[Will Hunt]

Me and a friend are hitching to a place near Malaga to clip bolts for a few weeks (flying back though).

Is anyone able to give us a lift from the Leeds area to as far South as possible on this day. I think we are heading for Folkestone in England.

We wont smell at this point and will be able to provide much banter.

[andy_e]

Are you and sean going to the Chorro? lucky barstewards.

[Will Hunt]

Sean and a load of others are flying out on the Monday after but £80 in flights is a bit much so we opted to get out there for free and then fly back when we're knackered. Me and Dave are hitching.

[lagerstarfish]

£80 in flights is a bit much

By how much is £80 too much for a flight that will save you a hitching journey of 1600 miles? I am sure you could find a couple of days casual work which will pay more than £80/x per hour, where x is the number of hours likley to be spent hitching to malaga minus hours taken by the flight. 

[Will Hunt]

Well a greater factor than the cost is that it should be a good laugh. Plus Ive never done a long distance hitch before. Furthest Ive been is Leeds to Blencathra and we cheated a bit on that. Decided to meet at the Parkinson Steps (main meeting place in Leeds Uni) and found that an environmental sciences fieldtrip was gathering to go on a field trip to Blencathra by conincidence. We weasled our way onto the bus with them and were there in no time 

[dave smith]

Yeah, exactly. It's going to be a laugh, we'll meet some fun people I hope! Hardest bit will be getting out of Leeds, I should think! Anyone heading down the M1/M20 on Saturday, a lift would be hugely appreciated!

[lagerstarfish]

Well a greater factor than the cost is that it should be a good laugh. Plus Ive never done a long distance hitch before.

Sound logic. Can't fault you. 

[robertostallioni]

Apologies in advance for the negative post, but I am struggling to stop the left to right motion of my head. As I get older there are many things that occur where I think, fuck me, ten years ago I would have done that myself, but now I have obviously shifted my 'good sense' parameters. Never though would I have forgone holiday climbing time to spend a (un)healthy portion of my trip travelling with a sweating trucker hiding an erection. Or standing at roundabouts/service stations/interchanges. There are some experiences that are simply not worth having. I suggest this is one of them. Borrow the £80. Or lets face it, just get it out of your account.....

[Houdini]

Listen to the Stallion, William.


A good and incredibly big, strong, man bitch of a man-friend of mine onetime had to fend off the unrequited pangs of a one-armed bum bandit (schweet) onetime thumbing it, on the road.

There's a gravel pit pond down the road I used to swim at as a boy etc..  Fuck it.  2 days of your life is worth more than €120.

[Will Hunt]

Probably a bit of back ground info required. We are meeting a group of friends there and staying in a house owned by the father of one of he group. Sean, for that is the name of the keeper of the keys, and the rest of the gang are flying out on the Monday so probably wont hit the rock till Tuesday as they need to get the hire car etc.

Me and Dave are leaving on the Saturday so provided we get there before Tuesday we wont miss any climbing time, will have £40 extra for beer, a sounder conscience environmentally speaking, an adventure under our belts and will have a few good stories to tell as well as having completed one of the many "rites of passage" for climbers.

As for the bum rape I'll leave that to Dave. He's a one with the ladies so why not the men as well? Much more his scene and he's got those coy "come to bed" eyes down to a tee.

[dave smith]

I'll thank you not to insinuate that kind of thing Will, just because you're jealous that I occasionally get some! As for hitching, I dunno, I've done a fair bit in Mexico and around England, and whilst you get the occasional grumpy bastard, most people are just interested or generous. Forgive me for not being a cynical sod!

[grumpycrumpy]

Go for it Will .... Hitching on the continent is much more fun .....

[robertostallioni]

You're not going to believe this Will, but I have just spent the last half an hour on Homohitchers.co.uk/forums and there is a DHL International Driver of all things on there suggesting that he is to travel down to Andalucia to experience a weeks sportclimbing to provide stories to tell to his back door trucker mates. He is literally looking for an adventure "under his belt" and "rites of THE passage". Unbelievable.
Hope this thought provides a little light at the end of your tunnel as you grasp Daves hand, both shivering in the dark in a brown cloth sack, waiting for the 'friendly talkative chap' to return, with his mates.

You have him first, then I'll break him in.

Yeehah.

think on

Stallion.

[Houdini]

Ride 'em, Pilgrim...

[Will Hunt]

Well at least we'll make it nice and easy for them as we shall be carrying our own rope.

[robertostallioni]

Id take some "climb on". If it's gonna happen it's gonna happen. Don't lets make things harder than they need be.

[Jaspersharpe]

Me and Simon Scully once decided to hitch out to Cheedale to do Powerplant. It took us about five hours (and we'd got a lift to Fox House so only had to start hitching from there). The various lifts included a flower van driven by two mad women and a bus that we had to flag down when we'd resigned ouselves that we were walking the rest of the way from Litton. By the time we got there we were so knackered that we only managed one attempt each before fortunately bumping into Rich Heap and getting a lift back to Sheffield. It sounds quite amusing when written down. It wasn't. NEVER AGAIN!

I have no experience of hitching abroad but I do know plenty of people who have done it. The stories of being robbed / flashed at etc that they told were enough to persuade me that it wasn't the best idea.

The "rites of passage" thing. Climbers haven't generally hitched places because they wanted to. It was because they were skint and there was no such thing as Easyjet.

This is not to say that you wont have a great time and I hope you do. 

[webbo]

i have hitched down to verdon and elsewhere in france on a couple of occasions. although it makes a good story now there were times when i'd rather have been sticking pins in my eyes.
getting dropped off on the wrong side of town and having to walk miles to find somewhere to start hitching again,waiting 5 hours for a lift,taking 10 hours to get 30 miles and the joy of finally getting a lift only to climb in the cab to see the driver sat in his under wear.

[grumpycrumpy]

I always had great experiences hitching round Europe ..... Only strange thing that happened was getting a lift with two one-legged men .....

[adam p]

Many years ago I hitched from Melbourne back to Arapiles where I was living in the dirt for a few months (those were the days!) and got a lift with some mad dude in a ute. His girlfriend had dumped him and run off to Alice Springs. He was chasing after her, determined to make up the 18 hour head start she had by driving like a demon - aided I'm sure by a hefty nostril or two of speed or summat similar!

Nice enough guy, but f*cking scary driver! And still remember the mad Jack Russell I had to share my seat with....anyway mad dude certainly made up some time and I got to Araps by sundown, though I was very glad to wave him goodbye after several very worrying roundabout manouevres...

Many good memories from that trip....today, I'd deffo pay the £80 and fly to Chorro!

Whatever you do, have a great one!

[Will Hunt]

It seems that theres a university water polo team on their way to Spain on Saturday! Apparently many of them are female and many of them are what might be described as "fillys". This could turn out to be a cool trip.

[Jaspersharpe]

It seems that theres a university water polo team on their way to Spain on Saturday! Apparently many of them are female and many of them are what might be described as "fillys". This could turn out to be a cool trip.

Are you at Footlights College, Oxbridge Will?

"Rah rah rah. We're going to smash the oiks!"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0752252/



 

[Will Hunt]

The amount of Ras at Leeds is very disproportionate to latitude.

[SA Chris]

Possibly on surpassed by Durham. Oh, and St Andrew's.

Will, just checking, you are aware that El Chorro is a fair distance from Malaga? Will you have access to a car once you are there?

[dave smith]

Yeah we know, we're actually staying with a mate about an hour or so north of Malaga, and he has transport. We'll be pretty close to climbing by the time we're there, it's just that Malaga is the nearest recognisable place. Good job I speak Spanish too, I should think that by the time we get that far off the beaten track, there will be a lot fewer people speaking English!

[Will Hunt]

Ha blow Espanyol mwee bee en.

Es verdad!

[meatball]

pardona????
and you say you speak spanish

[dave smith]

Well he didn't really, i said that I speak Spanish. Which I do. And pardona isn't Spanish 

[meatball]

well done, you have passed the test
Quickest response on takin the bait i have ever known

[Will Hunt]

I know a bit of the lingo. Got me an A* GCSE. 

That should read:
"Hablo Espanol muy bien" by the way muchacos in case the sarcasm had escaped you.

[meatball]

see above,
got two with one stone 

[dave smith]

Haha, I will always take the bait about language. I love languages!

[Houdini]

Fotze.

[Drew]

Fotze.

Is that a Yorkshire version of the FTSE?

[andy_e]

'ow's Fotze wun'undred doin' lad?

Houd: Fick dich in deine Beine

[Will Hunt]

Im back and am sad to report that you were all right. Hitching is pretty dismal especially in crap weather. It seems I made a serious miscalculation in the actual size of France and the generosity of drivers there. Fortunately it cost us about the same to get a plane there when we were all hitched out. 

[robertostallioni]

No tales of derring do as expected?
No unrequited back door stretchage?
Hilarious meetings with other likeminded travelling types?
Border crossing/truckstop shenanigans?
Please relive your tales, consider it a thorough debriefing in the pumping room.

[Will Hunt]

Well I guess you had to be there for a lot of it. The kids who gave us a ride from Leeds to Sheffield were pretty funny. Doing 110 down the M1 while the driver had one eye on the Simpsons Movie he had playing on the dash was probably the closest we came to anything like peril. Didnt even get bent over!

[Jaspersharpe]

When we were waiting for the (delayed by really bad weather) ferry in the pissing rain and wind at Dover the other week I was watching some lads attempting to get a lift from the trucks heading into the port. They were getting absolutely, totally, royally fucking soaked and hadn't thought to leave their rucksacks under cover so all their stuff was getting absolutely, totally, royally fucking soaked too. They gave up after about half an hour to seek shelter in the port building which was still bloody cold and wouldn't have been a great place to try to dry out before having to face the inevitability of venturing, shivering and numb, back into the gale to be ignored some more.

I thought of you Will as I turned up the air conditioning in the car and sipped my espresso. At least you'll have learnt a valuable lesson........HITCHING IS SHIT.

[SA Chris]

Oh well Will, nothing ventured, nothing ventured.

At least you gave it a shot.

[Houdini]

12 years ago, a friend (of Fraudini's) and her boyfriend broke down somewhere on the roads of mid Germany; their car, a goner.

They had been arguing.  The atmosphere was bad.  It was getting late.

They started to hitch, a car stopped.  The girl took an immediate dislike to the man driving, he was alone in the car.  She refused to get a lift w/ this man.  Her boyfriend in an act of ultimate cuntitude he would live to rue, abandoned her.

She returned to their broken down car, locked herself in, kipped safely for the night.

The boyfriend was driven away to be viciously beaten and raped.



The couple are no longer together.

[Jaspersharpe]

That's the harshest case of Karma I've heard for a while.

[Houdini]

I don't hitch unless utterly desperate.


I've had cars stop and zoom off as I trot to the car too many times.  Why fucking bother w/ games like that?  So little fun to be milked from it.

[SA Chris]

One of the most cockish things in the world to do.

Only times I have hitched is when being out on the hills and coming down in a different place to where you went up. Stangely, more folk are prepared to pick you up if you have skis, snowboard or full rucksack with axes.