In the desert, any bar is a good bar, but you don’t get to choose your drinking companions…
I step into the shade of the “La Boussole” bar and collapse gratefully onto a couch beside the dining table. Outside, in M’hamid, the temperature is living up to the Sahara’s reputation.
(Above: watering holes are few and far between in the desert.)
At the dining table are a group of three sweaty looking middle aged European men. They are squeezed into tight, leather dirt-bike pants.
I greet the trio and ask them if they have been in the desert.
“We have been out there for two days riding”, the man nearest me says, with a German accent. “We are all injured”.
He indicates his companion who is sitting hunched uncomfortably over his beer.
“He has torn a muscle in his shoulder. I have a sprained ankle. Him over there, he has a wrist fracture I think.”
I grimace sympathetically, and two of the men laugh. The man with the wrist fracture sits silent.
“Are you here riding?” asks the German.
“No. I wish. I’m a hitchhiker”, I reply.
“Really? Where did you hitchhike from?”, he asks.
“Well I started in Amsterdam two months ago…”
The German raises his eyebrows and laughs.
“That is a long way to hitchhike!”
“Well, thats what I do now. I hitchhike and write about the things I do, the people I meet. Funny stories.”
The German is curious, and I tell him about some of the experiences I have had hitching in France, Spain and Morocco. The man next to him, a Frenchman, also asks me questions, and I ask them about their bikes.
The man with the fractured wrist sits silent, and stoney faced. Suddenly he leans forward.
“You think you are the first person to do that?” he snaps in a croaking Russian accent.
“Do what?”, I ask him, a bit taken aback.
“Sure, you just wander around the world. No home, no responsibilities. You can lose your mind like that. My brother did that thirty years ago; traveling the world… writing!” – he spits out the word. “Then, one day, boom! He jumped under a train!”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“It is not a joke!” he growls.
“I’m sorry”, I splutter, “it’s the way you said it… I’m so sorry…”
There is an awkward silence.
I excuse myself and head for the bar.
(“La Boussole Auberge”, bar and resort, M’hamid.)
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