Viagens de carona:

Wrong turns

Going in the direction of the Oxxo is normally a good plan, unfortunately this one lead me to a few kms backtracking on foot in the heat, due to no fault of the drivers.

Canadian Concern

An older Canadian couple who had emigrated to Mexico kindly offered to drive back at sunset to check i'd got a lift. At that point, sunset was about 8 hours away. Bless.

Fisherman try driving

Two men who had fished together around Los Cabos every year for over 20 gave me a ride to Cabo Pulmo after their boat broke down. In 20 years they had never driven the road! They were very generous with their snacks and taught me a heap about the fish in the Sea of Cortez.

Breakdown / Solution

This was actually two rides – one in the back of a pickup that promptly broke down after the tyre all but fell off. After offering moral support for a while, two Brazillian women who had been on a diving trip I'd done drove past, and drive me right to the centre of Santiago to get provisions for a Sierra La Laguna traverse.

Breezes and Burros

Riding through the desert in the back of a pick-up for an hour or so was fantastic, even better when the drivers stopped for me to pat some inquisitive burros.

Lucky trailhead ride #1

Nearing sunset I thought it unlikely to get a ride up the 20km no-through dirt road to the start of my hike that day, but I was wrong! A former park ranger and his older friend went out of their way to drop me right at the trailhead, stopping to take photos at lookouts on the way, and then stopping at a friend's place. Said friend had a garden bursting with summer fruits, and… (read on in Trip)

Lucky trailhead ride #2

After finishing my traverse of the sierra I was resigned to walking the 18km unused dirt road to the highway. Despite not encountering anyone else on the walk, a car was there waiting for some uni students to finish up their hike. They arrived about an hour after me in the dark, and their ride gave me a lift to the highway. I got a shower and a hostel bed that night and was very grateful!

Radical nurse

A beautiful older woman gave me a ride, her spirit of adventure was just boundless and she said she was always so happy to see women hitching. She worked with women experiencing domestic violence, ran climate change campaigns in her town and was generally the absolute bomb.

A quick crosstown ride

Private Jet Pilot

A group of Canadian and Scottish immigrants to Mexico driving in two cars – I landed with the pilot driving his zippy mercedes solo at speeds previously unknown to me in Baja. We stopped for lunch and they all bought me snacks (read – lunch and dinner) for my journey. Really sweet dudes.

Loreto - Mulege (almost)

Another exhausted truck driver decided he couldn't do it anymore about 6km out of Mulege at 10:30pm. Just short of the mark of my goal for the day – but I was glad he got any rest at all.

Policia

The municipal policeman was fairly unamused at my 10:30pm hitching efforts but gave me a lift right to where i was camping.

French tourists going for a drive in a torrential storm. It was pleasant to be encased in a car during the thunder and rain, and we had a lot of music in common.

Truck #4

Driver already had two hitchhikers stuffed in his cab, but was kind enough to take a third.

El fin

A last hitch to stay somewhere with a roof over my head and recuperate, with a couple of american friends in the leopard-print van. They had a very long hitchhikers log!

Me and my cactus spikes decided to take a bus the rest of the way to Tijuana, but I reckon Baja is a hitchers paradise, and I couldn't recommend it more highly. As a solo woman I experienced no weird, no… (read on in Trip)

In which I frantically try to flag down a car at night while covered in cactus spikes

After a hike gone awry and one of the most unpleasant 15km of my life after falling on a cactus, I was in shock, in pain, bizarrely dehydrated and entirely desperate to get to town. I unceremoniously drank bottle after bottle of the driver's water, and he dropped me at the hospital where late-night cactus removal was performed.

NGO worker & dog get me out of town

Excellent lefty working on mutual aid & capacity building projects got me out of the hitching hell (comparative to the one road in most of Baja) that was La Paz (in reality there were no bad hitching places, i was just totally spoiled). Another story of friends made on the road :).

The Frenchman concerned about the wildlife

This was the first of rides where I had to refuse to speak french with the driver due to my fear of speaking Franish for the rest of my trip. He had moved to Pescadero with his three cats, but they kept playing with scorpians, and he was concerned enough about their wellbeing and his inability to keep the scorpians out that he was thinking of moving home.

Solicited winery ride

Whoever said you can't hitch your way around Valle Guadalupe was wrong! A nice Californian couple who made their own wine north of the border gave me a ride and some USD 'for emergencies' to my next desired wine tasting destination. It all felt rather indulgent, in the most delightful way!

the BEST winery ride

Met a delightful young bilingual couple who had family between San Diego and Tijuana. We drank wine and then they took me to eat utterly delicious seafood nearby and dropped me off at my camping spot. #1 of the rides I definitely wish to keep in touch with, and isn't that the beauty of the whole experience? still feel so very lucky for this one.

The real journey begins

a short and sweet ride into Ensenada with a hotel worker.

Farm detour #1

Caught a bus out of Ensenada for half an hour after camping on Playa Hermosa, as recommended by some fellow hitchers camping there. A fruit and vegetable wholesaler took me with him to drop off some invoices at a truly verdant rancho. He left me with the most divine table grapes and tomatoes for my onward journey, and gave me my first taste of Banda music.

unexpected winery ride

A ride before I'd even started hitching! A ranchero saw me walking along with my backpack and dropped me to my destination just a few km away.

To the stars!

Some of the most interesting people I got a ride with – two of the astronomers from the Pedro San Martir national observatory.

Got shouted at by a fairly nasty US citizen about how stupid i was for hitching while waiting – it comprised the worst hitching experience of the trip!

Mango Mania

Two city workers and a whole lot of mangoes comprised this short but juicy ride.

Truck #1

We had a fair bit of trouble understanding each other, but we shared a lot of snacks and the introduction to banda continued. A delightful first long ride through the desert. Hopped out in Guerrero Negro just as the sun was setting and camped by the road.

Truck #2

Started my journey in the arvo after a morning of wandering the salt works etc. The biosecurity officers at the checkpoint on the Baja California and Baja California Sur state line helped me snag another truck south. The mystery of why their are so many memorials on the highway was explained after hearing that my driver Oscar had been driving for 18 hours and was expected to… (read on in Trip)

why you gotta throw so many beer cans out the window?

Four men on a weekend away together heading home to their families. Picked me up before i'd even started thumbing. They were OK but throwing so much rubbish out the window and also just getting increasingly pissed. It was an uneventful ride overall and they dropped me right in downtown La Paz even though it was out of their way.

Bears!

Two delightful men from Jalisco gave me a lift back into town and extolled the virtues of visiting their state when my girlfriend arrives 3 weeks later. They were super fun and I'd love to go visit.

Farm detour #2

A pipe supplier takes me to a farm positively dripping in mangoes and papaya to deliver a trailerload of pipe fittings. I got to see a beautiful part of Todos Santos I never would have known about!

Boat offerings and a whole lot of dogs

Headed out to Playa Balandra to camp and snorkel; caught a ride with a sailor and fellow hitcher who said he earns enough by giving a couple of 'motivational talks' (aka total bullshit) to corporate firms each month, to keep him and his dogs and his boat. Offered for me to come for a sail around Espiritu Santu with them. I declined but would have jumped at the offer if I was… (read on in Trip)

"You can't be American, we're not that brave"

A Mexican-American father and adult daughter picked me up and went out of their way to drop me in the centre of Cabo. They were amazed but also nonjudgemental of a solo woman hitching. The daughter at the end told me I'd inspired her to try something new or go somewhere by herself. I hope she does. One to make the heart a bit squeezy.

A fiendly American expat offered a ride when he saw us walking in the hot sun

it was just a quick ride one gas station further, just the last one before the highways split to the one leading to sagunto and teruel

Mariane picked us up and knowing it was getting dark and we had still some way to teruel, she kindly invited us home. we felt embarrassed and fortunately she didn't insist too much when we told her we'd try find blablacar.

we were waiting on a gas station in alicante, separated so we could cover also the exit, when one guy tells me "hey, you and your girl are separated". i say like yes, so we can cover wider area. he asks where we were going, then since we both were going towards valencia they pick us up :) two friendly Armenians

a cuban dissident went out of his way to drop us on the highway bypassing valencia, namely on the area de servicio de torrent. there i wanted to say hi to the cleaner, whom we kinda made friends with years ago when i was hitchhiking there for hours, however he wasn't working that day :(

the gas station workers received a call from somebody, telling us that we should move away from the window, so we hard to write teruel in Aga’s notebook and hope for the best. we were with the sign when one cute family pass by, we smile at each other, and remain quiet. they come out of the toilet and BAM SURPRISE, they say they will try make space for us in their car and at… (read on in Trip)

in magic 5 minutes we got picked up, as said before, and this was a pretty nice ride.

when we came to slovenia we immediately bought two big coffees for a fraction of a price of austrian one. what a pleasure =) =) those few slovenians who appeared there i had to ask them if we were about to continue and so i quickly got a ride to dobrenje, the next reast area, just before maribor.

it took us way too much to leave brno, perhaps because it's such a nice place =) we decided to take bus straight to mikulov, on the border, instead of trying out luck on the edge of brno, where the same bus passes, which took us to our destination. we walked to the first gas station we found on the main road and quickly moved on the shoulder where we instantly got picked up…. (read on in Trip)

we slept in that place, i'm not sure where it was, in the restaurant. it was pretty comfortable and we were lucky that we met nice gas station workers. especially that woman who brought us some cakes before they were about to throw them away, as the rules require. in the morning we headed towards the exit of the rest area and we were picked up by a pathologist named Thomas,… (read on in Trip)

we were picked up by a polish businessman who lives actually in italy and back then just bought a nice house close to the sea =) he was going to italy and badly wanted to help us, he was ready to go out of his way to take us closer to slovenia, but at the end we convinced him to just drop us somewhere before graz, so he'd continue over klagenfurt to italia. again Aga was handy… (read on in Trip)