What preconceived ideas we had about hitchhiking!

In my head, the nightmare scenarios come thick and fast:

How long are we going to wait? Who will we run into? Could we be robbed?

Will the person picking us up take us to a forest corner and tie us to a tree?

Then..,

I try, I hold out my thumb. With a gesture I ask them to help me, I send them an opportunity to be of service.

People look at me, smile, ignore me, wave, honk, look sorry.

Then I laugh, to amuse these drivers who see me. To provoke an emotion, as different as it is from one person to the next who passes me.

And then..,

A car stops, after barely 5 minutes. We run, throw our bags in the back

and hop in for our next destination.

Our hearts are happy that someone has answered our questions and helped us. We exchange snippets of experience during the short ride. We see the pleasure they take in helping others, sharing information about their city, their region, the history of their people.

Then we stop,

We stop, thank them, offer them a chocolate. We close the car door, look at each other and smile. Satisfied with the encounter, we give a thumbs-up and continue on our way.

AUTOSTOP, an ecological way to get around.

The driver of the vehicle that stops to transport you would have spent energy (carbon emissions) getting to his destination with or without you.

We consider that the weight added by 2 people represents 10% more than the weight in the car. (Link to source blog)

9kg of CO2 expended compared with 53kg for 1 person alone in their vehicle.

* The rest of the box has mysteriously disappeared.

** Suspicion falls on Marine.

*** No confession could be extracted at this stage of the investigation.