The tale - part 2 / last 2 days..
Dear reader,
after getting to Paris I actually stopped feeling the challenge, and in good company I let the day’s stage completely open till the end. With Emilie we headed to north, simply without knowing what we would have done later. It took a while to get out of Paris, and then we got into the french region of Picardie, with its huge fields.
Eventually, we decided to stop in Amiens, but.. we found out that every single hostel or hotel was completely full (Amiens I thought, right in the middle of nowhere.. and there’s no room for us…).
I was already making myself comfortable with the idea of sleeping at a church’s door when, by asking, we found a room in a B&B some kilometers outside Amiens. Expensive? No! The cheapest one!
This B&B was actually a kind of weird place. Every single detail were like a Doll’s house. Not exactly the kind of place in which I fit very comfortable..
The day after we were having breakfast while news were telling the weather was about to be shit. Therefore we hurried up (but just a bit) and we headed north again.
Arrived in Abbeville Emilie realised it was better for her to take the train from there, and so, for the first time in this trip, I was alone.
It was about to rain, and I did the only possible thing: I started driving as fast as possible. I had to get to Boulogne (80km) or Calais (110km) as soon as possible, hoping to don’t meet storms on my way. After few miles I had to take a crucial choice. The route national going straight to Boulogne ( kind of 4-lanes road straight and monotone, but fast) or the road on the coast, nicer, 30 kilometers longer, and about two hours more needed to get to Calais.
You know me, reader, what shall I tell you for? I took the longer one.
After half hour driving it actually started to rain, and I also realised I was in emergency supply. I then stopped to the first town I found (Le Crotoy), where the rain got stronger, and all the petrol stations were shut. You gotta wait other two hours, they told me. But two hours waiting for the petrol, and then the rain, it would have meant to get to Calais only in the evening.
Too late, definitely.
Alone, under the storm in a small town on a melancholic coast, and with no petrol on the vespa, I had just a card to play. I believe in signs, reader, and the day before I received the only donation I’ve got, with a note: ”buy some oysters, as soon as you get to northern France”.
Well, I then stopped in a small brasserie, one in front of the seaside, and I asked for my oysters.
Inside there were only people from the town, talking a language I don’t understand, and making comments about me. I could tell it from their face, I could tell it by how they were addressing the vespa outside the restaurant. Suddenly the rain got into a storm, and I felt myself smaller and smaller. I felt all my mistakes. After the oysters, I asked for a hot mussels soup. It was delicious.
After finishing my meal, I asked for the bill and then I got out. Outside the restaurant an old man was smoking angrily. Sat down with a glass of red wine. He turned to me, telling me something like:
“The storm is already gonna be over”.
“Sorry?”
again, something like “The storm, is gonna be over”.
“ehm.. I can’t speak french..”
this time I just understood something like “bla bla bla bla, ncule’! (fuck off!) “
Well, I might have been wrong, but I trusted what I understood. I jumped on the Vespa, and I started to run. If the petrol had finished, I would have pushed the vespa till the next town, but I couldn’t wait not doing anything for a minute more. After 10 minutes the storm decreased to a light rain, and after 15 minutes I found an open petrol station.I found the smile, I started enjoying the sadness of that seaside.
From there the next 120 kilometers just ran one after the other one. Under a constant rain, along that swinging road. And, the more you went ahead, the more you just felt the need to accelerate. You can’t stand town centers, which slow you down, you just want open road in front of you. And strong wind, yes wind, which dries a bit your clothes while rain is falling down.
Finally I got to Calais, tired but excited. And when I approached the ferry, the guy that checked my ticket smiled at me and, talking on the walkie-talkie, announced me at the sailor inside the boat telling: “Hey man, you know what’s gonna arrive? A Vespa.. eh eh eh”.
I felt a shiver in that moment, and on the ramp to get into the ferry (it was pretty high: three floors), I liberatingly geared up to the 4th one.
Hear the engine’s sound, reader.. 1th gear: highly pushing in a short fast growing acute sound. 2th gear: a fast held breath, from the instant of that ‘clack’, heard to pass through the neutral gear. 3th gear: inviting and confidant, just telling you: go next. the 4th one: here we go..
In that moment I started hearing “Heat” in my mind. A reggae piece, soundtrack of the “Fifth Element” in the moment the Spaceship takes off.
I was in. Yes. I was in.
On the ferry I ran up to the top floor, I left all my luggage on a bench, and I just relaxed looking the French coast slowly disappearing at my sight. And, when it was possible to spot the Dover’s white cliffs..
Hey reader.. these are moments in which you really feel on the trip.
On the boat I met a french hitchhiker, and I decided to give him a ride, though he was traveling with a huge backpack.
By the time we got to Dover I had to admit it was too dark to continue to London (150 km), so I decided to find a place to sleep, together with Adrien (this is the hitchhiker’s name). But both of us were short of money and guesthouses were pretty expensive. So, after a small round we agreed to find a place to mount Adrien’s tent.
Following his odd suggestion, we headed up to the hill, to spot a beach on the coast (i know i know..) and, on the way, we found a signal for a camping. At that point we just followed it, through fields and small towns.
Finally we found the place, we mounted the tent, we shared the food we had got (me just chocolate and amaro del capo, he bread from Belgium, an apple and water), and I made him telling me his story.
Adrien was studying advertisement, and last June he dropped it, 3 months before getting his degree (right now he would be graduated otherwise).
I realised it wasn’t my life, why should I have wasted even a minute more?
He then went to work in a vineyard. After that he started hitchhiking around France, and he met a group that was walking from London to Geneva, to promote some kind of peaceful action. From there he joined the Rainbowrail, people who, dressed as the rainbow colours, were cycling around France, playing music and convincing in this way shopkeepers to give them for free some food they were about to through away.
A worm-eaten apple, is still good. But people won’t buy it. We were bringing fun in those shops, and shopkeepers were happy to give us some stuff like that.
With Rainbowrail he then joined the alter-tour. A tour in bycicle doing the opposite round as the Tour de France (anti-clockwise), to promote fighting against capitalism.
About all those fighting I don’t actually care too much, I mean.. I agree with them, but I’m not one of them. Though, I had great fun, and I really enjoyed.
After this he went on hitchhiking to find a hippy community on the Pyrenees, and then he went to do the vintage in the Bourgoundie, in a city I passed by with Erwann, where they do a great wine (and apparently for the vintage they pay quite a lot.. 8€/hour with accomodation, food and wine for free).
When I met him he had left some days before from there, hitchhiking he got to Belgium, and from there to Calais. With the dream of spotting a dawn (Aurora in italiano).
Somebody told me about dawns having place in the north, and I thought: why not? In choosing my way I always follow an old hippy suggestion: “When you see the road getting inflamed, follow it”. I don’t know how long I wanna do this kind of life, I just want it to be to most of it. I will work, yes, but right the time to gather enough money to travel again. I don’t wanna use my life to pay my rent. I wanna surf this life. I wanna surf it all.
The day after I bought him breakfast, I explained him that in UK we use Sterling, and that he had to shift one hour earlier the watch, and then I got him into the town, before to take my way home.
Yesterday he emailed me, telling he’s already in Scotland. He has been sheltered by a tracker in his track till Northern England, and then he managed to get till there. Maybe now he’s already on the top most rock of Scotland, sat down on his huge backpack, admiring a wonderful dawn.
Posted by Curi
