Three stories involving hitch-hiking in faraway places.

In Ecuador, I had my first and so far only experience hitch-hiking. The first time I stuck out my thumb I tried to get a look at the driver first. Rookie mistake. Even a car bumping down a dirt road can't notice you and react fast enough to let you in. Also, the driver tends to want to get a look at you first. With hitch-hiking, they get to check you out, but all you know about the person you get is that they are willing to pick up a hitch-hiker. In our case, they weren't just willing, they were thrilled.

We were on our way back from a bird-of-prey reserve when it started raining. We had walked there, which had taken at least half an hour, and now it was getting a little chilly and wet. Why not, we thought. After my first abortive I summoned up the courage to try this without any idea who was going to stop. The first car did. It was a mini truck with an open back, which we were told to hop in. We couldn't really see our driver and his passenger, but we could see the people who trailed us the whole way and were tremendously amused by the whole thing.

After a bumpy and entertaining ride back to town, our driver pulled over to let us out, but actually they were on their way to a famous waterfall, and would we like to join them? Sure. Off we went. It turned out our car was part of a three car caravan, including the grinners behind us. They had an American exchange student behind us. It's kind of sad, all I really remember about him is that he was a Republican. I think he was from Indiana, and an Engineering/Spanish student, but that part I'm less sure of.

The waterfall was great. Later we mentioned that to our Amazonian guide and he asked us if we could feel the energy of the waterfall. I had. It was lovely and powerful. Afterward we were asked if we had time for lunch. We did. They took us to some restaurant that had fast-food decor (plastic trays and tables, you order at the counter, there were overly-colorful pictures of the food), but also had a little of that TGIFriday's thing of "This is a special place. Orange you lucky to be here."

The family was kind, spoke good English, were good conversationalists, had political opinions, and would not let us pay a dime for lunch. They made fun of us for trying.


I had a student in Japan who I didn't really like for at least my first few months of teaching him. He seemed too corporate, too salary-man. I was also a nervous teacher when I started, and he did not seem to appreciate this. He was my student for my entire year there, and eventually I got to know him. Over time, he became more interesting to me, more human. I remember his face, and one or two things he said and the general sound of his voice- little else. One time, toward the end of my stay there, he told me about hitch-hiking to Hokkaido after he graduated. It sounded amazing. It implied a freedom of spirit that I didn't much associate with him or Japan. That night, I was walking home from Ragbag, a trek of a little over an hour that I made every week, and I casually stuck my thumb out as cars passed me. I didn't make a real effort, I wasn't quite brave enough, but it was a long walk, and... his name escapes me, but he made me want to try.

Ragbag nights became the anchor of my week in Japan. Every Thursday I would stay on the Keikyu line one extra stop and go meet my buddies there. We would order pitchers, exchange books and CDs, get drunk enough to wipe away the week up to that point and provide a partial midweek reset. At some point, Carl would say, "Anyone feeling peckish?" and we would order the special pizza. The special pizza had a collection of toppings that freak out people with normal pizza sensibilities. Corn, shrimp, and more that I can't remember. Later I found out that the special pizza was not on the menu, and we were the only people that ordered it. It started half as a joke one night, when they were out of a lot of menu items, but Ryo, our friendly bartender, told the crew he'd whip up a "special pizza."

If it was someone's last Ragbag night we would do shots. On mine, I went to the bar to order them and Ryo asked if someone was leaving. I told him I was, and asked if he'd like to join us. He did. He sat next to me and said, "I'm going to tell you the most beautiful word in the Japanese language. It is 'Sayonara.' It means 'goodbye,' 'so long,' 'farewell,' 'good luck,' 'see you later...' all of these in one word."


In Hawaii, I was in a two car caravan. We spotted a mother and daughter hitch-hiking. Our car was in front, and was the more likely of the two to pick up hitch-hikers. It was also full, so we couldn't. Our driver, however, made the either bold or presumptuous decision to stop a little ways past the hitch-hikers, effectively forcing the car behind us to pick them up. I didn't interact with the hitch-hikers, but I heard from the other car that they claimed to be aliens who liked Earth best out of all the planets, and also apparently needed a ride to the beach.