15th of May, 2017.
When I come back from our trip, I already had decided to leave Scotland. Not with joy but since I arrived, I was looking for a job for over a week and nothing. So one day I got it why: I was in this huge and noisy bar, waiting to give my CV to the manager, when a client approached and ordered something to the barman. I could not understand one single word what he said. That was it: it is quite hard to understand the Scottish accent, you know? And all the places where I was dropping my CVs, where coffees and pubs and restaurants. I would never get the order right! So I left that place without leaving the CV and decided to take a offer to be an Au pair for a family in Ireland. I would go for the trip with the girls and when I came back, I would by some camping stuff (tent, mattress, sleeping bag, camping stove, pot and a hiking boots), go to North Ireland (East coast), and hitchhiking South, all the way long to Cork, passing through a few cities, just making wild camping and cooking my own food for a couple of days.
And I quite did that. “Quite” because it happened quite different of the plan. But that is another story that I will tell you later. Now you will read about how my way out of Scotland become so crazy.
The Spanish girls had inspired me to travel in a even more cheap and sustainable way. I planned to find a boat from Cairnryan (extreme North of Scotland) to Belfast, the capital of North Ireland, and ask for a free lift. After all, in Oban there were plenty of sail boats around the Ferry Boats place. So Callum drove me there, I gave him some money to the gas, but when we arrived the port it was empty. I do not know if it was the time or because it was Sunday or if in Cairnryan the sail boats stay in another port. The problem was: the seven o’clock Ferry had already left and the last one, at eleven o’clock, it was not allowed to take any foot passengers.
If that had happened some time before I might would freak out but now I was with this totally positive vibe that I could do anything. So I send Callum home, saying that I would figure out. He even offer to drive me back and we could try again next day but I refuse. So before leave he gave me an idea: I should go to the entrance of the cars and try hitchhiking there, ask for someone to took me as a passenger in the car. It was a great idea and probably would had work if I had went over there in the right time. But when I got in there, just a few later cars passed and no one of them stopped.
I was already planning go around in the darkness and make my first camping and try again next morning when a car finally stopped: the police. I freaked out and my first thought it was – they will arrest me. That is it. Is the end of my incredible journey around the world for ten years… Laugh. I do not know but it was my first thought. By the completely opposite, they were extremely nice and were very concerned about my safety. First they argued about drive me to a safe place where I could make camping but then they said: “Come inside, we will put you in the last ferry.” What? Yeah, baby! Inside of the paranauê of the Ferry, they “ask” to the guys take me as foot passenger. And I was not the only one but the first passenger to get inside because the people from the cars had to wait for half an hour. I never been in a Ferry Boat before so I was completely fascinated. So fancy! I choose the nicest place and wait.
I know at the end I had to pay and I arrived in the middle of the night in Belfast, at the port, far away from everything. So who knows if it would not be better if I had just slept in somewhere and try the free lift next day. But again: who knows? I still think it was an interesting story, with after all, a happy end.