets of the city (no more than a metre or two wide), and an extensive and ancient network of public fountains continues to bring drinking water to the residents. Inside, people are watching Al-Jazeera via satellite and sipping tea imported from China mixed with mint and sugar. I saw the interior of one such home- all the modern conveniences had to be retrofitted onto the walls. Exposed wiring and piping was everywhere. A traditional structure had been reconverted into a modern home, but the family continued to live around a central courtyard, eating the same couscous and stew of their tradition. Outside, the air in the labyrinthine streets is thick with spices, oil, smoke, the smell of manure and dust. I've never seen such a juxtaposition of old and new, and I continue to marvel as every turn introduces a new piece of living history.

If there's a downside, it's that the extremely cramped nature of the city means that you can't appreciate anything at a distance. High walls block your view of the interior of many interesting buildings, and as they are usually right up against all the buildings around it, you can never see the full extent of any building. Since they are usually of religious significance, you can't go in, or are restricted to a few areas.

Xin Hui and I had dinner last night on the rooftop terrace of our budget hotel, located near Bab Boujeloud (one of the gates to the Medina), above one of the most touristy areas of the Medina; a place crammed with food stalls and backpacker hotels. The Hotel Cascade, where we are staying, has the excellent advantage of having a high roof, and so it's great to sit up there and eat or drink, as you can gaze at the city stretching away beyond the gate. A cold wind was blowing in from the North, and traditional music wafted up from the street as we sat there with our glasses of hot Moroccan tea, looking down at the bustling street below, tourists and hawkers and locals and hustlers, and lights dotting the city, and we felt a small bit of connection with a world far removed in time but intimately present in space.

Posted by PJ at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We were walking down one of the streets in Tangier's Medina (walled city) when Xin Hui heard a whistle and instinctively glanced in the direction of the sound. A few steps ahead, I hadn't heard the whistle as I was more preoccupied with keeping an eye out for hustlers and pickpockets, and also looking for a taxi because we were headed to the train station to catch a train to Fes. I heard her shriek, "Sayid!!!" and I turned around in astonishment. There, in front of us, grinning from ear to ear, was the Moroccan we had missed and thought we'd never see again: our driver from Madrid to Linares, our intended ride from Linares to Algeciras: Sayid!

"You made it!" he exclaimed in French. He said something else about the port that I couldn't catch. "Weren't we meeting at 5 o'clock?" he asked. Xin Hui tried to explain to him what happened, but he didn't look as if he understood. I tried miming to him that it was my fault, but I wasn't sure if he got it.

Still, he was clearly glad to see us, and he congratulated us for completing our quest. We shook hands and bid each other good luck and farewell.

It may seem an amazing coincidence for us to cross paths again with him on a random city street in Tangier, but this trip has been filled with so many coincidences- good and bad- that somehow when I think about it I am not that surprised. Probably more than anything else, this trip has really showed me how life always constantly throws up new and unexpected twists and turns, and in the words of Tony, the laid-backed Australian driver who took us from Seville to the E5 coastal road just past Cadiz, "Whatever happens in life- just go with it." Perhaps it was no coincidence that Tony himself appeared when I was at my lowest ebb, full of anger and frustration with myself. His wise words will not be forgotten.

Posted by PJ at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5500 km of road...
14 hitches...
9 nationalities of drivers...
5 and a half days...
3 countries...

and

2 ferries later...

WE'RE IN MOROCCO!!!

A big thank you to everyone who made it possible to be here, especially Kate and everyone at Link Community Development, our Nominated Contacts, our parents and families, everyone who donated to our trip, to all the nice people who helped us and showed us so much kindness, and of course our drivers, wherever they may be by now. A special thank you to Mairin Hennebry for responding to my panicked phone call asking how to write "service station" in Spanish. All of you have helped make a big difference in the lives of many children in Southern Africa, and to the lives of two idiots from Singapore.

I'd like to sing Xin Hui's praises: she was a rock throughout this trip. While I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and alternately laughed and raged and hoped and worried and got depressed, she stayed steady and calm and kept us going. All credit to her: she was the one who really made this trip a success.

The hitch may be over but the adventure continues. We'll be writing backdated entries, along with reflections and thoughts on the trip, plus new entries on our adventures in Morocco. Keep checking in!

Posted by PJ at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s always fun to see how things work out when life doesn’t go according to plan – come to think of it, that’s just about all of the time, isn’t it? As I explained to PJ, the worst that could happen was if we dawdled (or more accurately, got stranded) in Andalucia for longer than we’d originally intended, we’d probably have enough time to go on a tapas bar crawl to sample the finest tapas in all of Spain – and the world! In this particular instance, I finally got my wish to ride in a DHL truck within minutes of our arrival at the Linares service station at 0530 h Continental time. Our kind friend going to Seville, amazingly enough, was Romanian, spoke only some Spanish dialect and had no idea where Singapore was. The swaying rhythm of the truck carriage soon lulled me back to sleep, with me snug in the all-enveloping darkness before dawn. It was not until later, when I was roused by pinpricks of light – the sunrise, Spanish side up – that I realised how far we’d travelled.

Just outside Seville, we met a very progressive Aussie chaperoo who said this about himself “Yeah, the Missus works and I make sure she’s got dinner when she gets home...she allowed me to come on this trip...she’s paying for it...whatever happens in life, just go with it.” This cool cucumber even went out of his way to drop us at a gasolinera on the E5 to Algeciras even though he was on the way to Cadiz around 100 km in the opposite direction. I reckon that wife of his has got to be some woman.

Because Tony is one lucky guy in more ways than one, we got our next hitch straightaway from a Spanish guy and his girlfriend on their way to the beach. This surfer dude had just returned from a month in Morocco and was familiar with the perils – and frustrations – of hitch-hiking. “Autostop? I have done many myself.” We bade him farewell at the point the road forked – one branch leading to Barbate, the other to Algeciras.

The next hitch was less forthcoming, and the two of us starting prancing about on the road to try to attract the attention of drivers – this greatly amused passing beachgoers.

One of these was a drop-dead gorgeous German girl with matching turquoise top, slippers, yoga mat and shiny new Fiat (we later found out she’d rented the car for her holiday). Her name was Julia, and she just so happened to be a fashion writer for German Vogue and a self-confessed semi-permanent resident of Ibiza when not covering catwalk shows. Incidentally, she’d never picked up hitchhikers in her life before us, but had seen us from across the road, and observing that we weren’t exactly basking in the glorious sunshine of southern Spain, had decided to offer us a ride to Tarifa where her hotel was. You might have noticed that up to this point, we’d been bent on getting to Algeciras – it is, after all, the point on the Spanish coast favoured by truckers crossing the Mediterranean sea into Morocco. As we cruised along the road to the coast, Julia languidly lifted her hand from the steering wheel to point at a billboard slowly coming into view, “Algeciras is very ugly, why not come to Tarifa instead? There’s even a ferry to Tangier, it only takes 35 minutes...” Suddenly, it all clicked: until very recently, only EU citizens were permitted to journey to Morocco via Tarifa, so we hadn’t known about this route. In addition, our trucker friends knew the trucker routes best. If we got to the port in time for the ferry, we’d be in Tangier by sundown – after a journey that would be almost 2 hours shorter than that originating from Algeciras. This we did, somehow, from a port almost as beautiful as the girl who drove us to it.

I’d like to think that getting lost is half the adventure.

Posted by Xin Hui at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a ferry leaving from Tarifa to Tangiers in 45 min, and if we hurry we can make it!

Credit to Julia, a nice German lady heading to Tarifa who picked us up. She told us about the ferry and one quick check of the internet later, here we go: endgame!

Posted by PJ at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

We got picked up by a young Spanish couple heading for the beach. The man had been to Morocco many times, most recently last year, and recalled many people hitch-hiked there.

They dropped us off just before the turn to Barbate, where they were headed. There's a roadside restaurant here. We're stopping to have lunch, 68 km from Algeciras.

There are ostriches behind the restaurant. I ordered ostrich meat but I was told they had none. I guess they don't want to kill these guys.

Posted by PJ at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Got a ride from an Aussie named Tony who has dropped us off at a petrol station less than 100 km from Algeciras!

So close now...

Posted by PJ at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PJ's Nissan Micra Count: 15
Xin Hui's Spanish Vocabulary Word Count: 11

Proper Bed Count: 1

Why Nissan Micras? Maybe we're a bit like the autistic child Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - we seek to order our experience of the endless stream of traffic by the number of familiar cars we see. Like Christopher and his four red cars, we think of them as a good omen - we always get a ride after we see a Micra, never mind that we sometimes need to wait seven hours for it.

A toast to our favourite car!

Posted by Xin Hui at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Due to a fuck up of monumental proportions on my part (I forgot my phone is still set to British time), we woke up late and Sayid had already left by the time we got there. So I grabbed the first ride that came along and we're now on the road to Seville in a DHL truck.

Thanks to my incompetence, the adventure continues.

Posted by PJ at 05:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hitching in Spain has involved our staring, voluntarily or otherwise, at seemingly interminable streams of Spanish license plates (marked with the EU stars and a white ‘E’ on a blue background). I find that Espagna has greater affinity with the next letter of the alphabet, however, it is a land of fire and fiesta, frolic and fun – for us in particular, it has been alternately frustrating and fantastic.

The transition between France and Spain was not immediately discernible – we whiled away a lazy afternoon in the border town of Irún getting a kick continually running over the line dividing the two countries. Excerpts: “now we’re in France, now Spain, now France, no Spain, France-Spain-France-Spain......wait, which side am I on now?” Sometimes you’ve just got to find some way to keep yourself going.

Before long though, the delicate chansons give way to the raucous rhythms of the south, spice assails your palate at dinner (even in trucker food) and the soil acquires a more crimson hue. Our mustachioed trucker friend who drove us from Burgos to Madrid started dancing with his mates when we stopped for the night at the Autogrill, flashing us a toothy grin each time he caught our eye.

You can feel the heat in the architecture, too – flatter roofs, reflective white, strategically placed windows and courtyards, or through the extravagant eye make-up of practically every female on the screen (oh, and did I mention the eyebrow-raising frequency they manage to find excuses for aforementioned kohl-adorned females to nonchalantly strip off their clingy tops on national television?)

Spain just smoulders with flavour, whether you’re bumping along the mountain roads of Castilla-La Mancha, walking on the trails of Inquisitors and Conquistadors in Castilla y León, taking in the majesty of the sierras of the Basque country, marvelling at the lavish silent processions of the hermandad at Easter or downing that extra cup of water after that very salty bacalao.

We’ve been here longer than we’d wanted to be, but boy do I already want to come back for more.

Posted by Xin Hui at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The vast majority of rides during his trip have been gotten by Xin Hui holding up the sign and flashing her sweet and vulnerable smile. The male truckers are suckers for it; the one female trucker responded with sympathy.

I, for the most part, just try not to screw up. Twice during this trip, however, I've managed to get us rides. The first was Eduardo, and the second was Sayid. Both encounters are excellent examples of the unspoken language common to all men.

With Eduardo, I just held up the sign and he beckoned us in. However, I later bonded with him over male behaviour. Behind the passenger seat, (where Xin Hui couldn't see) stuck to the wall by the bed in his cab were two large cardboard cut-outs of voluptuous naked blonde women. I was examining them and he glanced at me and grinned. I wiggled my eyebrows in a Groucho-esque leering way and we laughed. Not a word was spoken. None was needed.

Later he noticed the eczema on my palms and, pointing, asked me what happened (in Portugese).

"Nataciones," I explained. Swimming.

He grinned, shook his head and said something while make a subtle gesture familiar to all men. We burst out laughing and Xin Hui looked puzzled. Eduardo said something else and made a conspiritorial, "keep it quiet" gesture, and while a puzzled Xin Hui was trying to figure out what we were on about, we both were again busy laughing.

With Sayid, he was busy talking in French to his Spanish friend about the engine of his cab this afternoon and they didn't notice (or ignored) Xin Hui both times she went up to him to ask if he'd drive us again tomorrow. This is despite her have a semi-working knowledge of French.

But when I went up to him, I used a language that was much deeper and more significant than French, one which is common to all men in all countries, barring perhaps the United States: the language of football.

Noticing that Sayid's Spanish friend was wearing a Real Madrid jacket, I started asking him about I. He proudly told me that a previous goalkeeper of Real had given it to his brother. Before long, the three of us were debating Beckham's merits. We agreed he was too publicity-obsessed and image-conscious. Next thing we knew we were drinking beers and laughing like we'd been buddies forever.

Just before this trip, my friend Mairin commented that she was amazed how easily men could get along. What she didn't realise was just how much men have in common which gives us our own secret language. Every man understands the meaning of a wiggle of the eyebrows at a hot woman walking by, a query of the score of a football game, or an offer of beer on a hot day. Our universal brotherhood transcends language, and I've certainly come to appreciate it on this trip.

Posted by PJ at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We couldn’t get a ride out of here, so we’re staying at a local motel for the night. Good news is we should be in Algeciras by tomorrow as Sayid will be continuing his journey after stopping most of today. Catch is, he has to get up really early – 5 am – in order to have time to make the ferry and clear paperwork so we will need to be there and waiting for him.

We’ll be there; I hope he will be too!

Posted by PJ at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Still in Linares.

I guess getting a ride from here won’t be so quick after all – especially at siesta time. Xin Hui and I are hitching at different exits and she keeps getting offers of rides from dodgy men (or groups of men) who change their minds when they see me.

(Don’t worry, Mrs. Chan, I’m looking after her. I can see her from where I’m standing now.)

An amusing incident: As I was standing by the road next to the exit from the service station with my sign, a large white van with three men pulled up. Blinking, I suddenly remembered where I’d seen them before: on the Portsmouth ferry! They were movers from Witney, Oxfordshire, who had been hired to drive to Gibraltar with a van full of furniture. They’d said they’d have loved to give us a lift but the van was full.

Now they had driven by quite randomly, looking to get a cup of tea on the way back to Oxford. By an amazing coincidence, they were heading by the service station just as we were there! Now that the van was empty they were able to give us a ride, but it was in the wrong direction.

They wished us luck and headed off. Although they couldn’t give us a lift, it was very encouraging and uplifting to see friendly faces again.

At the service station I met a British family who were also headed in the other direction. The father had done some charity work in a similar vein before, so he had plenty of encouraging words for me.

Xin Hui remarked that whoever decides how the dice fall has a sense of humour after all.

Posted by PJ at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Truckers on the job live pretty much within the confines of their cabs, stopping approximately every four hours or so as dictated by the universally-abhorred European Working Time Directive, venturing out only occasionally for a shower at their favourite service station or for a coffee/tea/stiff drink. Proper meals are a luxury, so fast food – and its attendant problems – serves as a substitute.

An epidemiological study of a truckers’ colony would probably reveal an alarming tendency towards coronary heart disease. A good number of risk factors are present: a sedentary lifestyle, a diet high in saturated fat and the constant stress of frequent travel. The pay is not good, and they’re at the mercy of their multiple mobiles (one for each country) and radio phones throughout the drive.

Family cannot travel with them – they’re usually hundreds, even thousands of miles away, perhaps even on a different continent, as in Eduardo’s case. Each visit home is a cause for celebration, something to look forward to, that ‘final’ destination on their meandering route along the autopistes and motorways of Europe. It’s a lonely life.
Noel summed it up well, “I want to go home to see my children! But Brussels says I must stop for an hour every four hours so I won’t be overworked! I get upset just sitting here!” Eduardo showed us photo after photo of his wife and two children, while sharing his rations of bread rolls with ham and cheese, all of the very cheapest variety – I think the photos helped the food taste better – after all, every penny he saved was several pesos closer to his family being together again. The sole female trucker we met the entire way had her entire cab plastered with photographs of her four-year-old daughter – at play, asleep, in the arms of her avo (grandmother). There was no mention of the girl’s father.

And keeping sane is important, as our Spanish trucker friend demonstrated, by singing along to every other song on the radio, along with pointing at random items on the horizon and telling jokes in Spanish that only he laughed at.
So it might seem that the trucking life is for those politely termed as “dull” or “undereducated”. Why would a perfectly intelligent person with qualifications ever put themselves through all this? Yet people make their choices, take George as an example.

George loves playing Devil’s Advocate – he asked us why we were raising money for children’s education in Africa when equally valid causes in our very own backyards were being starved of funds. We told him we considered ourselves citizens of the world and that a cause on a different continent was no less pertinent. He laughed and told us that he agreed, and that he was happy that people gave a damn about other people. His face hardened as fingers cocked to imitate a gun, he described with a depth of emotion his matter-of-fact delivery could not disguise, his experience as a sergeant in the NATO campaign in Kosovo – he had to kill or be killed. The trucking life, though hard, provided the numbing stability he needed to move on. He is happier this way, he whispered, smiling to the strains of Duran Duran...

And as I try to make my way, to the ordinary world...
I will learn to survive.

Hats off to all the truckers we’ve met. My deepest respect for their strength, perseverance and most of all for their kindness despite it all.

Posted by Xin Hui at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

We stumbled into the Autogrill at the truck stop at a quarter past 11 last night and tiredly got some food to eat. Nearby, the trucker who drove us in (we didn’t get his name) was telling his compatriots over sandwiches, cigarettes and beer about our situation. With great gravity, one of them turned to us and pronounced, in English, “There is one truck parked out there going to Morocco. You must find it.”

In the morning, we went around to many trucks but many trucks went by, their drivers shaking their heads at our sign reading ‘Algeciras’. We were getting a little nervous when we came across Sayid, who had just finished breakfast and was putting his portable stove away.

Sayid turned out to be Moroccan, but he wasn’t heading to Morocco. He did offer to set us down on the route to Algeciras, and so at 2 pm today we found ourselves at a popular truck stop near Linares. According to him, this is a good choice – from here, the only routes go south. We are very likely to find someone heading to Algeciras here.
When we got out of Sayid’s truck, we saw a truck from a company which ships to Morocco. Full of hope, we dashed over, but the driver wouldn’t take us, even when we explained we were hitching for charity.

So we had lunch and now, enshallah, we will find our 11th hitch and our final one.

Posted by PJ at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

About 30 km north of Madrid at a big truck stop. Sleeping on the floor of a truckers’ lounge. Quite comfy, actually. A trucker said there’s a truck headed to Morocco parked out here. We’ll try and get up early to find it tomorrow.

Posted by PJ at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

George, our saviour, is Portuguese and a veteran of the NATO campaign in Kosovo. He was in the Portuguese army for 8 years as a parachuter, rising to the rank of sergeant. Tired of that life, he left for something quieter.

He dropped us off at a petrol station next to a cafe and hostel. After getting a cup of tea, we thought about getting dinner and staying but since dinner didn’t start till 8 pm, we decided to start asking the truckers there if any of them were heading to Madrid. At 10 to 8, a trucker pulled up and agreed to take us to his final destination, about 20 km north of Madrid.

Off we go again!

George, whose laconic demeanor reminded me of his countryman Jose Mourinho

Posted by PJ at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Exhausting day so far. We awoke early to try to get a hitch but due to waiting for Eduardo to come back to the truck – we couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye – and other reasons, we only started hitching at around 10.30. We had little success at our first spot, so following the first rule of hitching – Location, Location, Location – we moved.
Our second spot was no better, and about 15 min in we were joined by competition: two cute Spanish girls about 30 m further up the road. They held up signs for Bilbao and Burgos, about 100 km and 250 km away. We waved at one other, but we weren’t happy when a truck passed us but stopped for them!

It had been raining moderately on and off all morning. By 12.30 we were drenched and decided to get lunch where we decided we’d take a leaf out of the girls’ book and so wrote ‘Burgos’ on our board instead of ‘Madrid’.

That proved no more successful than before, however. Perhaps it’s because we’re not cute Spanish girls. Xin Hui is 2 out of 3 but I’m none of the above. Truckers just kept signalling they were heading back to France, not into Spain.
We decided to try going back to the border, where trucks would definitely be heading into Spain. However, we found that foot traffic was prohibited on the motorway back to the border so we decided to try hitching back to the border.

By this time we were at the main petrol station of the truck stop of Irún where we had been camping out the past day. Despite the extreme proximity of our new destination, it still took a while to find a ride. A woman trucker pulled into the station and I suggested to Xin Hui that we might have better luck with her.
“The frontier?” said the lady, puzzled, “It’s just over there,” pointing.

XH explained we couldn’t walk there and also had heavy bags. She laughed and agreed to take us. She turned out to be a nice Portuguese lady who had a four year old daughter who was at home with her grandmother. Photos of the little girl were pasted in the cab above the windscreen. The little girl was adorable.
At the border at last, we waved and smiled hopefully as truck after truck sailed by. Eventually one stopped and we scrambled in. At 4.30pm, we were finally on our way.

Next stop, Burgos!

Posted by PJ at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We’ve just left Eduardo who gave us an eraser on which he wrote ‘good luck’ in Portuguese. We were sad to go. He’s an amazing fellow.

Curriculum Vitae in brief
• joined the army at 19
• met his ‘wife’ at 20
(they're not actually married, apparently, that’s commonplace in Brazil)
• became a diving instructor at 34
• became a bus driver at 36
• sustained several bullets in the arm and narrowly missed having his head shot off in a failed hijacking
• moved to Europe as a truck driver aged 39
• as he turns 40 this year, he’s saving up all his money to bring his wife and two children over
• has two huge tattoos, one on each arm – one of a dragon, one of Jesus with a crown of thorns
• conducts conversations about religion, Spanish history and salacious references to women with a straight face

Appearances can be confusing and stereotypes even more deceiving. Eduardo’s not the kind of guy your parents would invite home for dinner with your younger sister, but he’s such a sweet teddy bear, really. We would have missed one of our best and most enjoyable rides had we balked at the sight of this fellow. I really hope he’s reunited with his family soon!

Posted by Xin Hui at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We’ve travelled a decently long distance over the past couple of days, but rather than feeling the weight of that, it’s the conversations we’ve had that have left the most with me. The journey’s been a series of snapshots we’ve taken of the lives – their cultures, families and personal choices – of the people we’ve met, all of whom are at once individual in their experiences, yet universal in their concerns.

In England, of the five hitches we got, there were at least three references to Murphy´s Law, also known as Sod’s Law, or in driving terms, the if-I-bend-down-to-take-a-sip-of-water-right-now-the-light-will-turn-green rule. The British Orthodox Priest was the one who spoke about this at greatest length. Equally interesting was how most of them had reasonably extensive contact with either south-east Asia or the continent we were hitching to – our very first ride had worked in Singapore and visited Morocco, the man in Portsmouth lived in Pattaya half the year and the British Orthodox Priest spent a lot of time in Egypt in the Coptic Church. Might explain why they converted the sympathy which most people felt – and showed through waves, smiles and “thumbs up” signs into actual rides. Who knows?

The French, in the limited interaction I have had with them, are lovely – once they actually bother to speak to you. In a bid to get a ride on the ferry, I’d camped outside the truckers’ lounge with our sign until around 2 in the morning and again at 6 the next morning. I’d spouted all the French I knew at anyone who had stopped to speak to me. We’d even sneaked in to appeal for further help later. When all seemed lost, and we seemed destined to have to get a ride at the ferry terminal itself, a little Frenchman I’d bid “bon voyage” to earlier came back and offered us a right to Tours.
He immediately starting to describe his truck to us in rapidfire French – it turned out he knew no English. “Great,” thought I, “this is going to be interesting.” A French lady dressed to the nines who’d walked past me six times without once looking at me or my sign, now standing in the crowd rushing to disembark suddenly turned round and in perfect English explained to me that this trucker was a good guy who was genuinely trying to help us out and apologised for being unable to help herself. In my delighted state I’d blurted that she had fantastic facility with languages. “Ah,” she said, “but I am French!”

Noel was an absolute dear. He called ahead to other truckers to look for a ride for us and tried his best to keep up the conversation even though it was obvious we could hardly understand him. Unfortunately, lorries aren’t allowed on the road on Sundays, so most trucks weren’t doing long-haul trips.

It was an amazing experience speaking to him in the little French which I did know. Pointing at a cow in Normandy and exclaiming “vache!” caused him to launch into a proud exposition on Norman cows, their milk and cheese and the superiority of French and cuisine Asiatique to horrible and expensive English food. I found out that he hadn’t seen his family for 30 days, or would have probably been on a long-distance trip himself and been able to drive us further. Asking about his home triggered exuberant descriptions of flowers and being two kilometres away from one of the chateaux of the Loire.

Looking out on the endless fields and chateaux that dotted the surroundings, the pleasure palaces of the French kings and their mistresses, within which much of French cuisine as we know it today was honed to perfection, his almost palpable Gallic pride seemed apt – this sure is some way to see France.

*

The next trucker friend we made, Eduardo, picked us up at the tollbooth within seconds of our arrival there. He deserves an entire post dedicated to him. For now, I’ll leave you with these little observations: for those among us who’ve read the greats of Latin American literature, my personal favourite being Gabriel Garcia Marquez, living with a homesick Brazilian trucker is an incredible experience – so much of that rich spontaneity shines through everything he does, the experiences he’s chosen for his life and the advice he’s given us, including “don’t leave your nail clippings around, someone might pick them up and cast a spell on you”. Seems like magic-realism is alive and kicking even in the Basque Country, due in no small part to this amazing fellow. Incidentally, he speaks almost no English other than the little he’s picked up through song lyrics. Best of all, he speaks only Portuguese – I have no guidebooks on Portugal, and Brazilian-Portuguese is pretty different from the Continental version. In a mixture of gestures, and inferences based on shades of differences in tone of that beautiful voice of his (you should hear him belt out Elvis hits), the two of us have had the most enriching conversations with him, especially about his wife and children, whom he loves to bits, so much that he came to Europe, a continent he dislikes, to work to support them. Europe, according to Eduardo is where the people are best described by a hand-motion which is at once dismissive and coldly imperious.

Most of the people we’ve hitched with are extremely family-orientated – the truckers tended to be very expressive about this, the English were a lot more muted about their spouses and children, but their love for them still percolated through their British stiff upper-lipped politeness. Perhaps marriage and children, so favoured for the stability they supposedly provide to society really do empower people with a security that allows them to look beyond their rabbit holes to extend a paw to those who need it.

Just the same, almost everyone we’ve met and bothered to listen to us explain our situation has been so kind and polite – the man at the counter at the ferry terminal, unable to give us a discount or free ride, even managed to find us a driver going to Alicante, Spain, telling us to “look for the little guy with two scars on his cheek, you’ll be sorted if you get him to drive you in his van!” The slightly snooty Frenchman at the counter on the ferry, refusing to make an announcement for us over the PA system (“I do not make announcements for personal reasons”, “Morocco? I have been there 25 times”), gave us a knowing grin and said “The Pit Stop Restaurant, some of your friends have had luck there, no reason why you won’t, too”. Even the little manager of the French toll station outside of Bordeaux after chasing us off the motorway asked his subordinates at the tollbooths to let us thumb there instead.
The enduring stereotypes, while certainly having more than a grain of truth in them, are always subsumed by a certain magnanimity of spirit which transcends culture.

I’m really grateful to everybody chance (or God, if you’re me) has brought to us along the way so far, and also to PJ, who, if he reads this any time soon would probably blush, is the reason this dodgy guy on the ferry changed his mind about trying to make me go to Toulouse with him, not that I was having any problem refusing the ride, but having a sleeping guy by your side does make a difference.

Tomorrow, Espagna!

Posted by Xin Hui at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Spanish keyboards are notoriously difficult to use – I could not check my email until I could figure out how to cut and paste an ‘@’ sign from somewhere else. Sure feels like I’m out of good ol’Inglaterra right now.

PJ’s Nissan Micra Count: 12 – they seem to prefer European cars here
Xin Hui’s amazing field of flowers count: 1
Shower count: 1 – at last!

Conversations conducted in languages we do not understand: 2

Posted by Xin Hui at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

It looks like we'll be here for a while after all. There's little point moving on, as Irun is the biggest truck stop for all traffic from France. The Pyrenee Mountains block everything between here and the other crossing, Perpignon on the Eastern coast. So if we want to stick to the truck routes (and we should), then this is the place to be. The prohibition ends at 10 pm tonight, so we should be on our way then. Until then, it's a day to rest and recouperate.

I've been very amazed thus far at how nice people have been to us. It affirms my belief in the inherent goodness of people and human nature.

Posted by PJ at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We're spending the night in Irun, in the cab of Eduardo's truck. We'll head for the south of Spain tomorrow. Might be tough - movement of trucks on Sundays is prohibited in France and northern Spain. But only one country left to get through!

Posted by PJ at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just crossed the border into Spain!

Posted by PJ at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

We’ve been travelling through miles of glorious French countryside, cutting directly through the Loire Valley. Eduardo, our Brazilian friend, peppers us with questions about how to say things in English and jokes a lot. He’s got a huge zest for life. His wife will be here next month and he’s looking forward to it (he showed us a slightly risqué photo of her that he keeps close to him...close to where exactly, I will not say).

He thinks we’re crazy to be hitch-hiking. In Brazil it would be unthinkable (see previous blog entry). He’s laughed, shaken or tapped his head, and remarked, “You crazy!” at least ten times.

I just called my nominated contacts so they know we’re okay. My nominated contacts are my father’s old friend Victor and his wife Chris – big shout-out to them! Xin Hui’s contact is her aunt Iona. Under the safety system, we call Link Community Development when we start hitching and every afternoon until we leave the UK, then every other afternoon before 4 pm. On alternate days we call into our nominated contact to let them know we’re okay.

Posted by PJ at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

Due to regulations (as far as I can tell – we still have very little idea what our Brazilian driver is saying), truckers can’t drive for more than four hours without stopping to take a break. So we’re resting here on the side of the road for a while. A few other trucks are doing the same.

Our driver is a real character. He was a truck driver in Brazil but came here because he was the victim of a failed hijacking. He took several bullets to his arm and his side but his instinctive duck meant the bullet meant for his head missed. Happens all the time over there, apparently.

So for safety he’s now driving in Europe. He’s been here four months, will be here another eight, but misses his wife and children badly.

Posted by PJ at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

Noel dropped us off near a toll station to help us avoid a police checkpoint. We were sad to bid goodbye to such a kind man, even if he did spend a large chunk of the journey angrily scolding his son over the phone!

We walked over to the toll booth, politely asked permission to hitch there, and promptly got picked up by a Brazilian trucker heading to Spain! So it looks like we will be over the border before the end of today. What luck!

Posted by PJ at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

We’ve reached the port city of Le Havre. Because most of it was levelled by bombing during World War II, most of the city was built post-war and is dominated by 1950s and 1960s architecture – lots of concrete blocks.
On the ferry, after much asking around, we got a ride to Tours with a nice trucker named Noel. We’re on our way now. He is very animated and despite language difficulties it seems we are understanding each other.

Noel

Posted by PJ at 07:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

If you look at the map overleaf, one of the lines emanating from the port goes to Le Havre. That’s where we’re headed.

Xin Hui is blogging at the next terminal so she’ll have her own take on the day. I’m just really happy and relieved to be here. Despite our inauspicious start, we got rides in pretty decent succession. Ride 2 was a young cockney who was off for a weekend in Farnham. I think it was to play football. He took us a few miles down the A3, through Guildford, where he dropped us off at another service station.

There, we got picked up after about 30 minutes by an English Orthodox priest who had stopped to fill his car with petrol. He was a very cheerful chap, and he happily expounded about his church, his wife and five kids, and answered all my questions about his religion. His explanation of the difference between his church and the Catholic and Protestant churches was pretty good. He dropped us off about eight miles from Portsmouth, at Waterlooville, where an older man picked us up. He was off to Portsmouth to visit his sister. He rented out a few rooms in his house, and it allowed him to go live in Pattaya, Thailand, for three to six months every year. He declared, “Portsmouth is a DUMP” with great emphasis, and from what I saw as he drove us through, he was right.

Off to Le Havre on the overnight ferry. Next stop, France!

Posted by PJ at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At last, a keyboard!

PJ’s Nissan Micra Count: 10
Xin Hui’s Cool Vintage Car Count: 1
(The guy even had an aviator suit on, now why didn’t he give us a ride)

Interesting Conversation Count: 5

It’s taken us almost a day to get here from Oxford. So far, we’ve had the pleasure of the company and diverting conversation of a solicitor from Brighton, a Londoner living in Scotland who’d just returned from Singapore and was almost as obsessed about GPS as PJ is, a lanky lad on holiday for the weekend, a real British Orthodox Priest and a guy who lived half the year in Thailand and just so happened to be going to Portsmouth to visit a relative that night. Quite a change from those four hours on the side of the road in Oxford – it’s amazing how nice people can be; it certainly pays to be patient.

*

Unlike PJ, my hitch-hiking experience began a little earlier than I’d expected.

Last night, PJ and I had arranged to meet up to pack. Being heavily laden and unable to bike, I’d thought I’d drag my load on foot slowly to the bus terminal. When my bus finally arrived, the bus driver, seeing me in my overloaded state, had a strange twinkle in his eye as he politely refused to take my fare. I was speechless for a while, managed to contort my face into a shocked half-smile in gratitude and after what seemed like at least 30 seconds found my voice to thank him profusely. Oddly enough, no one else on the bus seemed to notice. Having grown up on Enid Blyton and her 13 o’clock, I had a bit of a moment there. As we pulled up at my stop, near PJ’s house at the other side of Oxford, I skipped to the front and thanked him again. He gave me a conspiratorial wink and I thought I caught that same twinkle in his eye as he bade me goodnight. I laughed, wished him well and stepped out into the spring night.

Now that’s not a bad start at all, is it? I hear people on the Continent are even friendlier – I’m looking forward to it!

Posted by Xin Hui at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Current Location

An exhausting afternoon, but we got our first hitch out of the way. We managed to get ourselves to Thornhill Park & Ride, and tried to get a ride there by asking people getting off the bus to drive us to the ring road, but no one agreed. While waiting, we chatted with some people who had read our sign while waiting to go into Oxford. A nice lady gave us £10 after hearing about what we’re doing. She reminisced about her university days when everyone hitched and it was not a problem.

We tried hitching from the dual carriageway but no one stopped for us. It was very frustrating, although we did get a lot of waves and thumbs up from drivers. After two hours or so we went back to the Park & Ride and a man who had been waiting with us earlier spotted us. He was now going back to London and offered us a ride. At the very same time, another chap offered us one, too! Funny how you wait ages and then two come along.
The first man was going further south so we went with him and he dropped us off on the A3 which leads directly to Portsmouth. He also gave us £10 before he left. What friendly people we have met!

Next stop Portsmouth.

XH hitching outside Oxford

Posted by PJ at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi all,

We’re supposed to be on the way to Portsmouth by now but Paul, who was going to give us a ride, has gotten really ill so we’re going to walk over to St. Clements and try to get a ride from there to the service station on the M40.

Posted by PJ at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi all,

We'll be updating this blog from my mobile phone. This entry is an example.

Here's a photo of me in my "heroic adventurer" pose. Note the hammer in my belt, a tribute to David Marshall:

Our Current Location

Posted by PJ at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the super-secret blog just for our friends!

Xin Hui and I will set off on the road to Morocco tomorrow morning at around breakfast time. Please visit this blog for updates on our adventure. Link Community Development also runs a tracker which will be updated every other day for as long as we’re travelling. It’ll show you an approximate map of our current location. Please go to http://www.lcd.org.uk/events/hitch/hts.html and search for either of our names.

So far, we’ve raised a whopping total of £1,652 (not including gift aid) for LCD! £700 of that has been raised online and the rest has come from offline donors. It’s a fantastic amount and will make a huge difference in the lives of many children in Africa.

Here we go – wish us luck!

Posted by PJ at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)