"Cloying Humidity" -- Lochgilphead, Scotland

We walked to the southern outskirts of Oban and plopped our bags on the ground in front of a petrol station. I've read several articles on hitchwiki.org that say petrol stations are excellent to hitch from, but I just find them awkward and disappointing. A car pulls into the station slowly, you subtly eyeball the driver, wondering if they've pulled over for you or pulled over to, you know, get petrol. You approach with apologetically hunched over shoulders and ask, "sorry, did you pull over for us?" 

"No, just filling up. Good luck, though," is the response. 

After several, "good luck, though"s, Boy and I moved our bags to the other side of the petrol station. It was more difficult for cars to pull over, but less awkward for us when they did. After about twenty minutes of wearily waiting in the tipping rain, a large truck pulled over.

I always feel much better when larger vehicles pull over. There's no doubt that our bags will fit. 

Our ride was a middle-aged man named Barry. He worked in fishing tourism, taking people for boat rides, helping them catch fish, and then taking them back to his B&B where they could cook the catch and feast.

What a fantastic sounding job.


About five minutes into the ride, we noticed a few cop cars parked at an intersection. The police standing in the road motioned for us to pull over.

We couldn't have been speeding. Wonder what's going on. 

"Where are ya going?" the officer asked Barry. 


"Just to Craobh Haven."

"You'll be fine, then. There's been an accident just ahead in Kilmartin, and the road is closed."

"How far is that before Lochgilphead?" I asked nervously as we sped off down the narrow highway.

"About 15 kilometers."

"Well... if worst comes to worst, I suppose we can walk..." I eyed Ellie fearfully.

Why must you always be SO BIG? 

"I'd offer you guys a place to stay with me," Barry said apologetically, "but I'm a full house."

"Oh no worries, we'll figure something out. Even if we can't get a ride and need to sleep on the side of the road somewhere, we've got a tent and a fantastic picnic all ready to go. And this is definitely pretty enough."

We were dropped off on the side of the road a couple kilometers east of Craobh Haven. So in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

To our left was a hillside dotted with sheep and a quaint, old farmhouse off in the distance.

And that's it. Just the sound of the birds chirping and of me swatting at midges. 

Five minutes of waiting.

One car drove past.

Four minutes of waiting, beginning to absentmindedly play with tall grasses.

Three cars drove past in quick succession, none slowing down in the slightest.

Five minutes of waiting, green stains under fingernails and beginning to speculate on the names of all the sheep on the hill to our left.

Four cars drove past, full of empty seats but no one willing to share them.

Three minutes of waiting.

A yellow van approached.

"Vans never stop," I grumped at Boy. "They've got loads and LOADS of space, but they never stop. I don't know why. When Tessa and I were hitching in the Balkans, we saw so many vans. And not a single one stopped for us."

The yellow van stopped. I stared at it incredulously.

"I can't take you far," the fellow inside made sure to let us know before we hopped in, "but it'll be a better place to hitch from than where you are now."

"Wonderful, thanks so much," we said as we loaded our bags. Boy climbed into the front seat, and I clamored past two refrigerators into the backseat, squeezing myself in between two car seats with two little girls sitting quietly, looking out the windows.

We were dropped on the side of the road about five minutes later, thanked our driver for the ride, shouldered our bags and began to walk.

And walk.

And walk.

And walk.

There was literally no place in sight for drivers to pull over.

But that's okay. It's so damn pretty that I could walk for ages. 

We walked and stuck up our thumbs, not expecting cars to stop, but hoping that if someone was really desperate to give two hobos a ride, they'd just pull over in the middle of the road. After about twenty minutes of walking in such fashion, we spotted a long, narrow driveway up ahead.


"It's better than nothing," I said to Boy. "Let's try up there."

Just then, a red car whizzed past. Then pulled into the driveway.

"Do you think they stopped for us?" Boy asked me.

"Nah. Red cars never stopped. In our entire five weeks of hitching in the Balkans, only one red car stopped. And the person driving the car didn't even own it. He was working for a rental company and needed to drive the car back to the facility. I bet that person lives up the road."

But that person didn't get out of the car to open the gate. That person just sat in their car and waited. Then got out of the car when we neared the driveway.

"OH MY GOODNESS," I exclaimed to Boy. "Not only did a red car stopped, but the person waited for like, five minutes for us to walk to their car. This is unbelievable."

"So your theories about vans and red cars have both been thrown under the bus in one day," Boy smirked at my being proven abysmally wrong.

I sat in the front and chatted with the Finnish girl who'd picked us up. She was a dance therapist who had moved to Lochgilphead to do an internship for her psychology degree at the local mental institution. But she was about to leave for Amsterdam to attend school there.

"The thing about Lochgilphead, is that if you weren't born there, you never feel like you belong there. I know people who have been living in Lochgilphead for thirty years, and people still don't treat them like locals."

The Finnish dance therapist dropped us off at Stuart's Fyne Wines shop and wished us good luck. WE bumbled in and said our hellos to the immensely tall Scotsman behind the counter. WE apologized for arriving so early (it was two o'clock, and we weren't expected until he closed shop at six), and blamed it on our excessively good luck hitching. So Boy gawked at Stuart's eclectic wine collection, I chatted with Stuart for a bit about how he got into Couchsurfing, and then we asked if we could leave our monstrous luggage in his office while we went for a wander in the rain.

Lochgilphead is not really a tourist destination. In fact, when we told previous hosts about our destination on the west coast of Scotland, they usually said something akin to, "Oh, that place with the large mental institution... why are you going there?"

After a rainy afternoon of picnicking on cheap Tesco food and being kicked out of cafes from waitresses who charge for water, we returned to Stuart's shop to catch a ride home to Ardrishaig with our host.

By the way, Ardrishaig is pronounced, "Are-DRIH-shag". Not, "a dry shag". Stuart had to explain this to a previous guest.

Stuart had put a beef stew in the crockpot that morning, and his cozy, upside-down sort of home smelled divine. He had stacks of books, cozy sofas and a whiskey shelf that transcended my friend Janet's dream collection.

"Right, there are two rules about the whiskey," Stuart said rather sternly. "First rule, if it's open, help yourself. Second rule, if it's not open, open it. Whiskey's made to be drunk."

Why isn't Janet here with me RIGHT NOW? 

Regardless of the delicious smells wafting from the crockpot, it was still too soon after our picnic to feel hungry, so Stuart offered to take us on a quick adventure. We drove to Dunadd, the capital of the ancient kingdom Dal Riata, where we were able to see footprints of kings preserved in the stone. We also visited one of the oldest types of Stonehenges, and saw from a distance what we speculated might very well be Beyoncé's yacht. Then we sped back to Stuart's. Soaked through and jovial and ecstatic and feeling like we were winning at couchsurfing, and, by extension, life in general.

We spent the rest of the evening playing cards (I won all the games), talking about how to go about opening a wine shop and about Stuart's time studying in Washington.

"Why did you choose to study in the US, though? Isn't education free here?" I asked. I always wonder why Europeans willingly study in America.

"To get a better education. Since education is free in Scotland and we were a member of the EU, any EU members can study free here. So if education is not free in their country, they come to study here. There were hardly any people in my class who spoke decent English. Which made it hard to learn."

We all drank whiskey, but I drank the smoky variety. Stuart says that smoky whiskey keeps the midges away, and since midges (and all blood sucking insects) prefer me over Boy, I thought that if I drunk an abundance of smoke, then we'd be on a more even playing field. Finally, Boy and I tumbled into our cozy bed in Stuart's spare room, not even knowing what time it was.

We woke at nine the next day and groggily made our way upstairs.

It's raining. It's sopping wet. It's quintessential Scotland right now. And I wish it would stop. 

"I don't know if I want to go camping in this weather..." I gazed glumly out the window.

"It's not raining," Stuart said. "It's just cloying humidity."

Freaking Scottish people. You're not wet unless you're submerged in this country. And even then, they'd probably look you over and say, "you're not wet. Just a wee damp." 


"It's your decision," Boy's voice sounded far away in my haze filled head. "You know that nature is more important to you than it is to me."

"I might regret not going... I mean, there aren't so many opportunities to go camping in Loch Lommond... but if we get there and it's pissing rain like this, I'm not going to want to leave Mrs. Peterson. And what's the point of going camping near a beautiful Loch if you spend the whole time in the tent?"

"You're welcome to stay here another night," Stuart commented after he poured us coffee. "If you're fair weather campers, that is."

I yawned, feeling too tired to even make a decision.

"How late did we stay up last night?"

"Until four."

"You're kidding me?!" I looked at him blearily. "I never stay up until four! Only once in my life have I managed -- and that's 'cos I was at a wedding in Ireland."

After a few minutes of feeling intensely conflicted, we decided to stay with Stuart another night. So he drove us into Lochgilphead, opened his Fyne Wine shop and told us we might like to try hitching south, towards Campbeltown. Or hitch to Tayinloan and then take the ferry to the Ilse of Gigha. So Boy and I crouched under his umbrella and walked towards the edge of Lochgilphead to hitch south for the day.

Our first and only ride was an ex military man who recently spent four years working as an advocate for homeless youth in England, but has "retired" to the west coast of Scotland to work as an EMT.

Sounds like he's saying that for him, working as an EMT is easier than working with homeless youth. Gosh. No wonder I only lasted nine months in that field. 

We were dropped off at Tarbert, and because the town was so enchanting, what with its castle and cathedral and harbor, we decided to abandon the rest of our hitching plans and just stay there for the rest of the day.


I wonder how many places there are like this in Scotland. Gorgeous little gems of towns that no tourists visit because they're not Edinburgh or Glasgow. This is something that makes hitching so great. You just never know where you're going to end up. 

We headed back to Lochgilphead at five o'clock, catching a ride with literally the first person who saw us after we dropped our bags.


"I picked ya up because a friend of mine, she said, she said ya can't hitch these days. She said the days of hitchin' are long over, they are. No one will give ya a lift. No, not a one," our ride told us in her thick Irish accent.

"Well, you got the record for this trip," I told her. "You're our quickest ride yet!"

"I saw ya standin' there on the side of the road like that, and I said to myself, "Eleanor... Eleanor, you've got to give them a lift. You've got to give them a lift just to prove that ya can still get a lift in this world!""

So Eleanor gave us our lift.

"Are ya goin' to Stirling, by chance?" she asked as we neared our destination.

"No, not on this trip."

"Oh, such a pity," Eleanor tisked at us. "It's a gorgeous place, just lovely. And I'm goin' there now, as a matter of fact. I'd offer to put ya up, but I haven't got any room. Besides, I wouldn't want ya to think you were bein' kidnapped by a mad Irish lady."

Boy and I cooked dinner for Stuart that night. Bacon, Parmesan, thyme risotto with duck breasts and a white wine sauce.

This is one of the things I just miss so much when I'm not in my own kitchen and have my own steady paycheck. I miss cooking for people. Using expensive ingredients and not thinking, "well, that cut my travel time short by a day..."  

We played more cards, drank more whiskey, but made sure to keep better track of the time.


The next morning, we hitched towards Glasgow.

For once, the idea that we're hitching further than we've ever hitched before doesn't frighten me. It makes me excited. I'm thrilled to hitch today. Wouldn't want to travel any other way. I'm looking forward to the journey to Glasgow more than Glasgow itself. 

Our first ride was with three English fellows from Leicester, taking a quick jaunt to Loch Lommond before the school year started again. Most of them had been to Colorado, as they'd once biked from the west coast of the US to the east coast. They'd also traveled over a decent sized chuck of Europe, just going from one biking adventure to another.


Our second ride was with a doctor who'd been all over the world, including some of the more dangerous countries in the middle east. Boy sat in the front seat with the doctor and talked about his time in Pakistan. What made it unique, what made it difficult to survive in and what could make it better.

We were dropped off in the center of Glasgow, and promptly made our way towards Saska's home, huffing and puffing through the busy streets of the bustling Scottish city.

I miss Oban already. I miss the calm and quiet of the Isle of Mull. The startling beauty that makes me want to whisper the way I would in a church. The way nature makes me slow down, appreciate, wonder... the sparkle of dew on morning grass, the sound of waves crashing below us, the thin bit of fabric separating us from the wind and rain. 

I feel so disconnected in cities. So uprooted. I wonder if this will ever change, or if I will always feel like some kind of stranger who doesn't belong.