You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. In this case, it was standing on a petrol station, somewhere between Narbonne and Montpellier, with our thumbs out. We were not too lucky that day: starting in a small village near Perpignan in the morning, we had to take a train without a ticket, then another one, and we were still not anywhere near our destination. The morale was low, and we were almost sure we’d be spending the night where we were. With all that, you don’t have to try hard to imagine our horror when a car stopped nearby, and another pair of hitchhikers got out of it. We gasped the first time. We feared competition. Two hitchhikers is hard, but four hitchhikers on the same spot is impossible. We gasped the second time when we realised they were both girls. That changed the whole thing. Men…
We started talking, and found out that they were from Poland – sisters, actually. They were on a working holiday in the Netherlands, almost as we were, but in a hotel. After the season was over, they took a detour through Belgium, France, Spain, and now they were here. With a similar direction, we all quickly decided to try our luck together. The social benefits far outweighted the impracticality.
After some time, a white van without windows stopped next to us. A young Moroccan’s head got out of the driver’s window. He spoke broken English.
“The girls can come in the back, we have a lot of space there,” he laughed.
“Where do you go?” the Polish girl asked.
“To Avignon. The same as you.”
“Do you have place for all four of us?”
“No, only for you two. Let’s go! We can take you. But there’s a guy who has mental problems in the back. Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you,” he laughed again.
Maybe he was joking, maybe he wasn’t, but it was definitely a red flag. The girls stayed with us.
Many people were driving by, some of them smiling, some of them laughing, some of them completely ignoring us. We were starting to think about splitting up, when another car stopped by. This time, it looked way more safe. It was a small car, there was a woman inside, she seemed decent, and she was alone. She said all four of us can come, and that she went directly to Avignon. Perfect. There was nothing to think about. It was way more risky for her than for us, and none of us meant any harm.
She seemed to be in a hurry, but that was nothing out of ordinary. We put our big backpacks into the trunk, we got inside, and off we went. B was sitting in the back with the girls, and I sat next to the woman, because I was the only one who spoke French. Fair enough, and even though my nineteen year old brain wanted to be with the girls, somebody had to bite the bullet. After a little small talk, when we were already rolling through the highway, the woman said:
“I will go a little bit slow, okay? Just hundred, hundred and ten. I don’t want the police stopping us. I had a few beers, not too much to be drunk, but you know…”
Okay, that made sense. She didn’t look particularly drunk, so I wasn’t worried.
“And I had a little bit of cocaine.”
Wait, what now?
“And ketamine.”
The fuck?
“And I don’t have a driving license.”
What have we gotten ourselves into? This mad woman, who knows how high, driving the four of us in a small car, a car which offered zero to none protection in case of an accident, and she didn’t even have a driving license?
“I learned to drive in the hood,” she added, and smiled.
Now that calms me down, ma’am.
“You know, on the street. Give me a beer. It’s down there, under your legs.”
A-alright, I guess?
“Have one as well, if you want.”
For sure I wanted a beer. I wanted anything that woud help me relax. I chugged half of the bottle at once. My mind was racing. She already drove about fifty kilometers, from where she started, before she picked us up. It obviously wasn’t the first time that she was sitting behing the wheel, even though she didn’t have a driving license. It definitely wasn’t the first time she did so intoxicated. She was fairly confident, which could’ve been the cocaine, but that doesn’t teach you how to drive. She was actually driving pretty well despite the whole thing, so I concluded she that had the experience. I had to trust her abilities anyway. It was another fifty kilometers until Avignon, and she wasn’t going to stop any time sooner. We couldn’t leave a car going a hundred kilemeters per hour on the highway, and there probably wasn’t even another petrol station before the city, so that we could come up with some stupid excuse for getting off. Either we could start panicking, which could’ve made things worse, or we could’ve stayed and trusted her. My pals in the back probably didn’t hear what she said, as they were too busy chatting together. So I was the only one who knew, and therefore worried.
“Do you want to roll a joint? I have some weed in the trunk. I’ll stop and we can roll a joint, whacha say?”
Sure sounded like a good idea. Look, I usually don’t say no to a joint, but in this case… Before I could’ve said anything, the Polish girls shouted: “Hell yes!” and it was decided. We stopped, and I started to work on it. The woman was already way out there, and she was growing restless each minute. At first, she said we will roll the spliff from her weed, but then she changed her mind. She said we should roll it from our stuff, although we didn’t say we had any (we had). She was pretty pissed, but she gave in and provided the plant. Then B started to act all tough, and didn’t want to give me tobacco for the spliff. The Poles did as well. They were trying to squeeze out as much luck from this situation, as possible. The woman wasn’t playing this game though. I wasn’t either.
“I drive you for free, I give you beers for free, I give you weed for free, and now you also want my tobacco?!” she screamed.
I had to agree with her. If I were her, I would’ve left us on the spot, who knows where. To this day, I don’t know why they just didn’t give me the damn tobacco.
I finally managed to roll up a joint after the whole ordeal, and we smoked it. She was muttering something very angrily in French the whole time, and then we drove off. We came to Avignon after a while, and she kicked us out of the car, on a random street, somewhere near the center. We didn’t even manage to say goodbye, and she was gone. What a ride. We made it out alive. Alive and stoned, as if some of us weren’t before. I told the group about what she told me in the car, but they thought it was funny.
What was the plan, now that we were in Avignon? Well, if we didn’t want to spend the night on the streets, we had to get to Châteauneuf-du-Pape somehow. It wasn’t feasible to walk the whole way, as it was about 30 kilometers, likely more, and all four of us were exhausted.
Why were the Polish girls coming with us, you may ask? Well, we told them that we had a place to spend the night in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Did we? Yeees, in a way. We managed to break into two old houses there, before we went further south, and our Czech friends were currently staying in one of them. They knew we were coming, and they had a free room. We persuaded the Polish girls that although Châteauneuf-du-Pape was a slight detour, they had nowhere to spend the night anyway, and that they could get to Orange, and from there to the highway, and eventually home, from there. We weren’t lying, but mostly, we wanted to spend a little more time with them. We were on the road for 3 weeks already, and we were getting quite tired of each other.
So we walked through the empty streets, sticking out our thumbs for each passing car. It wasn’t likely anyone would be stopping at 10 PM, but we were trying anyway. There was nothing to loose. Eventually, a miracle happened and a guy stopped for us, and took us to Sorgues. That was definitely closer than Avignon, but still a little bit too far for four tired people with heavy backpacks. Now there was nothing else left to do, other than walk. B had a great idea on how to solve this situation. We excused ourselves and went to the roadside bushes to “take a piss”, swiftly taking a hit of speed instead.
Looking back, it was obviously creepy as fuck. Especially because we were acting all weird about it, and we didn’t tell them. They had to know, and I’m quite surprised that they didn’t turn around and run as far away from us as possible, by this point. They were getting more and more unsure about the whole “house where we can sleep” thing anyway, so this would’ve been probably the last straw for most. They stayed though, and we didn’t mean any harm to them anyway. In a way, we must’ve been funny. Two junkies trying to hide the fact that they are smorting stimulants.
As we walked through the town of Sorgues, we came across a big supermarket, and in the middle of it’s empty parking lot, there was a singular shopping cart. This was a godsend. All four of us looked at each other, and without saying a single word, we stormed towards the cart. We put our backpacks inside, releasing our tired backs. Now the prospect of walking to Châteauneuf-du-Pape didn’t look as bad. We also scored some beers in a non-stop shop nearby, so we were well prepared for the journey now. The atmosphere was far less tense, and we started to actually talk, getting to know each other. The girls both studied psychology back in Poland. This gave me a common topic to discuss with them, as I was inclined towards that subject myself.
We arrived to Châteauneuf-du-Pape well after midnight. We were all too tired, so we crashed onto the floor and fell asleep immediately. The girls probably got scared again for some reason, because they slept sitting, with their backs to the wall, holding tight to one another. You can’t be too careful I guess. I didn’t give a fuck about that anymore though. I had my own problems, the combination of sleep deprivation with stimulants sort of put me in a very weird position.
When we woke up in the morning, we briefly said goodbye, and the girls went to Orange. Me with B, on the other hand, started looking for work, as the season was approaching, and we were here to make money in the first place.