Part V- July 5, 2002

Subject:
occupational hazards of the hitch hiker

 

Hi everyone.

Well, I'm in Halifax now, so the hitch hiking component of my trip is done. Now I'm just looking for a way across the ocean. Flying is the easiest, but I can't really afford it, so I'm looking to see if any ships going across to Europe could use an extra hand on deck. Or maybe a piano player.
The last leg of the trip has been, in many ways, the most eventful. After watching the World Cup Soccer final on Sunday (got it in the morning in this time zone), I went off in search of rides to Ottawa. July 1st is Canada Day, and some of the biggest celebrations are in the capital. So I made a sign saying "Ottawa for Canada Day", and soon got a ride from three girls who were also heading to Ottawa for Canada Day. I spent the day walking around the city and looking at the sights. This was not as easy as it sounds, because I had 50 pounds of weight on my back. Travelling light is one thing, but if you have things you'll need once you're at your destination, they sit there like a dead weight even though you don't really use them.
The weather was very hot though. I ended up finding a place to sleep outside, but I didn't even use my sleeping bag or anything, I just lay there in shorts and a t-shirt. Of course, when I woke up in the early morning, I had insects crawling on me. I spent most of the day trying to find a place where I could shower, but the only place I found (the YMCA) was gonna charge me $6 for a shower, so I said forget that, and went into a Greyhound Station washroom and just washed up as well as I could.

In the evening the Canada Day celebration started to really get going. There were huge crowds of people in the downtown, which had been closed to all traffic. There was something of a concert going on, but due to the G-8 protests they had moved many of the acts to Charlottetown, so a lot of the musical acts were just shown on a big screen. At night there were the fireworks, and after that the crowds heading out of town were impenetrable. But I got a bus to the next suburb, and started hitch hiking. It was around midnight now, and I was considering just lying down somewhere for the night, but the mosquitoes were out in great quantities, and I would not have slept well. I did eventually get a ride, but he turned out to be the sort of creepy guy that we're all scared of meeting in the middle of the night on a hitch hiking trip. He dropped me off on some rural Ontario road, where there was hardly any traffic at that time. I tried hitching rides, but that is difficult at night, so I tried sleeping by the roadside, but there were too many mosquitoes. So I just ended up walking until the sunrise. After it was light, I got a ride into Montreal.

Getting out of Montreal turned out to be difficult, as hitch hiking in any major city is, and the problem was aggravated by the fact that there are so many highways that converge in Montreal. You can't just stand on a freeway ramp and expect anyone to know which way you're wanting to go. So I took the subway to its Easternmost point, and walked about two hours out of there, and eventually did find someone who took me a ways out of town.
By evening I was just outside of Quebec City. The rides had been good, but it is always embarassing to me to be in a context where I don't speak the language. I felt bad about having to start every conversation with an apology because I don't speak French. Usually they were fine with it and spoke English, but not all could speak English very well.

I spent part of the night on a picnic table in a rest stop, until some older man came and woke me up and spoke to me for a while. He was making me uncomfortable with some of his idiosyncracies, and I eventually went to the doorway of the information booth to spend the rest of the night there.
Getting out of the Quebec City area was almost as difficult as getting out of Montreal, and again I had to walk several hours to get past a freeway intersection to a place where I could get rides out East. I got a short ride that dropped me off in the open country, where I was wondering who would want to slow down and stop in a place like that. By this point I was starting to realize that hitch hiking does have its occupational hazards. I had been outside in the blazing sun for several days and was quite sunburnt, the temperature was close to 40 C, and even though I tried to get enough water, it wasn't always available. I had eaten only granola bars (thankyou Rachel) and a submarine sandwich (thanks Heidi) for the past three days, had walked probably around 20 km with 50 pounds on my back, and had slept only a fraction of what would be healthy. My backpack was falling apart, which made the carrying of it less and less ergonomical (this can throw out your back when it's 50 lbs.), and my back was sore anyway from sleeping on picnic tables and doorsteps. By this point I was feeling somewhat faint, thinking that if the cars that don't stop for you when you stand with your thumb extended, they might not stop for you when heatstroke knocks you over, either. But then I got a ride from a schoolteacher who was going all the way to the New Brunswick - Nova Scotia border. She said she had passed me by on the freeway, then turned around to get me because I seemed friendly and the 12-hour ride would be less boring with someone to talk to. The last stretch of road I was taken by a young guy who had just landed a job in Halifax and was heading in to sign the contract. So here I am.

I think it was Louis L'Amour who said that "adventure only is a romantic word for difficulties". I know that many of my friends worry about me when I'm on the road, but to me, many times when I have lived much less "dangerously", my life seemed much less worthwhile. One of the most common things that people say when they look back on their life is "I wish I had taken more risks". All in all, this has been a great experience and one that has left me feeling very much alive.

Well, I guess this eMail has gotten a little long.

Marco