It had to end somewhere

Picture 1283
see all photos »

Well all trips have to end somewhere and ours ended in Ireland. A sort of halfway house, close enough to home that we could get used to understanding all those annoying conversations people have that you get to be oblivious to in Central Asia,  but different enough that reality could be kept at bay for a few more days.

We arrived from Poland on a 35 dollar including tax Ryan Air flight. So wrong yet so right. Ireland right away was everything we ever thought is would be, green grass ( even in November), fantastic accents, place names that you never pronounce right, guiness beer that is the same price as every other beer and impossibly cute towns with colourful wooden signs on mom and pop stores and pubs that looked like they stepped off a movie set. We thought we were driving through a tourist town until we realized that they all actually look like that.

We thought we would start in Galway as everywhere sounded so good that we couldn't decide. After getting over the realization that we were unable to afford anything but the cheapest hostel bed and that the days of drinking 2 pints ( at least) whenever we wanted were over,  we settled in to a rather warm and surprisingly dry week in Western Ireland. Yes, it has been confirmed, it rains more in Vancouver than in Ireland, which must make Vancouver the rainiest place in the nothern hemisphere.

Doolin was our next stop as we wanted to be in one of those "more sheep than people" places. Doolin had only one street, 3 pubs and lots of sheep but also lots of tourists, it made us glad that we were traveling in November, not July. Ireland gets as many tourists every year as there are inhabitants. We sat by the peat fire, hiked the cliffs of Moher, were woken up by the drunk dudes in our dorm room (reminding us they we are way too old to stay in hostels) listened to Irish music with a room full of American tourists and hitch hiked with many  nice people, none of whom were the American tourists we saw drive past.

The cliffs of Moher are a major tourist destination with a parking lot that charges 8 euro but we had no idea. We walked up from Doolin along a dirt road and then through cow pastures and along the precarious edge with the wind blowing the water from the streams straight back up the cliff. When you get to the top (or what we thought was the top, as we never made it to, or even saw the parking lot) you can lie down on long, tufty grass and lean over the edge and look right down to the bottom and be happy that no one has put up guard rails to keep you away from the beauty.

Also near Doolin is an area called The Burren and there is a hike the guidebook says is 35 km long and really good. What they fail to mention is that at least half of the hike is along narrow roads where huge buses come flying past.Even though there really isn't wild, remote, wilderness in Ireland once you start hiking up the hills higher  in to the burren the road gets lost beneath and all you can see is rock, grass and ocean.

We were on a mission to surf,  but the swell report was not cooperating so we kept going to really wide, white sand beaches that were either as flat as a lake or had 10 lines of messy white wash. Even the cliffs of Moher, which have some of the big tow-in waves in the world,  were flat. So instead it was all about hiking. And learning that Ireland would make an awesome surf vacation if you had the money and the swell.

Connemara is home to the twelve bens ( round rocky hills), a real, extremely wet bog and the nicest hostel I may have ever stayed in. The woman who runs it has her rules but as long you follow them she has a soft spot for hill walkers (at least everyone admits it isn't really hiking) and the living room has a lovely peat fire and no internet or tv, leaving you forced to relax through all the long, dark hours. We hiked up in to what was described as the wild part of ireland and realized that we could see the road from all points on the hike but also that as soon as the fog rolls in the bog at the bottom is the best place to go.

If I wanted to live in a small town somewhere really beautiful, the coast near Ardara (emphasis on the "Ar") is pretty much perfect, high hills, a waterfall, green grass being nibbled by sheep and then a phenomenal and empty beach hidden by sand dunes and edged by sea caves. And you are only 8 km from a town with all the pubs and fried food you could need.

Ireland had a tough postion to fill, last place at the end of an amazing trip though much stranger and grander and more intriguing places. It had to distract us from the reality of having to come home as well as provide the comforts of English speaking, western living that we were expecting.And to quote a friend Ireland " You did good son, you did good. "