Slacks switched for 'sploring garb I ditched work, took sign in hand, assumed the requisite roadside position and launched the hitch trip. I hadn't tested the legibility  range of my signage but it was white, the letters were drawn in this thick black marker and even if the passing drivers couldn't read exactly what it said, the fact I was standing beside the road like a bellend holding a handwritten sign gave sufficient indication of what the fuck I was doing. I had my brightest clothes and cheeriest demeanour at the ready, accompanied by one small backpack containing sleepingbag, camera, tripod and a rain jacket.

A few supportive souls beeped their horn and it must be a running joke amongst motorcyclists because a large percentage of them smiled at me and my sign and shrugged. I laughed it off, I'd probably do the same in their boots. Sour faces to do not a quick lift make. Within 20 minutes though a trucker flashed his lights and pulled up. He was Greek guy called Stratos and in a mix of broken dutch and english we sorted that he was going to Calais via Antwerp, pretty close to my intended destination: Brussels. My first ride of the day I was cruising. The situation improved when, since it was his birthday, he offered me tart. I considered the possibility that he was trying to poison, defile and dump me in the septic tank of a truck stop toilet but one can't dwell on every nasty eventuality and the tart looked goddamn tasty, so I ate it anyway. Anything else would have just been rude.

He dumped me on the southern section of the Antwerp ring road, near where the A1/E19 splits from ring and heads south towards Brussels. It took a little weaving under overpasses, over underpasses and froggering across highways to reach the right onramp position but before I even had time to get my sign up, an observant french speaking lady had determined exactly what I was after and southward we flew towards Brussels. Halfway I traded down to a shitbox hatch back driven by a lovely african couple.



Fortunately they were able to drop me at a highway on-ramp, which from my experience so far seems to be one of the best places to catch a ride. Cars turning into the onramp are definitely going in the right direction (providing you choose the right onramp...), moving slow enough that they'll see you and there's often a wide enough shoulder on the ramp where they can stop and let you on. Success with this approach lies critically in choosing your onramp. If your pissweak little onramp joins a sparesly populated area to the highway, you will have fuck all traffic to pimp yourself to. I tell you this of course, because I suffered this situation. All the good time I'd made was eaten up by one shitty ramp.



During my wait there was plenty of time to consider how my preconceptions were breaking down, as embarassingly I'd always imagined that people who pick up hitchhikers were hippy/bluecollar/weirdos etc, but my next ride left that idea defiled in a ditch. Middle aged guy, white collar, brand new Land Rover, had never hitchhiked nor picked up a hitchhiker but for some reason saw me standing holding a sign with dusk approaching and figured why the hell not. He was surprised to find I wasn't a total vagabond, I have a real job and wasn't hitchhiking because I lacked the funds to do otherwise, I was just hitching for shits, giggles and free tart. While he understood the attraction he couldn't see himself becoming a willing participant anytime soon. Still I think both of our preconceptions changed a little that day.

I cruised into town and met Slyv, Marc, Curly and Hount, after which things got quite interesting, in ways which I am not unfamiliar but ones that are better told in person than scribbled down here. If you see me ask.





24 hours after I departed I arrived back home having hitched, climbed, slept and explored. Alot can happen in 24 hours and hitching is the perfect way to jumpstart an adventure of random encounters, ass to mouth ditch rape action and plenty of all awkward silence. Seriously though, drop the preconceptions as participation comes highly recommended.




-dsankt, 2010