tent!
I woke up in the bothy, ate my oatmeal, and waited for the Spanish boys to get up. For breakfast they made a big pot of tea and dumped museli into it (which, come to think of it, is a good idea: then you only have to heat one batch of water). During their stay in the mountains they had been watching a tent that was pitched about a kilometer from the bothy, and hadn’t seen any activity around it for the whole five days. They wanted to go see if the tent was salvageable. So we went to scope it out. It turned out that the tent was full of stuff—moldy bread and cheese, three couch cushions and two sleeping bags, a tape deck and three Bob Dylan tapes, three pairs of dirty 41×31 jeans—but had been abandoned since at least early may, as the milk had expired on May 6th. The three of us hauled everything back to the bothy (this guy must have spent some time setting up: it took all three of us with two trash bags each).
So that was where I got my tent. The boys already had one, and I needed one, so I took the salvaged one. Everything else we left in the bothy.
I headed off around 1pm, going around the Bad Step, next to Loch Courisk, over a shoulder of the Black Cullins, and then back along the river valley. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my entire life. Shortly after this photo, I came to the Bad Step, which is a nearly vertical scramble above the water. As I searched out footholds and balanced myself with my pack, a tour boat came chugging underneath. I felt like a spectacle, clinging to the rock face, and worried that the click of their cameras would throw me off balance.
Skye and Cullins
It was difficult for me to leave Glasgow. I wanted to, but got tangled up in it. As a traveller, my assumption about cities is that they have what I need: food, hostels, things to do, people to meet. So not true. Twenty minutes out of Glasgow, I was kicking myself for staying there so long, and wondering why I should go all the way to the Isle of Skye when it was so beautiful everywhere (except Glasgow, which is only beautiful in a city way).
The hostel in Portree is yellow on the outside and cheerily painted inside as well. It’s airy and spacious and a relief after the Globetrotters. But I just slept there. The next morning I left two bags at the other hostel in town (next door) and went out hiking. The forecast predicted rain, but with the western isles, the forecast is valid for about ten minutes. And why waste a day waiting for weather?
‘Hiking’ wasn’t the whole story: I was going out overnight, into the Cullins. With no tent, only a bivvy bag… an orange plastic bag to sleep inside. But I had plenty of digestives, a packet of curry flavored ramen noodles, rain gear to waterproof an elephant, and a bed in a hostel for Friday night. Not to mention two backup plans.
‘Cullin’ is pronounced ‘Coolin’ and means ‘keel-shaped.’ My guidebook is excellent, supplying me with facts like these alongside hostel phone numbers and postbus times. The Black Cullins are in fact keel-shaped: sharp and jutting black into the sky. They always have clouds snarled on their tops, keeping their valleys in shadow. You can’t use a compass accurately in the Black Cullins, because they are made of gabbro (I think), which is magnetic. The Red Cullins are blunt but steep sided, and made of red granite. They tend to be the sunny spot alongside the Black Cullins’ shade.
I walked out of the town of Sligachan along the river valley between the Black and Red Cullins. The mountains were dark and imposing, and I was walking between them in the bog with just one bird calling out. So when the clouds settled down lower on the saddle I had planned to go over, and then when the rain started, I put on my rain gear and changed my plans.
Instead of going over the mountain, I continued through the valley and went to a bothy marked on my map. I had no idea what to expect of a free mountain hut: a sleeping platform with three walls and a roof? A ruin with grass sprouting in its thatch? A locked cottage? Anyway I got there at three in the afternoon, so there was still time for my second backup plan. The bothy turned out to be a little whitewashed cottage with two chimneys, sitting right on the beach and surrounded by a feild of closely cropped grass (the sheep had been busy). There is a bright green door, a fireplace trimmed in bright blue (and another fireplace in the other room), and the floor was freshly swept. Each of the four bedrooms has a sleeping platform and a window. The rain stopped, but I didn’t want to leave such a cozy place to sleep. I couln’t have asked for more from a hostel.
After eating my curry ramen with peanut butter and reading for five hours, I went to bed. After going to bed, the other two guests came back. So I got up again to talk and sit in front of their fire. They were Spanish university students who had been hiking out of the bothy for a few days, after their plan to hike the Great Glen Way (a 70+ mile long distance path in Scotland) was rained out. As we talked, the rain that had cleared off in the late afternoon came back in force. We just edged closer to the driftwood fire and were glad for the roof over our heads. Especially me with my orange plastic bivvy bag.
actually written between July 7 and 13th, in Denmark.
Digestives
Digestives might need to be explained. I’m sure the only reason we don’t have them in America is the name, because they are one of the most delicious cookies ever. They are called ‘digestives’ I think because they have bran in them. The kind I get are made by Cadbury, and dipped in chocolate… something like 23% chocolate by weight. The taste is a tiny bit like grahm crackers, but I’ve always disliked grahm crackers so they can’t be too similar. They are thicker and not softer but definitely less crackery, and also definitely have no cinamon sugar on them. Possibly digestives are so good because I eat them in the kitchen at the farm in Sligo, in George’s Square at “half eleven,” on the bus through Scottish hills, and first thing when I wake up in my tent on top of the Trotternish ridge, before and then again after I see the still mist and midges. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
(actually written on July 7, 3:55 pm Danish time)
Glasgow
Monday June 26: The bus from Belfast to Glasgow was full, so the bus ticket agent directed me to the train ticket agent: “rail and sail” she called it. Train ticket in hand, I boarded a double decker bus to the Stena ferry terminal, which is exactly like an airport except it only has one gate. The carpeted accordian-fold arm-tunnel-thing lead right into the carpeted ferry, but it was the same carpet and there were no windows, so it wasn’t immediately clear where the ferry started and the arm-thing ended. No matter though: the ferry was exactly like the terminal, but with more things to buy. While the terminal only had two snack vending machines, a snack bar, and two stuffed animal vending machines, the ferry itself had three restaurants, two bars, an arcade, a duty-free style store, and an executive lounge (”Stena Plus: upgrade for only 12 pounds per person!”). The middle of the boat was a two level eating area filled with the sounds of people chewing and laughing and snapping at eachother; the front had a fancy restaurant and a fancy bar, the back had the executive lounge, and between the middle and the back there were a few rows of airline type seats looking out big windows… and facing two big screen tvs playing a lound teenybopper movie.
Basically the only place to go outside was on the right side of the stern, where the tunnel-arm-thing had attatched. I sat out there for twenty minutes and watched the water churn up a path like a three lane highway stretching out greenish white for a two miles behind us. And then I went inside and got a chocolate muffin whose top had been dipped in chocolate.
The ferry got in a half hour late, but the train had waited for us and I got to Glasgow as planned. Glasgow is full of grand buildings and wide treeless streets. The Globetrotters Hostel on Berkeley Street in Glasgow is the sketchiest hostel in the entire world. But I won’t dwell on the smell of the bathrooms (piss), the state of the kitchen (dingy, crusted), the daily management drama described by another guest (drinking together, then firings, then reconciliation and more alcohol), or even that other guest himself. Anyway, don’t go there. If I only told you that I stayed in a room called “Millenium Falcon” and in a bed called “Chewbacca” (my eighth-grade friends would think that entirely appropriate), you might have been tempted, right?
On Tuesday I went to The Lighthouse, a museam of architecture and design. In my book I wrote, “It seems like design museams may be about great designers, but the exhibits are designed by hacks.” I meant that the museam was crummy, and I was peeved that I stayed in the city to do something so crummy. I also sketched a bunch of chairs in my book, so the museam wasn’t a total wash.
In Galway a girl had recommended I go to a bar called ‘Girls on Top’ in Glasgow. Since it wasn’t in the short listing of gay bars in the free paper at the hostel, I picked one at random. There were two guys there, plus a man and a woman playing cards and tending bar. I gulped my cider and left, thinking I might try another bar as they are all within three blocks of eachother. Two blocks from the bar, though, I came across an open grocery store, and went in and bought a kilogram of ‘porridge oats,’ two carrots, and a package of digestives. I only realized after I walked out that I couldn’t go to a bar with a bag of groceries. So I went to George’s Square and sat on the base of a statue and ate digestives and watched the sky darken and the lights on the city hall come on.
(actually written on July 7, 3:46 pm Danish time)
Belfast
I decided I liked Belfast within twenty minutes of arriving. I was relieved to move on from Galway, I was finding my way through town easily, and heck, I was ready to stop being so harsh on places.
I mentioned missing busses briefly. On Monday I misread the bus schedule in the morning and had to take a 3:00 bus out of Sligo. I got off in Tubercurry to get the rest of my stuff (shtuff), and hung around drinking tea until after the last bus to Galway swung through town. I was angry and frustrated and annoyed and any other adjective you can think of, and I stood in Tubercurry at the bus stop for a good half hour, and then took off back towards the farm, swearing and eventually singing. Four (plus) miles is a ten minute drive exactly, but an hour and twenty minute walk, and every car I stuck my thumb out put on their blinker and turned into the next driveway. Eventually I got a ride with a German woman who is a travelling vet. I guess I had no real reason to get upset, but sometimes I just want things to go like clockwork. Anyway it was a good starting point that evening when Brian and I opened some German beer he gets “every fortnight from a lorry driver,” and it was really comfortable yakking away with just him and I. And I got up and made the bus to Galway.
I no longer have any shame about needing a map. The first thing I do when I get off a bus is go to the ticket window and ask for a map of the town. Sure, I still get lost as soon as I fold the map into my pocket, but heck if I’m going to ask directions. (I suppose that’s my next lesson.) So I got a map, and met my friend for coffee, and went to his apartment to drop my bag. We had a great evening (music, pub, meeting people), and that was Galway. I’m seriously considering going back at the end of my trip, when there will be two arts festivals going on in town.
On Thursday I went to the Aran Islands. I missed the first bus, but got the second one an hour and a half later. You get on a bus, which delivers you to a ferry, which goes to an island, in my case Inish Mor, and then you get off and walk past the sweater shops and the pub named “The American Bar” or something. The largest space on Inish Mor that is not divided by stone walls is the Gaelic football field (not entirely true: the sand dunes don’t have rock walls through them). Some of the pastures are just flat rock. Anyways, it was beautiful, the walking was great, I got a hug and a kiss and a few words of Irish from a farmer and I stole a spoon from the hostel to eat my can of beans on the rocks by the ocean. And on Friday I took the Ferry back to Galway.
Friday night was unexciting. I was worn out, which seems to be what happens when I don’t go out. And Saturday I got the bus up to Belfast. Bizzarely it ran half an hour late the whole way, connections and everything.
Northern Ireland is more like America: wider roads, larger buildings, less of an accent. I met some SF hippie-punk or at least fringe types biking their way around Ireland, and had a good night talking at the pub. Today the weather was beautiful and the Botanic Gardens had comfortable grass and warm sun, though I couldn’t rent a bike like I intended to. Tomorrow I’m taking the bus/ferry to Glasgow. And that’s that.
ferried around
I went to the Inish Mor in the Aran Islands yesterday, stayed overnight, and am back in Galway tonight. I’ll sit down and gather my thoughts to write at some point, but… whew. Missed another bus today (actually it was a ferry).
Galway
I made it to Galway and am staying with a friend. I’m thinking about getting a tent, and about sending a bunch of clothes and toiletries home. This internet café sucks, I can’t log in to my email plus the computers don’t have Firefox. So I’m off to find some lunch.
on foot
I realized after two hours of walking that my plan was f*ing crazy. But two hours is an investment, and I had a whole day in front of me… why not do something crazy? Part of why I didn’t look very hard for a travel partner is because I wanted to be able to do things my own way.
Brian dropped me off three miles outside of Coolaney just after 11 am. I was about 19 miles (plus or minus 3) outside of Sligo Town. It took me an hour and a half to get in to Coolaney, which is when I started to feel like maybe I was in over my head. As I walked I was calculating and recalculating… “if it’s 16 more miles, at three miles per hour… if it’s 18 more miles at 2 miles an hour…” I would reach over my head into my pack and pull out the map, counting the squares my route crossed and converting to miles.
Anyway, I did it. I did the whole thing. I ate my peanutbutter and jelly sandwich (on the last two pieces of white bread I hope to eat for a while), sang some songs (over and over and over, while the cows turned their heads and the sheep ran away), peed in the bushes, found alternative routes, and arrived at my hostel around 7:20 pm.
I thought I would crash right away at the hostel, but Victoria sat down at my table while I was eating my instant noodles, and we started talking. Which turned into going out for a pint with two other hostellers, and hanging out most of the way through the night.
So that was the furthest I’ve ever walked in my life. It was crazy-energizing. But now I’m ready to go back to the hostel and sleep.
photos
I posted a ton of photos from the past two weeks today. A bunch of them have long descriptions.
moving on
Tomorrow morning I’m leaving the farm, walking up Sligo Way (a marked walking route) towards Sligo town. It’s about 25 miles from here, but Brian will drive me six or eight miles on my way. Today I mailed my first postcards, bought some maps, ‘methylated spirits’ (fuel alcohol for my stove), and food.
Things I packed…
but have not yet used:
- shampoo
I’m no more dirty than I should be, on a farm. It just turns out that my bar soap is enough for everything… too much, even. My hair has been funny shaped since I washed it thoroughly the other day.
- a Fodor’s guidebook to Dublin
Guidebooks are depressing. They can turn any city into a smudgy mess of two-star restaurants, tourist bars, and unimpressive museams.
- a fourth pair of socks
I did a wash.
- a permanent marker
A throwback to the days when I always had a V5 Pilot pen and a Sharpie in my pocket. I mean, what if. What if I needed to write big, or something?
- a hat and mittens
I was caught up in warm clothing this spring. I wore mittens around through mud season in case of a snowball fight. In the end I just needed something to keep my stove from rattling in my pot. I half expect use them when hiking.
- rain boots
It rained yesterday, for the first time since I got to Ireland. And it rained again today. But it needs to rain a heck of a lot more for me to put on my rain jacket, let alone my “wellies.” (Sorry, southern Maine, that you’re getting the bad end of this stick).
more animal talk
The chicks in the corner of the front room (where I sleep) hatched yesterday. There are 13 of them I think. Chicks peep inside their eggs before they hatch, so I kept peeking in the incubator the day before. Learned: sex-linked chickens are not a specific breed; there are a few breeds you can cross to get chicks whose color is linked to their sex. One cross is I think a Rhode Island Red rooster with a White Leghorn hen, which yields brown cockerels and white pullets. Or something similar; Elona wasn’t sure of the cross, so I can’t be either.
Every night here we gather around the kitchen table to drink, smoke, and chat. I’m the only one who doesn’t smoke, but they all sit with their filters and their rolling papers; Elona rolls a box using tubes and her machine every night, Brian carries his machine around all day and rolls with king-size papers as he goes. Clément and Elsa hand-roll. All the fiddly bits and pieces are pretty fascinating, but I don’t mind being less winded than others when we’re working (I have no interest in starting smoking). We drink cider from 2 liter bottles with handles that say “easy carry” on them, and homebrewed beer. The beer in glass bottles started exploding the day after I arrived, but has since been moved to the barn where it is only a danger to the chickens. There are plastic bottles as well, which are less dangerous. The conversation so far tonight has been about livestock (a common topic of conversation here). I’m going back there now.
animal violence
I have mixed feelings about geese. They’ve got that great dinosaur head and snake neck, the soft underbelly (exposed when my dad cradles her upside down, wings pinned and orange beak held closed in his fist). They are both silly, like when they bathe and try to slither down under a puddle of water, not quite flipping it onto their backs but occasionally getting drops through their wing feathers, and nearly magestic, like when our goose at home flaps her way across the yard every spring and fall when the Canadian geese fly overhead.
But then there’s the hissing and biting, the I’m-bigger-than-you wing flapping, the fighting squat. And trying to come into the house, which they do here in the afternoons when the bulldogs are snoozing on the front steps. The geese approach; the dogs bark; the gander hisses, still approaching: the gander snakes in his neck and bites Edward (not quick to dodge) on the butt, while Bonnie (more cautious) barks like a hound (not what you expect from her thick bulldog chest) from under the kitchen table. The gander is the only one who makes trouble; it seems like the geese and goslings are happy to gaggle around in the background and be mellow if someone else is doing the hissing. Yesterday I poked at the gander with the broom, and he set himself low with his wings clenched to the sides and his neck out straight and low, and bit that broom for all he was worth. I couldn’t sweep him backwards, but at least he stopped hissing with his beak closed on the bristles.
It turns out that the best strategy is to shut the door, and that he holds a grudge, and that if you pretend he’s not there and walk right by he’ll just about return the favor. Which maybe I should learn now, since I didn’t learn it when I was younger and getting chased by the goose at home.
other animal tidbits: there is a peacock here, and the pea hen died a month ago. Now he puts his tail up and rattles his feathers at the chickens; they look mildly confused and then wander off. I’ve been instructed to “kick Edward” who is a male bulldog; the only hairless part of him is sunburned, because he sleeps in the sun with his legs out back like a frog. He’s sweet enough until he starts licking your ankles; right after that he’ll start humping your leg, and keep doing it until you kick him. And: four pigs were sold today, picked up by their back legs and carried screaming to the trailer.
p.s. to Dublin: Thursday night was wicked fun. Thought I’d mention.
from the sunny side of the Ox Mountains
When I checked into my hostel back on Tuesday, they had no rooms free for the weekend. On Wednesday I checked bootsnall.com and nowhere in Dublin had a room free for Friday night. So I left on the train on Friday morning (wake, eat hostel toast, pack the pack, and Thomas, who among many other charming qualities has a good sense of direction, walked me to the train). Dublin was just getting fun, too. But I arrived in Sligo, was picked up by Elona (one of my hosts) and her two (adorable, friendly) children.
The first thing I saw in the yard was a gaggle of dirty geese: goslings, women-geese, and gander. That afternoon I learned what rabbits like to eat: dandelion greens, and a fuzzy plant called “rabbit’s meat.” And what nettles look like—more importantly, what they feel like, which is sting-y. I petted pigs on the nose, and swatted at the hissing gander with a grain scoop. The only thing that gander is afraid of is the peacock with his turquoise neck and six foot tail. In fact, all the animals defer to the peacock.
The boiler that heats the house in the winter and hot water all year round, is fueld by anything solid, but mostly turf, which they cut by hand here. This morning we went up on the bog to spread some cut logs of it out. It’s like bricks of cow shit, but the views are beautiful, and I could do anything in this weather. Did I mention the weather is still the most beautiful I have ever enjoyed anywhere? It makes me feel invincible.
two stories and purple
Portland has its gay bars, but they’re not like city bars. And there’s no great variety: there’s one for men, another for men in buttoned-up shirts, and a third for thumpa-thumpa men (which on Thursdays turns into a bar for lesbians who don’t mind listening to the same five-song crappy pop-rap soundtrack for years at a time). In Vancouver, Karianne and I went to a nice place with excellent music (a DJ who mixed! quel suprise!) and good decor (high ceilings, brick walls, ambigous bathrooms). So that was one big-city bar.
I met an awesome French guy named Thomas in my hostel; he is articulate (despite being self-deprecating about his english), wicked funny, and gorgeous. And gay. So we went to The George together last night. The George was one of the few things on my to-do list in Dublin (I came here without hostel reservations, without a laundry list of museams and brewery tours, only this). It was described to me as “two stories and purple: hard to miss.” The description just about does it justice. Inside, there is a purple stage and orange lights over the bar. There is a second floor with a balcony. I judged the music “not so bad” though Thomas called it “international pop… eh.” There are a million boys, and about ten girls (straight). Anyways, last night: Guiness, drag show, Dublin, excellent.
Bré
Yesterday I went south to Bray, and walked along the cliffs to Greystones. I met and walked with a woman from Colorado, took a picture or two (haven’t taken any of Dublin yet; it’s so busy and full, which parts to photograph?), and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Also, I got to take the DART… I <heart> public transportation.
p.s. there are a few new photos up on my flickr page.
