Hitch into Africa

When adventure meets a good cause only great things can happen! And I managed to convince my roommates (Seb & Soph) that’s what a charity-hitchhike from the U.K to Morocco would be. So for two months we fundraised, by which I mean, hounded our friends & families for donations & “prepared” for our trip.

The concept of this trip was to get from the U.K to Morocco without spending a penny. We planned to take our first hitch from my town to the nearby port & blag a ferry into France. The day before departure, my Uncle approached us with one question “where is your map”? I presented the A5 sized map of Europe we were given on the charity’s brochure & we were scolded all that way to town- where he picked up a real map & outlined the route we should try to take. After that performance my family was probably convinced we were all going to perish & they had no choice but to let us adults into the wilderness.

So, the adventure began. Our first hitch took us to the ferry port & on the ferry we found a trucker to take us all the way to Bordeaux. Our next trucker took us from Bordeaux to Caceres – we were making great time! It was late evening when we were dropped off in the town & there wasn’t a vacant hostel in sight.

A nearby McDonald's had free WiFi so we updated our families & located a nearby park to sleep in. Soph made the mistake of telling her mother this plan. Seb & I could hear the muffled screams. Before she could reassure her mother, Soph informed her that “McDonald's is closing now, I have to go!” And with that, we headed into the night.

We slept in shifts. Playing poker on the 5 am shift, Seb & I noticed two men walking towards us. As they got closer we woke Soph in a panic. They began shouting at us in Spanish & flailing their hands in the air. My life flashed before my eyes. But then one of them gave us a box of raspberries & they left. Soph, the only Spanish speaker, half understood they’d said “we are not bad men, here is something for breakfast”. A bloody terrifying breakfast treat!

On the third day of our hitch we struggled to get a lift, people were driving by shaking their fingers & visibly tut-ting. A local took pity & drove us to a nearby truck-stop where we were lucky to find our last ride, a crazy Portuguese white van man who was going all the way to Tarifa, at a speed that had us fearing for our lives. 7 hours later we were dropped off near the port. From there we caught the ferry to Morocco and the hitch was complete.