Danger, Danger Will Robinson Danger!Veronica didn't want to go out to visit the Cliffs, so I just went on my own. I took Paddywagon tours again, and I'm glad that I did. Another tour company claimed to have "good-looking tour guides with charming accents," but we passed their tour bus, and the guide looked like a grizzled, old Santa Claus who looked like he had been brushing his reindeer's fur with his beard. I liked the tour guide that we had from Paddywagon (as you could tell from the jokes page).
The bus was a forty passenger, and as I made my way down the rows, I felt like the last kid to enter the school bus. People had their bags on seats so that no one would sit next to them, or they were talking amongst themselves and wouldn't even look up. I spotted an empty seat and asked if the girl by the window would mind if I sat there. Smiling, she said that she wouldn't mind at all. And the rest is history...we talked the whole way over to western Ireland.
Bree is from New Zealand, Christchurch specifically. Luckily, no one from her family or friends was injured in the recent earthquake but she said that it seems surreal. Christchurch is apparently completely destroyed. Buildings are just totally gone. They are still taking people out of the rubble. She's a little nervous to go back home because she doesn't know what she will find.
She's trying to enjoy Ireland while she's here though. She's been here since September working as an au pair. Just like me, she is having a hard time finding people who will go on tours with her so hopefully we'll be able to go on another one together before we both leave in April. I loved hanging out with her for the day---it made the trip so much better!
We drove due west from Dublin until we reached Galway Bay and the sea after about 2-3 hours. The landscape is entirely different from any other part of Ireland. In the 1600s, when Oliver Cromwell was trying to subdue Ireland and get more land for English settlers, he is quoted as saying to send the native Irish either "to Hell or to Connaught." The area known as the Burren is also known as Connaught and it is pretty easy how you can mistake the area for the underworld.
It has a striking harsh beauty. Its barren landscape is stunning...but would also be lethal since no crops can grow on its craggy rock surface. The hills are composed of jagged limestone. The shade of grey matches the bleak sky, separated only by the horizon line. Solitary trees, with ancient knarly branches, reach up out of the ground like hands trying to escape the dead earth. The rocky surface is filled with deep cracks filled with green moss and vine, as though the plants have to hide in order to survive. I felt like a mountain goat --- you have to leap over the stones so you don't twist your ankle by stepping in a crack.
The fields have stone walls which criss-cross across the entire landscape like stitches. These walls are about waist-high and they look like they are going to fall at any second. The stones have gaps at random places and they are placed at awkward angles--- sideways, diagonally, horizontally---yet somehow they stay in place. Most of them were erected during the Potatoe Famine as a public works program to put money into the economy....if the walls have stood for 100 years, then I guess they aren't as fragile as they look.
We also passed a fairy mound. These are actually ancient neolithic burial sites that have just been taken over by nature as time has worn on. But in the past, people didn't realize what they were and so believed that they were put there by fairies. If you disturb them, then you are thought to be cursed. Even though people now scientifically know that fairies don't exist, people still feel nervous around the mounds.
For example, when the M8 speedway was being built, the engineers found out that there was a fairy mound on the route which the road would need to destroy. "It needs to be steamrolled....but I'm not going to do it," one engineer would say. "I agree....but I'm not going to do it either," another engineer would say. The job was passed around like a hot potatoe until it was finally decided that the government would rather spend a million euros to re-route the motorway to circumvent the fairy mound.
Our first stop on the tour was a portal tomb with slabs set up similiary to Stonehenge. Check out the pictures on my other Burren post.
After that, we followed Galway Bay to reach the Cliffs of Moher. The land rises out of the ocean like a massive wall standing alone against the pounding white foamy water. They jut out and recede as though mirroring the waves. The blue water below is a refreshing change from the silty (and sometimes polluted) rivers in the country.
The cliff's surface is textured with various shades of brown and grey. It is composed of thin layers as though thousands of rocks were smashed with a rolling pin and then pasted together into a croissant-like crust. It seems like a gigantic flaky pastry which has a huge bite taken out. An estimated 30,000 birds rest in homes gouged into the walls and they circle around the open skies.
There is a designated area to walk near the edge, but then the walls stop and there is a fence to block the area. Basically, no one listens to the blockade and they continue further. The paths are well-worn and people clearly pass all the time. It wasn't windy or rainy, so Bree and I figured that it was safe. Don't worry---we were well away from the edges (unlike other people who seemed to be flirting with death). The mountainous hiking in the mud, grass, and rock terrain was a nice break from city walking. The sea air felt crisp and was so nice compared to the smoky streets of Dublin.
Ireland is trying to get the Cliffs of Moher in the running to become one of the new seven wonders of the world. It has my vote.
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