I Picked Up Thousands of Hitchhikers

I picked up my first hitchhiker this week. Then, I picked up thousands more.

I feel like picking up a hitchhiker when driving around a foreign country is a sort of rite of passage. After 4 months of solo traveling across New Zealand, I finally picked up my first-ever hitchhiker (shhh, don’t tell my mom). I had no plan and nowhere I was really headed. I had just arrived on the South Island and knew I wanted to drive south, but didn’t know how far or what my next stop was. So, I started driving, and almost like a prophet, there he was standing on the side of the road, with an oversized backpack, and his thumb sticking out waiting for a stranger to stop. My car screeched to a halt as I pulled up to the side of the road.

“Where are you headed?” He asked me.

“No idea! I’ll just take you wherever you want to go,” I replied. 

Now if it was me in his position, I would have politely declined and waited for the next driver who stopped. Someone just driving around aimlessly with no destination? Someone so eager to pick up a stranger that they’re practically foaming at the mouth with excitement? No thanks, I’d pass. Luckily, he didn’t seem to find my enthusiasm alarming and he hopped in the passenger seat of my car.

Lucky for me he was a real nice fellow. A French guy, Ewan, who had been thumbing his way across the country for the past few months. He told me he was headed down to a campsite along the coast. Sounded good to me. I could use a safe spot to park my car and sleep for the night, and I was happy to have the company on the drive down. We shared stories of our travels thus far and the sites we’d seen, the challenges we’d faced, and all the people we met along the way. We stopped a couple of times and hopped a couple of fences to see these great pink salt ponds that we passed on the drive. I had never heard of these, but luckily this guy had done his research and he knew what to look out for.

We made it down to the campsite, found a cozy spot for his single-person tent and I parked my car next to him. We chatted a bit more and then went into our respective set-ups and called it a night. I have a small sedan–a Nissan Tiida for the car nerds who are curious–so sleeping in the passenger seat of my car is never comfortable. All night I felt like there were ants crawling on me. Anxiety from sleeping in my car out in the open, I guess. I did my best to ignore this feeling and tried to sleep it off. 

I managed to get a relatively good night’s rest and slept in until about 8:30, which is better than most car sleeps where I’m up as soon as the sun comes out. Upon opening my eyes, I looked at the dashboard, and to my horror, there were hundreds of ants crawling across it. Looking down at my center console, I saw the same thing. The car was full of them; it was a full-on invasion. My gaze was then drawn to the windows I had left slightly open for ventilation, and that’s where I saw them flooding in. 

I didn’t have any food out in the open sitting in my car, these ants just wandered around aimlessly trying to find crumbs to pick up. I tried my best to brush them out of my car, but all I had were wet wipes, and that really didn’t do the trick. Defeated, I got out of the car and got myself ready to start my day. 

“Morning, Ewan,” I started, “so, I’ve got a bit of an ant problem at the moment. I’m still more than happy to take you down to where you need to go, but I won’t be offended if you don’t want to sit in a car full of ants.” 

Again, if it was me, I’d have said see ya later. No way would I willingly get into someone else's ant-filled car, especially with a whole campsite of potential rides waiting for me. Ewan was a good sport, though, and was happy to continue the adventure. We gathered our things and got ready to hit the road. 

As Ewan’s doing his final lap around the campsite to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind I hear him say, “Well shit, here’s your problem.”

And sure enough, the answer to all my ant mysteries was right there in front of him. A little container that had ant poison written on it leaned up against a wooden post marked ant bait. My nice warm car was a refuge for these ants that would have otherwise been lured to their doom. With this riddle solved, I was on my way with the original hitchhiker I had picked up the day before plus the thousands more that had joined overnight. And those tiny hitchhikers would accompany me on my journey across the South Island until I found a vacuum.

Ant bait I parked in front of at the Marfells Beach campsite

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