Throw back: Adventure in Cornwall: Hitchhiking Falmouth

July 05, 2019

Throw back: Adventure in Cornwall: Hitchhiking Falmouth - Lands end /Sennen 2011

This was years ago. 2011. My Latvian friend Baiba who I met on our campus as an exchange student from Riga, was upset that she is leaving this beautiful part of England without really having any tourist sightseeing. So, she dragged me out to go hitchhiking as that was her image of me: adventurer and camper (well..

) She trusted me that I will introduce her to this lifestyle.

Now looking through these photos I burst into cry-laughter. Remembering how grumpy I was at the start yet laughing so hard about her chosen outfit: white pants!!! Who goes camping in white pants, was my tease at her. We laughed together about us - one the posh other the Supertramp. But anyway she looks good for the photos at least, not like me in my comfy adventurer cloths.

She loved Sennen Cove. I was happy to see her happy. in 2009 I lived in Sennen for a month and had been there as a traveller before that I could show places and tell stories. Sennen in next to the famous landmark Lands end which is super popular to visit. We walked by the house I used to live, then found a nice hideout on the cliffs to drink our super huge bottle of cider (British Cider, mm!) and just walked around taking silly photos.

When it was time for dinner, it already had got a bit colder, and we seek a wind-free spot. We found some kind of weird not really but looked like garbage or more like a sea man's understood mess (like creatives have their own mess in their workspaces). Cooked our sausages and ate them with tomatoes. Very classy dinner. Baiba kept laughing at my chosen spot, she loved how crazy it looked. Yup, some yellow rubber boots laying around, a lot of fishing net and yeah... Weird things I don't know the name of.

The next super plan fail was - Baiba had no sleeping gear, she somehow imagined it will be alright sleeping just in a warm cloth. Unlucky to us we didn't check the weather. It was a super hot summer day on leaving, but the night turned into the freezing cold (life by the ocean) and we woke up in a puddle.

Unexpectedly it was the worst day. We were completely soaked by 7am. We walked by the road towards the biggest city from Sennen to Penzance. I didn't dare to hitchhike because we were soaking wet rats and I said that I feel nobody is going to pick up us looking like this. To a surprise, an elderly cornish couple actually stopped and took us in. Drove to Pencanze, we found the only open pub... and ordered a tea with milk! English life!

Then the best - none of us had enough money to buy the train ticket back to our student town. Neither we had a smartphone with facebook on. Somehow I contacted (now I have no idea how?) with my friend and coursemate Harriet who I knew has a car. Shockingly, she came to pick up us at enjoyed laughing about our dum trip.

We offered to make her the best omelette breakfast ever. Harriet saved our cold freezing asses and saved the day! That was the thing in England it was super positive to have a laugh at yourself.

Looking back at these photos I laugh because I remember the dynamic we both had. I and Baiba shared a very strange friendship, we were so different personalities (as you might see), but somehow we really loved spending time together. After this trip, she went back to Latvia, I joined later and in Latvia, we spent an awesome summer at her beach city going on other unplanned and not well thought through adventures

Cornwall: https://www.visitcornwall.com/

Falmouth University: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/