Hitchhiking 101

Fuck.

He got out of his car. The sky was spaced grey, the wind was strong, and the drizzle dropping on my face was extremely irritating. Only five houses were rising from the hills. The lights were off. A complete ghost town. A ghost village. Wait. Just five fucking houses, far away from any civilisation.

‘Do you have a signal here?’ he asked while looking at his pre-twenty-first century phone.

I said I did and quickly locked the screen of my iPhone.

‘Come on. I’ll show you where I used to camp,’ he said and started to walk up the hill behind the empty boats rental cabin. There was no path, stones every step of the way, and mud. Puddles of mud.

It was quite a long walk up. The mountain streams finding their way between stones made it much harder to hike. He was leading the way, and I knew he was talking, but I couldn’t hear a thing he said, not only because of the wind but because I was focusing on holding the pepper spray in my pocket. After every small hill we overcame, there was another one, higher.

This is it, this cliff, that’s gonna be it. I still don’t know why we followed him. Did we have no self-preservation instinct?

Before we arrived in Scotland, we researched what exactly we needed, how to avoid hunger when it’s raining and how often it actually rains. Even though we had a vague idea of the conditions and found a way to cook under a small tarp, in reality, it was much more challenging than we anticipated. Already on the second day, during a huge storm, we were walking next to a road, soaked, and a car stopped. The man offered us a ride, so we hitchhiked to the nearest camp. Even though we were uncomfortable getting into someone’s car, it ended more than well, and I think that’s the reason we did it again, this time in the Isle of Skye.

We finally got to the small village, Broadford, after 4 hours of hiking from Kyleakin with twenty-five kilos hiking bags on our shoulders. We got to the small café in between a petrol station and a farm. When we got in, we dug out our chargers and purses from our bags like we were used to doing after a week of hiking and asked if we can keep our bags in the hallway.

We sat down next to a window and ordered their special. English breakfast, Scottish style. It’s not really a special, but I like the irony. Anywhere else around the world, it would be a special. Apart from Scotland.

While we were waiting, two people from the next booth started to talk to us. It wasn’t that surprising, after all, everywhere we went, people were curious about our hiking experience, and they wanted to share their stories as well. Fortunately for us, those two were locals, and they knew the best places to go.

He drank water straight from the stream without filtrating it and smoked hashish while driving.

‘You don’t have a car?’ the short, brown-haired, mid-aged lady asked, ‘In Isle of Skye?’ she raised her eyebrows. Her voice got really high at the end of every sentence, which was quite annoying. ‘Good luck.’

‘Where would you recommend us to go?’

Now the older guy, looking like a fisherman, answered. He talked about an empty village an hour drive from the café. Apparently, there was nothing but abandoned houses standing on the beach.

‘There was a big flood twenty years ago. Everyone had to move out and no one ever came back. It’s creepy yet beautiful,’ he said while the lady, Camille, kept nodding. ‘Do you have a map?’ he asked.

I pulled it out of my pocket. We DIYed it, cut off the unimportant parts, marked places we wanted to see and paths we wanted to hike. When I handed it to the guy, he laughed and pointed out that we were obviously very invested in this trip and asked how many times we were actually able to read the map and follow it.

‘Probably once or twice,’ Jolene answered, explaining that we really suck at it, and we were using Google maps instead.

‘May I?’ he took his pen and drew an X on the spot we were right now, then marked the route we had to endure. Apparently, it wasn’t that far away, so we could walk and be there just before twilight. Jolene and I looked at each other and smirked, we were exhausted, but this actually sounded interesting.

‘I can take you there if you want,’ he said, noticing how miserable we looked. ‘There is also another place, Elgol, it’s incredible, the real Isle of Skye, camping on the cliff.’

I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to get in a car with this stranger. He looked friendly but also really weird. The type of person who, as we got to know later, drank water straight from the stream without filtrating it, who was always ready for a war and who smoked hashish while driving; but Jolene looked really excited and I, as always, had to see everything.

It took another hour before we left the café. Camille was already gone, and I, for once, was happy Jolene couldn’t shut up. On the one hand, I had this weird feeling about the guy, but on the other hand, well, I wanted to see that village and cliffs and have some new experiences.

We packed our things and went to his car. I can still see the state of the trunk like it was yesterday. The trunk and the whole car were stuffed. It was half packed with fishing things and a half that seemed like army equipment. He also had a 10l canister of stream water where we could see the stones, moss and a couple of bugs floating.

‘You want some?’ he asked and poured it straight into a cup.

‘No thanks,’ we both said, disgusted.

He just shrugged his shoulders and took a big sip. He was running around the car, trying to make a space for us and our hiking bags, and that took him another half an hour. He had to move all of his boots, nets, a knife, leather jacket, dirty tarps, and many other weird, overly used things. As soon as we could sit down, I went to the back seat behind the driver. I didn’t really want to interact with him.

To get to the places he mentioned, we had to go off the main road and drive on the road for farmers instead. Because we had to stop many times and let the cows cross from one field to another, I had the chance to enjoy the landscape surrounding us. The rain and the fog made it so picturesque as if we were in a fairy tale.

When we were near the abandoned village, he started to stutter and said that the other place is much better and that we should go there instead. He said it’s more reasonable to go to the closest one on our way back. I didn’t even get to say anything, Jolene took the lead and thanked him, ‘That would be great. It pissed me off. She was lazy the whole, ironically, hiking trip and didn’t want to walk.

We didn’t get far before I smelled something odd.

‘Is it just me or do you have weed in the car?’ I asked and heard him laughing.

‘Slip your hand under the seat,’ he said, and even though I was suspicious, I did what he asked. I was searching and searching, I probably touched like thousands of crumbs and other shit, disgusting. But then, near the back, I felt a plastic bag.

A huge brick of hashish.

Seriously?

I opened it, ripped a bit from the block as asked, and passed the small piece to him. No cars were around us, so he just stopped near the Loch na Sguabaidh and turned the engine off. Had we ever done it? No. Would we like to try? Maybe a little. Stupid kids.

He rolled a little volcano, burnt the head, waited till the smoke came from the top and inhaled it. Jolene took only a small draw and started to cough. Like magic, she immediately began to smile like an idiot. Now it was my turn, and with respect, I drew only a tiny bit. I didn’t cough, and I quickly felt my body relaxing. I forgot that we were in some weirdo’s car and that we should have been worried. We drove again, and he continued smoking. He was driving into the field and back on the tiny road, laughing and crying at the same time. It might have been because of the weed or just because he was odd. We didn’t talk at all. Both Jolene and I were just staring in front of us, enjoying the view and watching sheep living their worriless lives. When I think about it now, I would slap me. What were we thinking!?

He stopped the car on a cliff, and even though it was drizzling, we could see the islands in the distance and waves angrily crashing over the cliffs.

Suddenly he locked the car doors, and I panicked. Jolene was just sitting there, pale, so I tried to open the door and get out. The first attempt unlocked the door and the second one got me out. He looked startled.

‘I thought we’re already there,’ I used it as a stupid excuse. He said that we have a couple more miles to go.

We were safe, back in the car park next to the boats rental cabin. His car wasn’t the only car there now, but they were all abandoned.

‘I’ll help you set up your tents.’

‘No thanks, we’ll be fine,’ I answered, ‘we’ve done it many times before’. It took me many minutes to convince him, but when I finally did, he offered us to have his old bread, mushroom water, and even shoes. We politely refused them all.

‘At least take a bit of the hash,’ he insisted, so, just to get rid of him, we agreed, thanked him for the ride and for this spot, ‘It’s incredible here’, and said goodbye. Whilst we were climbing the hill, I was turning my head to make sure he was actually gone.

We got to the top, the spot he showed us. I was speechless. The ground wasn’t really flat, but for one night, it’s enough. Our tents weren’t more than fifteen feet away from the cliff edge, and the drop was at least a hundred feet. The waves were crashing over the cliff base like an angry army colliding with an enemy.

The second we set up our tents, the rain and wind stopped. Suddenly it was so quiet we could hear the seagulls chirping above the sea. We walked to the protuberance, sat on the edge and took some pictures. Even now, when I look at them, the memory is bittersweet. On the one hand, it was so peaceful and calm, but on the other hand, I can still feel the fear of the height and the night that’s yet to come. My chest tightens, and I can’t breathe.

I held the pepper spray outside of the sleeping bag, squeezing it so hard my hand got numb after a few minutes.

Before we went to sleep, we had some of that magical smoke he gave us. We were singing and dancing in my big tent with the front door opened, so we could see the edge of the cliff, the sea, and mainland Scotland in the distance, but then the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and an uncomfortable storm began.

I was alone. My tall tent was almost breaking in the wind, and the noises outside made me wonder if the man was coming back.

I sank deeper into my sleeping bag and turned the torch off, hoping the tent would become invisible, but its light green colour was shining like a streetlamp in the darkness. If he comes, I’m the first one to die.

I got the pepper spray out of my bag and held it outside of the sleeping bag, squeezing it so hard my hand got numb after a few minutes.

11pm

The wind is stronger. Time stopped. I am trying to fall asleep and convince myself that he won’t come back.

1am

I am so tired but afraid to close my eyes.

3am

The raindrops are drumming on my tent so hard; I can’t hear anything else. I opened the inner door of my tent, just in case I need to escape. I’m still trying to convince myself that he won’t come in this weather. Can’t feel my hand holding the pepper spray anymore. I’m freezing.

4am

The sun has started to come out. I can sleep now. He wouldn’t rape and murder us in daylight, I hope.

7am

I wake up with the sound of the storm calming down. Maybe the storm saved us, or perhaps I was just being paranoid. (Un)fortunately, I’ll never know.

In retrospect, would I do it again? Probably. Okay, who am I kidding? I definitely would. Why, you might ask. The answer is simple. I am a writer, and this is one of my favourite stories I have ever written.