The Cliffs of Insanity!
In the past two days I've: hiked a mountain, made a friend, fought gale-force winds at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, been taunted by steampunk puppeteers, visited an island immortalized in a bloody and funny play, climbed up to a 2000 year old fort, and bought a sweater.
Just another day in the crazy life of Dana's travels.
Yesterday I took a tour to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. As I said in my last post, the Cliffs of Moher were the one place everyone has told me to visit. I now agree, but I will get to that in time. While waiting to board the bus I met a lovely woman around my age, Cassie. She's a kindergarten teacher in the DC area and is also traveling alone. Automatic friend for the day! It was nice to have a companion on a day that we'd be spending almost 8 hours traveling around on and off the bus.
The tour itself was amazing. We had a great driver, Billy, who imparted lots of interesting information, yet also stopped to show us wild rabbits in a field and to rescue an injured sparrow on the side of the road. I loved that he wasn't just "fact, fact, fact," but instead gave a very personal perspective on what we were seeing.
About half of our group was dropped off at the O'Connelly family farm, which has been in the family for over 300 years. John O'Connelly has a degree in Irish Heritage and Archaeology and leads hikes through their property up onto the mountains of the Burren. It was cold, wet and windy as we climbed a craggy, rocky slope, but the view was beautiful. This is an area where farmers have found a way to work around the adverse conditions. There are also some lovely ruins that we were able to view from the mountain, and we even took the time to lie down on the ground and look up at the sky. This only works because the Burren is also the driest place in Ireland--not that they get less rain, it just drains through the ground faster because of the limestone. We ended our hike in John's grannny's old kitchen, where we ate his mum's apple tart and warmed up.
It was good to be warm, because that was the last time for a while. We reached the Cliffs of Moher--an incredibly long and high series of cliffs--and the wind was CRAZY. We could barely walk up and down the paths along the cliffs without being thrown back, forth and sideways. A pretty terrifying proposition when you're at the top of gigantic sea cliffs. When we got back on the bus our driver told us the rangers said the wind was gusting up to 70 miles per hour. That's considered gale-force. I'm kind of glad we went to the cliffs on such a crazy day, though, as I'm sure it will always make for a better story than: "it was pretty, the cliffs were big."
Whether you realize it or not, you've all seen the Cliffs of Moher. They were the cliffs where Harry and Dumbledore went looking for the horcrux in the 6th Harry Potter movie, and the were the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride, however, even the Man in Black would have found it impossible to climb in these conditions.
We warmed up after the cliffs with lunch at the pub in the tiny town of Doolin. On our way back to Galway we stopped for photos three times: once at some smaller sea cliffs, once at a lovely ruin of a castle on Galway Bay, and once to see a 2 day old baby donkey. Too cute for words, especially as it huddled against the cold.
Last night, as part of the Galway Arts Festival, the annual Macnas Parade was held. Macnas is a local, world-renowned theatre company who host a grand parade every year. Every parade has a theme and every part of the parade is tied together as a single unit. This year's theme was "This Fierce Beauty" and it was a melange of steampunk, giant puppets, punk, music, crazy dancers, flares and smoke bombs. There were stilt walkers, singers, and all the floats were hand operated--no motors at all. I was blown away by the pure theatricality of the event, and I wish I'd been able to inspect the puppets up close to see how they work.
Today I took the ferry to the largest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore. I was lucky enough to see the play The Lieutenant of Inishmore last summer, and this visit was significantly less bloody and violent than that experience. In fact, the island is lovely and peaceful, if a bit desolate. Only about 800 people live on the island, though they can get up to 2000 visitors on a busy summer day. Inishmore is also part of the Gaeltacht, Gaelic heritage areas across Ireland where Irish Gaelic (different from Scottish Gaelic) is spoken as a first language and English as a second. Only about 5-7 percent of the Irish population is fluent in Irish, but they still have every sign written in both languages, and all Irish laws must first be written in Irish and then translated to English.
I chose to tour the island by minibus (about 10 people), as the other options are hiking and biking. The island is 10 miles long and I can't ride a bike, so there really were no other options. We were taken to the base of Dun Aenghus, a 1500-2000 year old fort on the highest point on Inishmore. As I hiked up the hill I had to keep stopping because the wild beauty of the island was so breathtaking. Every point along the path gave you a different perspective and a different view of the beauty. The fort itself is right on the cliff edge, 300 feet above the sea, with no fence or wall along the edge and a sharp wind. We'll be clear that I did not get close enough to look down. Ever.
After lunch the minibus driver took us around to a few more sights, then let us out in the main (and very tiny) town with more than 2 hours till our return ferry. The knitwear of the Aran Islands is apparently very famous, and so I did some sweater shopping in the big sweater shop. I was sad to realize that I just can't pull of the big, heavy-knit sweaters, but I did find something that was right for me. I then wandered down and just sat on the beach for a while. The sun even tried to peek out for a bit, but when it gave up I did too and went for a snack before returning to the ferry.
As for the ferry ride itself, both ways, let's just say that I'm glad that I don't get seasick.
Love to all.