I’ve picked up three hitchhikers so far (two of them came as a couple) and briefly hitched a short ride myself.

The first hitchhiker, in Italy, was a young Russian who was travelling with a very small backpack. He said he’d passed through several borders after leaving Russia through the forests seven weeks previously. He was delighted to be getting a lift to Genoa (it was about 3 hours from where we were) and I still think he should have got out there as he’d have had a greater chance of a lift than where I dropped him, despite it being further on. But anyway, I fed him, found and filled a bottle of water and sent him on his way. He was happy and he had great optimism that he would reach Florence that night. It was very unlikely, it was already dusk.

The others were a young couple from France. When I saw his thumb out I stopped, as I thought they needed help rather than hitching. After all they had two heavily laden bikes with them. It turns out they are cycling from France to Turkey and have been mostly wild camping for the last 5 months. But the chill of the last few days had taken its toll and they’d got cold and tired and had to get to Corinth by the next day to catch a train. I was going to Corinth but planned to visit a couple of ancient sites on the way so I said if they could fit their bikes in the back of the van they were welcome to come to the sites with me or I could drop them off on the way. As it turned out we visited the sites together for the day, shared some good conversation on the meaning of life as well as coffee and lunch. I dropped them off just outside Corinth so they could find a pitch for their tent while I continued into the city to do some much needed laundry. I think I had the better task.

My hitch was in Albania and very short. Construction work on a road to the Blue Eye site meant I had to park the van 20 minutes away. It was a lovely sunny day so walking was fine but it was uphill and I was feeling lazy and an open-backed truck with road-workers in was slowly making its way towards me. I’m not even sure if I put my thumb out or my frequent glances gave the game away but anyway it stopped and the guy in the passenger seat jumped out, even though I signalled I was just going to hop in the back, and insisted I get in the front. A 5-minute lift meant a 3 minute walk was all I had left. I thanked them profusely and went on my way.