The other day I watched a film that I think all travellers, aspiring or weathered, should watch. "Into the Wild", directed by Sean Penn, based on the novel by John Krakauer, who in turn based his book on the real life events of Chris McCandless.

It isn't the best film in the world, but it appealed to me on a travel bug level. It contained lines like "The reason people love to travel is because they feel like they are escaping something" and "Happiness is only real when shared". They were lines which struck a real chord with me. Lines which made sense.

Immediately I thought back to last summer. I had been living in Mexico for some time. I had no problems with my Spanish at this stage. After visiting friends in La Paz, to the South of the Baja Peninsula, my friend Pete and I packed only the essentials. After taking one last trip out with our marine biologist friends to go diving over a sunken ship, they dropped us at a gas station out of the city and bade us farewell.

Pete had bought a tent, I had an old battered map, compass and a lighter. We both had our thumbs.

Hitching can be a funny old thing, you never know who you are going to meet. You could be stood at the side of the road for more than an hour with nothing. More often than not we waited little more than ten minutes. Our first ride came after only one. Our hosts: A jovial, elderly Canadian lady pepped up on energy drinks, with her 'Wild man' companion who sang ad libbed songs for us and offered almonds and dried fruit. He wore nothing but a sarong while we knew him. We also had their three small dogs to contend for space with in the back of their camper van. We sang, danced, drank and most importantly we travelled. Scott (Wild man) was a revelation. He was like McCandless, who later in the film names himself Alex Supertramp, in many ways. Carefree, owned by the world, absorbed by his love for the wild, for nature and for life. Two days later they were off, out of our lives forever.

The next ride we got came from somebody at the other end of the spectrum. We had been waiting in the sun for over an hour and were ready to give up hope. He stopped but seemed nervous from the moment we entered the car. We had the advantage still. On my own I would not have felt quite so confident. Ten minutes later we knew why. As we neared the military checkpoint (which are placed, often at random all the way up the Baja Paninsula) His perspiration was visible. We got out of the car, told the soldiers we had just gotten a lift with this man. They searched his car.
From where we stood he was portraying all signs of a guilty man during a rougher than usual interrogation.

It was then they found a lightbulb. Now I'm uninitiated with drug-taking paraphernalia, but the suspect light-bringer had its screw base severed. All that remained inside was a suspect residue and burn marks on the outside of the bulb.
In seconds there were another five soldiers with sticks tapping every inch of the car checking for drugs. Pulling back the carpets and panelling. The interrogating office was asking him 'por que estas tan nervioso?' (why are you so nervous?), to which he replied, I had a bit to drink this morning.
By some miracle, they found nothing more incriminating in his car. A lightbulb with residue is nothing in these parts. We were allowed to carry on.

It turned out that he had drunk at least 3 'ballenas' (Mexican slang for the bottle which contains a little over 1litre of beer). It was then dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, the mid-day heat beating down upon us. Four dusty shacks and numerous cacti our only companions. Luckily no sign of the vultures. We were still on the main road, but traffic was scarce.

That day, we had been heading for a beach, of which we had only heard rumour. A white sand spit with turquoise water on either side. We were not far away, the only problem was we has no idea when we would be there. We consulted the map. By this stage we actually looked forward to the prospect of camping out on the beach. Previous nights we had been successful. We had made fires, cooked food in an old pan I brought along, we even had sweet potatoes one night, wrapped in aluminium foil and cooked in the embers.
The only down side was that the tent turned out to be a child's size. I know! Rookie error! We were cramped inside with all our things, but the joy of stretching one's legs in the morning on the way to bathe in the sea was easily worth it.

We caught a lift in an HGV, tossing our bags upon the top of the driver's cargo. We rounded many sharp corners before we saw it, but when we did we both knew. Our cries of glee amused the driver, who was heading for Arizona that same day, yet we were excited to see a thin strip of sand. He made an incredible 3 point turn on a slope with adverse camber. We clambered down grabbed our bags and were off to our little paradise.

The rest of the journey was similar. We met some delightful Canadians who were off surfing and who seemed to find us hilarious. I don't think I have ever laughed for three hours straight before. Then we found an oasis in the desert at San Ignacio and pulled out the kayaks, before heading off again.

Another time we ended up in the oddest town, completely made of wood. This was an odd sight for us in Mexico compared with what we were used to. We carried on all the way to the border at Tijuana. A disgusting, smoggy whore-house of a place. Although a reputed two million populated this nether world, it felt like nobody did. Everybody seemed to be on the move or at least wanted to. The insatiable smell of opulence exuded from the other side of that blood stained wall, and people would do whatever they could to climb it.

This article is dedicated to those who have lived and died crossing that barren wasteland in the search of happiness, comfort, money and hope. The solemn white crosses adorning the wall for every fatality are a stark reminder of reality. They died, like Christopher McCandless, searching for an answer.

By Paul Stafford