31st of August, 2022.
Hitchhiking in Sweden.
I decide to have some bananas on my crackers, with my grana padano, for breakfast. It is great!
When I am leaving my camping spot, an elderly lady is walking with her dog. She is so friendly and curious about me that I think if I had come to their homes last night, looking for shelter or food, they most likely would have treated me really well.
I get really undecided about keep walking or standing here by the road. There is little space for the cars to park in here, only the parking entrance of a house. And because there are many trucks passing by, people might feel a bit scared of stopping. Because of that and because it is a bit chilly, I decide to walk.
When I stop to rest and go to pee, I see some blueberries, so I start to pick them up. But always running to the road again, whenever I hear a car coming.
After a while, a young man passes by but turn around and comes back. Tom is going home because the machine he works / drives broke down, so there’s nothing he can do on the construction site. He lives in Vilhelmina, a town about 30 Km from here.
Tom it is very unsatisfied with Sweden. He tells me about many problems with the country, like for example, how the politicians have this absurd salary and many benefits for which they don’t need to pay, while the population suffers with small salaries and lack of infrastructure.
Vilhelmina is a cute small town and when we arrive, Tom offers me a pizza for lunch. Yummy! After that, I walk towards outside of the town and start to hitchhike.
I have to change my spot many times because I start to think that it has something to do with that. What? The fact that in almost 4 hours waiting, nobody is stopping. Well, I do have to hide from the rain a few times, this dark rain cloud going around Vilhelmina, just playing with me and wetting the floor after every time it gets dry. One of my hiding places is a hair saloon, and when I am planning to ask to use their toilet, I accidentally open the owners house door, because I thought it was the saloon’s door. Laugh. So, there is this young man sitting in his couch, and I just open the door of his house and oops! But he is actually very kind and say, emphatically, that there is no problem.
In the late afternoon, a lady parks by the gas station I am standing in front, and says many things at the same time: that people are not going to Mora from here (which is written on my sign, and it is indeed really far South, but I just cannot keep writing many signs); that they don’t understand they can drive me a bit further; and that she can drop me off in the next down, Dorotea, which is about 50 Km from here. Yay!
Ilze is a very friendly woman from Latvia, but who is living in Sweden for many years now. She has a house in Dorotea and one in the woods, which she loves the most. She prefers to be there, where there is silence, peace and nature. But she has to work in Dorotea, so she stays around more than she actually wanted.
When we are passing by her house in Dorotea, she invites me for a coffee, which I accept, and once in there she also gives me some delicious biscuit-salami. She is very sweet and tells me she is very happy to have met me and that I am her guest.
After only a few minutes waiting in the spot Ilze drop me off, a campervan, with a very friendly young man, stops. Yohanes is from Germany, but he loves Swedish folk music, plus its nature, so he comes here often. He is a musician, who plays the most traditional Swedish folk instrument, the Nyckelharpa, and also ukulele, piano and sax, but he is also studying Chemistry and Archeological History. I love the combination!
Yohanes is going all the way to Ostersund. That is 170 Km from here and I cannot believe that after this fail afternoon hitchhiking, I will actually manage to go all that way! Uhul! And he is such a cool guy! It is so fun to talk to him. And we talk a lot, about many different things. He was hiking up in the mountains with his friends, and it was quite hard because it has been raining many days. His campervan has a roof tent but he is sleeping in the back of the van, where are also his and some friend’s instruments.
By the time we arrive in Ostersund, Yohanes tells me that if I want, I can sleep in the roof tent, because he will sleep in the van anyway, and I could save the trouble of having my tent somewhere; next morning he can drive me to the road where I can hitchhike. I think it is perfect!
We find a nice parking spot by the forest and have some dinner. I chop the remains of my cabbage and half onion into two of my instant soups (the one which the lady gave to me in Kvikkjokk is actually from 2019, but I have it anyway), and have it with some crackers Yohanes offers me, and he has some instant noodles. We both have some peas too, and a nice cup of tea after. And he plays the Nyckelharpa! Oh! It is so beautiful! It sounds amazing, it looks cool and I love it! It is such an enjoyable evening! Check out the short video I made of Yohanes playing the Nyckelharpa in the end of this post. For mor, check out the Instagram of his band, Folk my life: https://www.instagram.com/folk_my_life_music/
The roof tent is so practical, easy to use and huge! There is plenty of space. And it is less cold than I imagined. I sleep really well. But in the morning Yohanes says that he felt a bit cold. We wake up around 8 o’clock and he drives me straight away to the road. I think it is a bit far, about 17 minutes driving, but he says it is totally fine because he has plenty of time. He is actually very happy with that, with having some free time, on the contrary of the rushing of university.
Now, finally, I can see a sign which writes “Mora”. Yay! And it is only a bit over 300 Km! I am excited to get there today! Yohanes and I take a photograph before I carry on with my journey towards South.
10 Years Around the World 