I’m currently in Bilbao, Spain. Before traveling to Bilbao, I found myself “waiting” for my work on the farm to begin in Ourense. I was spending way too much money in Madrid just to see the same city every day, so I decided to take a quick trip north, to the Basque city of Bilbao and… It was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life.
I’m approaching the two-week mark of my travels and quite frankly I don’t know if time feels slow or fast. I do however feel like I’ve done a lot already and boy, I’ve met a lot of great people. I’ve actually met very few rude people and those I have met, I’ve been able to avoid fairly quickly. Something I was never able to do when I was working a 9-5 job.
I wasn’t feeling bold enough to walk and attempt to hitchhike for the first time to Bilbao so I had to look for cheap alternatives. Blablacars was the solution. Blablacars, I guess is a type of hitchhike or more relatable to that of a carpool. On the app, you can search for drivers going to journey that you need to take and so for a cheap price, you can hitch a ride! I’m not sure where else this works other than Spain and France, but perhaps someone could share this info in the comments.
So yeah, I took a blablacars, though I left it to the very last minute to book and the app actually stopped me due to tardiness. Fortunately, I had been in contact with the driver, so I knew the pickup location and time and agreed to pay cash.
I jumped on the train to the pickup destination, providing regular updates and once I reached the street where the car was parked I finally translated the email blablacars had sent me to discover that they’d been blocking my messages as I’d suggested paying cash. Just my luck, I thought. I sat down on the curb in a strop.
In a desperate state of self-pity, I sent a final message to the driver.
“Hola?”
And to my sheer joy, the driver responded,
“Hola, where are you? we are waiting!”
“Estoy Aqui!! I’m on the hill!”
I couldn’t believe I’d had some real luck when I looked down the hill and saw the driver waving at me! Although he knew I was running a little late and also knew our messages had been blocked, he could have left at any time thinking that I had given up. What an awesome guy.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”
– J. K. Rowling
I shared the back seat with another bloke, a Spaniard called Sergio. He was cool and we both made a good attempt to improve each other’s languages. I’ve realised that my Spanish pronunciation is way off.
I made my way to my hostel in the old town, Bilbao and discovered some beautiful architecture, small streets, and busy bars and coffee/pastry shops. Yet this beauty was disdained by the piss between the cobblestones and the dried piss stains on the walls.
My hostel wasn’t great. I still have a bruise and scab on my back where I cut it getting out of bed one morning. There were squared ledges everywhere and the room was so dark and cramped.
Luckily I don’t spend too much time in hostels. I grabbed a drink in a couple of different bars, whilst eating pintxos. I met an American couple and a stray Australian and we talked about our travel experiences. Inevitably Brexit and Trump and Australian politics came up (again on my travels).
They also mentioned a hike, just outside of Bilbao…
We all went our separate ways and I made my way to the Gothic bars I’d seen earlier, as there was some good rock music playing earlier that evening. I stopped by one bar as Barcelona and Dortmund were playing in the Champions League and had more cerveza y pintxos.
I returned to my hostel after that, as I wanted to get up early. I will need to finish this post here as one of my greatest hikes is to be written next and there is far too much content to be added here. I urge you to return however, it will be a cool story, as it contains magnificent sights, perilous climbs, companionship… and dragons…
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