Hitching France Pt. 10 – Caen and Beyond

I left the hotel around 10am the next morning and made my way back down into town. I wanted to explore a bit of the western edge that had some interesting structures before leaving. I wandered around in that direction and found a nice bakery where I bought an awesome sandwich. Then I walked across the street

to a beautiful looking cathedral complex and sat on the ground under the giant towers to enjoy my brunch. I had some lofty goals for that day so I didn’t hang around for long before making the long trek to the outskirts of town. It was another mile or so walk but it was much easier being well rested. Along the way I stopped in front of another small, cool looking church and make my sign which didn’t take very long. I then approached the a series of roundabouts with busy roads going every which way. I walked along two roundabouts and then saw another road down the way I where needed to go off the second roundabout with one final road leading in to it. Since my spot at that moment looked about equally promising I decided to go down another hundred meters to get to the spot where all potential traffic heading my way would be going through and aside from a tricky narrow shoulder under a bridge, the walk down wasn’t bad. It paid off though as I didn’t wait longer than three minutes in that spot before a man in his late thirties stopped to pick me up. I had set another out of reach goal that day with the plan being to hitch to Saint-Malo for the afternoon, potentially stopping by Mont Saint-Michel if the opportunity presented itself and then making my way another hour and a half south to Rennes where my mother had studied nearly 20 years before.

Bernard, my chauffer out of Caen, was a

very friendly and seemingly interesting man who worked in medical device sales operating in a two hundred mile radius around the region. He told me he was heading just outside of Saint-Malo and would happily take me into town so our ride was very pleasant together. He seemed a bit unusual but I’m probably not the most normal person either so I didn’t think anything of it. We talked about our backgrounds and life, we cracked jokes, he told me about his telescope, his work and his hot coworker. He even took a few work calls while I was in the car without seeming to mind either. It came up that I’d never been to Mont Saint-Michel so Bernard took an exit as it came up and we drove into the countryside to see the IONESCO world heritage site off in the distance. He stopped in a small lot and got out to smoke while I gazed off and tried to get a reasonable picture. There wasn’t much else to look at, so we hopped back in and he took to the auto-route to coast down to Saint-Malo. It was getting close to being the late afternoon and he asked me what my plans were. I told him originally I was thinking of walking around town and then heading to Rennes to meet with some friends (from courchsurfing… 🙂 ). He sort of laughed and said that a few hours would not do Saint-Malo justice and said that after his stop outside of town, he was actually heading to Rennes as well. So he offered to show me around Saint-Malo for a bit, make his stop and then head to Rennes together. I figured why not, he’s probably right and so it was decided.

As we approached town, Bernard said he was hungry and made a quick pass through the drive-thru at Mcdonald’s. He asked if I wanted anything but I couldn’t bring myself to take any more of his charity even though I was hungry plus I had hardly any cash on hand to offer for my order. I guess in hindsight I should have bought a cheeseburger and paid for both of our meals. I wish I would’ve thought of it at the time. We pulled up to a park across the bay from the main part of town and got out. Bernard took a bench to eat his meal and I took a brief stroll up and down the park. There were some old remnants of a wall built by the Romans and a nice view of the town. It’s truly a unique place. I was a little uneasy out of sight of Bernard as he could easily drive away with my pack which would royally screw me but luckily the whole time I was out on the road I met only good people, just willing to help me out and take me from point A to point B or somewhere along the way.

Once he finished his meal we got back in the car and he started to tell me a bit about the town. Apparently, it was an old pirate city that for a long time managed to resist governmental pressure and oversight hundreds of years ago. The sheer amount of wealth that Saint-Malo brought in and generated allotted itself a sort of autonomy from external rule. Even when the government managed a successful siege and imposed taxes and other reforms to the city, the pirates would simply stop at one of the various islands just off shore of the city to drop off their plunders and have significantly less to declare. I guess that would be one area to look for buried treasure!

Bernard wound through various streets as he was making his way to the walled city center. It’s a beautiful place and very luxurious as well. The heart of the city was akin to something along the coast of the Adriatic in the Balkans, just not something you see too often. And here was Bernard, braving the traffic, congestion and tight streets all to just show me around. We got out at different points to climb up on the walls and walk along the beach, he told me as much as he could about the area which I deeply appreciated. The jokes were something else too. Some of the houses are millions of dollars and beautiful, there’s no shortage of luxury hotels either and as we drove past one he kept shouting “oooh la pauvre, ooooh la pauvre!” It was pretty funny at the time. But after our grand drive around the city it was time to really hit the road again so we made our way back to the auto-route as more things were to come.

Here is where it got a bit weird. As we left the city and returned to the auto-route Bernard turned to me and said. “Mitch, I hope it does not bother you but I must stop by my home to get my dog”. Umm, okay, that wasn’t expected but I guess that’s what his stop outside Saint-Malo was. I hesitantly said sure and hoped for the best as there wasn’t much stopping now as we took an exit and were in the heart of the countryside. I mean, there was practically nothing but open fields all around. Occasionally we would pass a handful of houses but then the landscape would just open up once more. Eventually we reached a row of five houses all connected in a line in the countryside and we turn around the back of them. The back was surrounded by some tall, far reaching shrubbery of sorts. As we go around the back of these homes, I think for a moment… well this is it. I could die here. I was really uncomfortable and had my hand on my phone ready to make a run for it and call the French 911. We stop behind the last house and he gets out and goes inside. I get out of the car and stand awkwardly by it feeling pretty uneasy. He took his time attending to this and that, cleaning up after the dog apparently and the likes. But eventually he emerges from his home with his dog and two cans of Orangina. The dog hops in the trunk, he offers me a perfectly sealed can of soda and we’re off once more. I can relax again. On a positive note, the open countryside was extremely beautiful, and it seemed as if he took some backroads to get back to the auto-route. The landscape would go from open fields, to nice forests with creeks and lakes and back again. I enjoyed the diversity and balance of the two in the area.

Before long we were cruising down the auto-route once again with his dog in the back and the sun shining. The vibe, or I could say my adrenaline, went back to normal and we were having a good time once more. Bernard told me about some of the adventures he had taken when he was younger too. Like many of my chauffeurs, before and to come, he was well traveled around the world which, of course, seemed to validate my own pursuit and give me a sort of obligation to continue the tradition of humans venturing from what they know. He reminisced about hitchhiking around western Europe and never knowing when the next shower would come, going three or four days and finally stepping under the water. I can vouch for him too here, the feeling is unbelievable! He said there was nothing like the open road to him when he was younger, the uncertainty, the unlimited opportunities of what’s to come, not to mention the fresh air. “It’s good for the mind,” he repeatedly told me. As we approached Rennes, Bernard made a stop at a medical clinic to pick up some documents to send to his company’s headquarters. He said it was some data, reviews, and potential recommendations made by the doctor’s in the clinic to be reviewed by the medical device engineers back at their own labs. It sounded pretty neat, Bernard was the catalyst and man on the front in the whole process. As we reached the city and began to make our way to the center where Bernard would drop me off, we continued to talk about life on the road. He said that life was indescribable while traveling, “La liberte totale!” he exclaimed (TOTAL FREEDOM).

Those words shook me to my core and will forever ring in my ear. Maybe it was how he said it, the way he said it, or just the words themselves but they hit me in a special way. Like when you’ve been experiencing something for days, struggling to put words to sensations that have been constantly prevalent to you and then someone utters three words encompassing a strong message in a poignant fashion which seem to fit like a missing puzzle piece to those previously ambiguous impressions which up until that very moment had bewildered your mind day in and day out. It’s “la liberte totale” which drew me to hitchhike in the first place without knowing it, it’s “la liberte totale” which gave the experience such pleasure, it’s “la liberte totale” which draws my heart back to those undertakings and which materialize it once more.

Bernard pulled over in a plaza in the city center and he even got out of the car to shake my hand and bid me farewell. It was rather serendipitous that we spent most of the day together and we had a great time even with the awkward stop at his home. In fact, after learning about his own stories and travels I realized that the whole time we had spent together he was just acting as my own guide because he understood what it was like to be in my shoes. He was totally comfortable with a fellow traveler he would only know for a brief period of time and it was humbling to realize that I hadn’t been, that I had much to learn and that fortune brings powerful lessons in subtle ways. I thanked him for everything he had done for me that day, we smiled as we shook hands and he wished me good luck with my travels. He was another passerby who touched my life in an invaluable way. But now I had my bearings to regain in a new city, Rennes.