Hitching France Pt. 14 – A Day Trip to Bordeaux

I walked a mile or two from Carrefour to the outer edge of Aytré in hopes to catch a ride south towards Bordeaux. I was picked up fairly quickly by an older lady heading towards Châtelaillon-Plage to work on some sand sculpting on the beach. She only took me about ten kilometers down the E602 but every bit is appreciated and she dropped me off near the exit. I just changed sides and put my thumb up again to test my luck. This is where I took my rather iconic shadow hitchhiking picture.There weren’t many cars passing by but once again I was picked up rather quickly. This time by an elderly couple heading to Rochefort to buy fish and fruit because they said it was cheaper there. They were very kind and the older gentleman driving spent awhile trying to find a good spot to drop me off when the time came. I felt bad as they went up and down the small section of the highway trying to find a good place before eventually just dropping me off on the shoulder. I thanked them and they went on with their day. I really didn’t like trying to hitch from the highway so I walked up the side of the road to the exit and got to walk through a toll booth which was a cool experience. I walked up to the roundabout just after the station and stuck up my thumb once again off the road heading south. The roundabout was much busier than some others that I had waited at recently but still it took some time to get picked up.

I had been waiting probably close to forty-five minutes or so, watching the cars pass, before someone finally stopped and picked me up. It was a forty year old woman who was fortunately enough heading right to Bordeaux and could take me the rest of the way. She was visiting a friend and they were going to have a fun weekend on the friend’s friend’s boat on the river. It sounded like it would be a pretty good time. She was a shaman as she described herself and she gave meditation webinars so we had a lot to talk about and discuss. She also suggested I hug trees because you can feel the energy from them and it apparently can be very healing. I haven’t quite taken her up on it yet though. We talked about life and the serendipity of our meeting. She had even posted her ride on BlaBla Car to have someone to ride with and just so happened to take a different road where she found me. I felt bad I didn’t pay for her ride but I guess we didn’t leave from the same place so it wouldn’t have happened even if I had checked. She wasn’t worried about it though and was just pleased to have someone to share the ride with. We jammed to a lot of music together, notably Makeba by Jain, some Laboratorium Pieśni and Suprême NTM, -M- – MOJO, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Enola Gay and one of the few English songs she had which was shown to her by her niece – Hot N*gga by Bobby Shmurda. So here I am with a forty year old French shaman who just happened to pick me up and we’re listening to Bobby Shmurda as we’re cruising through the countryside to Bordeaux. There are some things you just can’t make up and that is the beauty of hitchhiking. Anyway, after around two hours on the road she dropped me off on the side of the river just opposite of the city center. I thanked her for the ride and we said goodbye. It was one of the best rides of my whole hitchhiking trip.

It was still before noon when I arrived in Bordeaux and I had most of the day left to explore the city. I walked all over the city center and I was captivated by its beauty. The architecture was very charmingly Parisian and there seemed to be marvel after marvel to capture your attention. I went to a grocery store to get some food for lunch and then proceeded to make a sandwich out in front of the Bordeaux Cathedral. The architecture in the city center was really stunning. I continued to walk around for a bit until it was time to charge my phone up and plan my next moves. And so, I found myself once again at a Mcdonald’s/ However this time I was on the second floor by a window overlooking Rue Saint-Rémi. I remember watching a hippie couple I had seen earlier in the city with two large dogs and long nappy hair set up their panhandling spot. Then two more hippies came by and they just all sat and chatted as their pan remained empty. I don’t know what puts people in the position where they need to panhandle but the couple with the two big dogs really didn’t look like they needed to be begging. But to each their own. As the city was a bit big and I wanted a shower I decided to find a budget hotel somewhere to the west of the city as I planned to hitch to Lyon the next day. I found a decent hotel on my map while my phone charged and decided I’d just walk to the area and see as there were other hotels nearby. Once I was rested and my phone had a good bit of juice I took up my pack again to set off in the city. This time I wandered back to the water and took a nice stroll along La Garonne. It was extremely hot that day and it was a tough walk carrying my heavy pack under the beating sun. It was also a difficult walk as I wanted to walk a few miles out past Parc Palmier and Cenon to have a good vantage point for the N89 the next day.

I trudged on and wandered along over the river then through some smaller neighborhoods over to Le Parc Palmier. I took a break on a bench just through the entrance of the park and then ventured up a large hill through the park and on to some more neighborhoods until I finally started to get close to the hotel that I had found on maps.me. Once I got closer to my previewed destination, I stopped at a grocery store and picked up some food for the next day– bananas and a box of granola bars. I remember walking past the exit from the N230 onto the E70 and passing a young migrant family on the median with a sign in need asking for food and change. I walked right past them initially and continued on but the sight of the young child in their stroller stayed in my mind so I turned around and went back. I didn’t have much on me but I gave them my two bananas thinking that at the very least they would enjoy a light snack between them while on the median. I hardly remember their faces but I do remember a warm smile and a thank you from them. I never told anyone about it before but it was a part of my journey that my mind returned to many times. I then continued on Avenue de la Prairie to The Wine Merchant where it appeared the hotel was but when I got there I walked around the shopping center and I couldn’t find it. There was another fenced in parking lot with a building that looked to be the hotel next to the shopping center so I walked through the opening and up to the building. There were some immigrants hanging out around the building and when I walked in I realized that it was no longer being used as a hotel as the reception was bare. I had mistakennly walked in to some sort of assisted housing. I panicked a bit inside but calmly turned around, walked out and disregarded the odd looks from the people outside as I went back through the gate and returned to the avenue. It was a relief that nothing happened. I was exhausted from walking with my pack all day in the heat and decided that I would just go to the hotel I had passed earlier and pay whatever their rate was. I made it to Hôtel Restaurant Campanile Bordeaux Artigues and received a nice room at a price much lower than I had expected, probably around thirty euros, and I slept well that night greatly appreciating the shower that I certainly needed. I woke up early the next day, ate a few granola bars and immediately went by to the median where the family had been just the evening before in the hopes catch a ride on the E70 heading to Lyon.