We´re alive.. southern tip of Spain!

Because we´re sure that everyone is constantly checking our blog to see how we´re doing, we feel we have to apologise for not having had internet access this whole time. Here´s the story so far...

After getting a lift from ´Nice Guy´Steve to Southampton, we got picked up by a cool businessman type guy who took us to Portsmouth. That´s the only ride we´ve had in a flashy car, by the way. Then we chilled out there for a day and repeatedly bought electronic equipment. We won some lighters from a casino. At night we took the ferry to Le Havre in France.

Just getting off the ferry we found an English guy, Perry, who has a house near Limoges and who drove us 300 miles to a small town near there. This town was killer.. not a lot of action. We had a couple of beers and were just packing up to head over to a nearby hotel, when we hit it big with Hadrian and Lise. These guys were awesome! They picked us up about 8pm, gave us a beer in the car, and drove us 10km to a house party. We had a wild and crazy night partying it up with the crazy hippy cats from the Limoges area and passed out in the room of Maria, the ¨La Reine des Mouches¨(The queen of the flies) -- talk about kind hearted people!!

Naturally, we woke up the next morning with a massive hangover (Nachi more than Dan). They dropped us off at 9am at a little spot on the side of the street. We decided to try the sleep and hitch tactic, where we sleep with our thumbs out roadside. Nachi downed 3 quiches and a pastry to prepare. After what seemed like forever and a lot of roadside dancing (we felt better after the first 4 hours), we got picked up by a girl (solo!) who did something with kids; she took us to a gas station 43km away on the WRONG side of the road, where we got less than nothing. It was our new home.. At nightfall we hiked up this big ass hill to a little village where we found a fairytale tower with a fairytale little hotel. First shower in 3 and a half days.

The next day, we were determined to get the fuck out of this rest stop and decided to take any ride going anywhere! We got a ride going from an apprentice ski instructor hitting the slopes in Claremont-Ferrard -- not exactly south! We took it 2 hours east and got dropped off in the C-F. A guy who did chemistry in uni but randomly decided tree-cutting was more his calling took us a few km to Issoire, a very happening place. There, after standing roadside till it was dark and cold and lonely, we hit it big by finding two English truckers (who had come from Oxfordshire, doh!) at the hotel we crashed at, who, the next day, took us a couple of hours south (in the back of their truck) to Montpellier. It was very illegal! They locked us in and within the first hour of the trip we were having slight bladder issues. Fortunately, they pulled over to check, as the English guys said, that we hadn't died from a gas leak or anything. We grabbed a couple of beers and popped back into the locked back of the truck.

They dropped us off in Montpelier -- yet another shit show. We were at a roundabout with 5 exits -- about 3 of which could potentially be right or wrong. So an old guy pulled over and took us to a better spot on the highway with only one exit. Eventually after dancing some more and Dan checking out what was under every rock, a French guy took us to Pezenas. Lo and behold, roundabout heaven! Everyone we talked to said we should wait on different exits of the roundabout -- literally. We walked a bit and had some food and decided to wait on the exit where the least number of people would honk at us and tell us we were facing the wrong way. We hate roundabouts. Today was a big day, we hit 5 lifts. People were waving at us a lot which felt good. A funny peasant guy took us to the toll point on the freeway to Spain, where if we got a ride, we would be golden. But it was quite late and we had to consider a hotel, the closest one being 10km and a cabride away!! Just as we were contemplating packing up, we hit it big big big with Fanny. She was a cute photographer driving solo in a van. She was studying in French Polynesia, but back home on a break. She drove us to Narbonne, but more importantly sorted out the next chunk of our hitch: her dad is a truckie who drives to Barcelona and back every day! Cha-ching!

So her hard ass old man picked us up at the toll point at 6.30 the next day and drove us to just south of Barcelona. He told us lots of funny stories along the way. They were mostly about the wars in the region and the kids' medical histories, which was a bit weird. He had 6 kids -- his expression was "we made two, we adopted two and we're guarding two". Fanny, he said, was made. What a legend. Finally, in Spain! We were on hold with that prayer for a while.

At the trucker's stop in Barcelona, we met 3 German guys who had hitch-hiked from Berlin to Spain. They had left the same day as us and somehow managed to get down there faster than us, and took some breaks along the way. Basically this truck stop was our break to the big time as we met a team of Portugese superheroes who would take us down, in one monster 1300 km ride, to south of Seville, the worst place in the world (seriously). One of them didn't talk, at all. In Portugese or in English. Sergio, the Batman of the outfit, was an old school legend and risked his job (and Robin's) to take us in the truck.

South Spain.. Wow!! We spent 27 hours in one spot. The longest wait yet. We walked bags and all 8km around the area. The people were all very cool, but no one wanted to take us anywhere. We spent the night in a villa for 25 euros. Cheap and huge, but no hot water. The next day, we got out. A man in his thirties and his mother drove us 30km south to the highway exit for Las Cabezas. Then we hit it really big again with a 22-year old student, Murcia. He went out of his way a bit and drove us down to Barbate. He drove us around the beaches and so naturally we bought him a lunch.

Things started to turn sour a bit here. We got another short lift out of Barbate -- debatably a mistake. We stood roadside into the nightfall again, however there were no hotels anywhere. No one would take us no matter how desperate we looked. We walked 4 km to the nearest sign of civilization, Tahiville -- also home of more mean Spanish people. We thought there was a hotel there but it was closed. Everyone was VERY friendly and kindly pointed us in the direction of the 8 hour walk to Tarifa. One cool piece of information was that there was a hotel 10 km down the road, where we are now, writing to all of you with love. Along the way, carrying our 45 kg bags, we saw some bulls in the night, walking alongside us, within 10 metres. Almost the whole time we were walking through an enormous field of windmills, which was very X-Files-ish.

Dan's a bit worried about hitting the ferry in time so we're off -- probably walking the next 15 km. I love Southern Spain. We contemplated calling a taxi last night and taking a bus this morning but we don't want to give these deep-throat talking, random hand-waving psycho lunatics the satisfaction, so we're walking. It's very pretty here.