On Ireland: Part 3

We stayed up pretty late and talked, but felt super rested the next day. We had breakfast, then joined the two ladies from yesterday and a few others on this van archaeology tour of the Dingle peninsula, lead by a former cop named Michael. We saw a lot of neat stuff. There were Ogham Stones, which are about 3,000 years old and have inscriptions of old family names. We saw the Blasket Islands, which I was hoping to visit but the seas were too rough to make the journey. We stopped at the Gallus Oratory, which is one of the oldest churches. It looks like an inverted boat and it is built without the use of any mortar.


Breakfast


Ogham Stones


Yup, that's a palm tree.


Slea Head. I'd like to come here on a stormy day for some end-of-the-world shots


Our guide


This church has withstood 1500 years of Irish weather without any mortar. Very impressive.

Along the way, we drove by some people cycling on the super narrow road, and our guide remarked “On the left, you’ll see some crazy American cyclists.”
“How do you know they’re Americans?” I asked
“Because they’re wearing helmets!” And we all laughed a bunch, and I felt proud to be an American.

We also took note of all of the unusual plants in Dingle. There were a fair number of exotic plants, like palm trees and these red flowers from Peru. The Ventrys, the British family who administered Dingle during British rule, traveled throughout the world and collected plants that flourished when brought back to Ireland. I wouldn’t expect to see palm trees this far north, but apparently they thrive with all of the rain and the mild climate.

A lot of Dingle’s tourism industry originated from interest generated by the 1970 Robert Mitchum film Ryan’s Daughter. I think the guide mentioned it a bunch of times, and I made it a point to watch it when I went back and revisit Dingle in film. It’s a charming movie, but best watched right after visiting Dingle.

After the tour, I spent some time writing post cards and Helen explored some part of Dingle. I grabbed some ice cream and she made dinner arrangements at this dedicated seafood place called Out of the Blue. Apparently, the chef checks the seafood catch every day and decides if he feels like cooking. If he doesn’t, he’ll close down the restaurant for the day.



We arrived back and I hoped to catch a boat to the Blaskets, but no such luck. Instead, we took a walk along Dingle Harbor, up to a watchtower and soaked up the sun. I knew we had two pretty rough days up ahead, so I figured that we should get some serious relaxing done. We ducked in to a small chapel as well, and looked at some amazing stained glass windows in the cathedral. I was hesitant to shell out a couple Euros for the windows, but I honestly don’t know why. No photography was allowed inside, but witnessing them is well worth the small price of admission.





After the walk, we went to dinner at Out of the Blue. The chef knew in advance that there was a vegetarian in the house, and he made what can be best described as a hash brown with some wonderful spices, along with every single side dish that they served. Helen had some manta ray wings, which I never knew people ate. Both were excellent. We also split dessert, a wonderful chocolate brownie. When I cut it in half, steam rose from the inside and we both looked at each other and said “Ooooo...” It is one of the most vivid memories I have about any kind of food.



We were pretty stuffed from dinner, so we took a leisurely walk around the remaining part of town that we hadn’t seen, checking out the road to Connor Pass. After some writing and photo viewing it was time for bed. Tomorrow was going to be a rough day.





We got up the next morning, packed and had breakfast. The weather was none too pleasant, with overcast skies and drizzle. Margaret warned us that the view from the top of the pass won’t be that great. I was more worried about the descent and hurtling down at light speed in slippery conditions. We got on our bikes and went on our way.

Connor Pass was going to be the hardest climb of the trip. We were going to climb about 1,000 feet at a 5% incline, so it was going to be a long slog but nothing that should be too taxing. I climb 200 feet regularly as part of my commute, but I don’t do it lugging 30 lbs of stuff on the back wheel. Still, I figured I should be able to make it with maybe needing one stop.

When we approached the pass, a lyrca-clad cyclist hurtled down past us. I wondered if he does the pass as part of his morning commute or workout. I am a little envious of that guy.

Up we went. I wasn’t hitting a good rhythm though, and had to inch up in the granny gears for a good chunk of the climb. I had to stop when I started to feel a little dizzy and eat some shot blocks, and Helen kept cranking away. After 45 minutes of continuous climbing, I saw a sign for the viewpoint and sprinted for the end (sprint meaning went about 20 km/h) right behind Helen.

The view from Connor Pass was less than specatular. We couldn’t see more than 200 feet through the fog to the north, but we could see a little further to the south. A nice man in a car took our picture and we started the descent. We stopped a lot though, partially for speed control and partially to let cars go by us. Then, with the wind at our backs, we bolted to the east across the Dingle peninsula on the North End. There was a great view of the ocean to the north and we made great time to Tralee.







I changed the route when we were in Tralee. Instead of taking the direct route to Listowel, I figured we should swing by Ardfert. There was an old Cathedral there, and although it was going to be a short detour, it meant no big hill climbs. It started to rain pretty heavily by the time we left Tralee. We rode through some nice wooded territory (not a lot of that in Ireland) and got to the cathedral. We spent a lot of time there talking with the curators, largely because they were inside and dry. But the site was very interesting, and we learned a lot about what goes in to preserving an 800-year old structure and what research gets done. There was a map of all the bodies buried in the cathedral and how it was destroyed in local territorial battles.



After we explored the site, we talked some more with the curators about the area. I decided to be a coward and ask for directions, failing that trip goal I had set which was “Do not ask anyone for directions while on the bike.” One of the curators told us that he used to work for a bike touring company and would drive around a truck that would carry the tourers stuff. Helen shot me a look that could have been interpreted as “You did NOT tell me that was an option on this trip.” We reconcilled to being wet and set off to Listowel and shelter.

For some reason, the image that sticks out the most in my mind is this giant factory we saw with a few killometers left. After all this time in pastoral scenery, the factory was a jerk back to the modern age.

We got to the road to Listowel, but our hostel was in Billeragh. I guessed wrong on directions and we rode in to town instead of to our hostel. I was exhausted though, and after walking the bike through the city, couldn’t contemplate riding any more in this rain. We found a pretty good B&B, who’s proprietor told us that we were “Mad, absolutely mad” to cycle in this weather, peeled off the wet clothes and grabbed dinner in a little pub called the Horseshoe. The barkeep seemed even more aghast at the fact that we were cycle touring, crossing herself and saying “Mary bless them” under her breath. She was awesome. We finished dinner and went back to the B&B for some sleep. I overheard a weather report that tomorrow was going to be just as rainy, and decided to keep it to myself.



The next day opened with a little bit of sunshine, but I wasn’t optimistic about it holding. We had breakfast and walked down to the farmers market for a bit. I had some supremely nasty chocolate covered seaweed. So much for all food being good while on a cycle tour. Then, we were off for Tarbert and the ferry. We made pretty good time and I clocked us averaging 20mph for a flat stretch of a couple miles right up to the ferry. The ferry ride was a nice 20 minutes, and it was cool to see a few tourists in cars checking us out in our gear.




We took a break in Tarbert for some lunch, then started riding north. There was some wind at our back and a break in the clouds that lasted an hour. We met one rider heading south, who warned us of some dangerous curves and how Doolin was waaay far away. We determined that she was not nearly as badass as we were, and pushed on to Spanish point. I was hoping to see some pieces of wreckage, but we had trouble finding the actual point, and figured “Eh, close enough” after a while and kept on heading north.

I made a tactical error when we got in to Ennistimon. I asked a traffic cop what was the best way to get to Doolin, and went in the direction he was pointing. Unfortunately, he was directing traffic, and we headed about 5 km off course before I realized the error. He was pointing at the cars, but gesturing in the other direction with his head. Whoops. We got a bit of a scenic detour. At one point, I noticed a man drive by us with a camera out of the window pointed at us. I’m glad to represent the crazy cyclist community whenever the opportunity arises.

We got back on track and headed north to Lisdonvarna. I knew that there was supposed to be a road to Doolin before we got to town, but we started getting close with no sign indicating anything. Irish roads are not well signed, especially in County Clare. We went by one intersection, and I stopped to evaluate. I had seen several cars make that turn and my intuition said that it was the road to Doolin. But I had gotten lost once already and Helen didn’t look too happy enduring the rain, so I didn’t want to risk getting lost. We kept on that road.

After about 2 minutes, a car stopped and flagged us down. Turns out, he was looking to go to Doolin as well, and didn’t know the way. I saw an opportunity, and asked him to take that previous road. We’d go on it as well, and he would double back if he saw no sign of Doolin after 10 minutes. I got a kick out of the fact that an Irishman asked me for directions in his home country.

We started riding down the side road and crested a hill. I saw a town up ahead and knew we were on the right path. We stopped in a convinience store to confirm, and chat with the lady who kindly informed us that we were “mad” and should both “get a life” instead of cycling in this weather. She dropped the gentle mocking and warned us to be careful though of aggressive Irish drivers. With that, we coasted in to the Ailee River Hostel and dryness.



The Ailee River Hostel is a wonderful place with a great assortment of people hanging around the peat fire, chilling out in their rooms and just making conversation with strangers. Helen and I peeled off our clothes that had been soaked through, threw stuff in the dryer and found a place to grab a nice 9PM dinner at McGann’s. We were joined by two girls from France whose names escape me but were very nice to chat with. The bar was supremely crowded but there was enough room for the four of us to talk, me to lose a cider-chugging contest to Helen and a couple of us to get in to an argument about Lance Armstrong. The music was alright, but we figured that we’d go over to Fitzpatrick’s for some more music.

Fitzpatrick’s wasn’t as crowded, and had a nice modern-ish setting to it which was a nice contrast with the dive-ier McGann’s. The band was three musicians and a 12-year old boy singing. I remember hearing a great version of Galway Girl and the boy running offstage after he was done. A couple people in the audience came on stage and sang as well.

Walking back to our place, we talked about our plans for tomorrow. Originally, we were going to ride in to the Burren and spend the day exploring. However, the weather was getting downright oppressive. We had been rained on for two straight days and we needed to wring them out. We were super close to the Cliffs of Moher and I wanted to check them out. I got a vibe from Helen that she wasn’t exactly enjoying things as well, so we decided to stick around in Doolin for the next day.

We took it easy the next morning, got off to a nice lazy start and walked around town a bit. There was another Farmer’s market, but it was a little lean on things. However, there was some of the cheese on Helen’s “Cheese to eat” list that we consumed. We then walked back in the other direction to the Cliffs of Moher, and were subjected to very hard rain on the walk. We actually ducked for cover under some stranger’s front awning for a bit. After waiting for a bit, we saw the start of the cliffs but were on private property, and had to walk another mile to get to the center.

The Cliffs rise up to 400 feet above the pounding Atlantic, and you can walk straight up to the edge and see that it is a very very long fall to the bottom. There is a paved path as well as an unofficial-off-limits-beware-of-certain-death path that pretty much everyone goes on. We walked up and down for a good hour, but the rain got pretty oppressive and forced us to seek shelter inside the visitors center with about 300 other people. Eventually, it let up enough for us to walk home.



You might be wondering why there aren’t so many pictures of the Cliffs. That will be explained later.

We walked back and dried our clothes by any means available. We then headed to dinner, which was alright, and dessert which was fantastic as usual. The night was young so we went to Fitzpatrick’s for more music. Instead of a band, there was a solitary guitar player. He wasn’t exactly a traditional Irish music player; I counted songs by Johnny Cash, Dire Straits, Steve Earle and Stephen Foster. However, all of those are amazing artists and he did them all justice. I see nothing wrong with that. In particular, his version of “Folsom Prison Blues” was great. I guess the awesomeness of Johnny Cash spans all cultural divides.

We went back and planned out tomorrow’s riding. I knew we had a lot in store since we didn’t ride that day and had to get to Galway. We wanted to explore the Burren and I wanted to leave at least an hour to check it out. So we figured we could make it in to the Burren and take this walking tour of it offered by a local farmer, then make it in to Galway with plenty of time to spare. I was hoping to catch the World Cup final.

We got a late start the next morning, but it was well worth it. Three straight days of rain gave way to a wonderful morning with blue skies, and I barely took notice of the fast pace we set as we rode up the coast of County Clare to Hag’s head. On our left was the ocean, and on the right was The Burren. Oliver Cromwell (spit) had a general who visited the land and proclaimed that it was “a savage land, where there is not enough water to drown a man, nor a tree to hang him, nor soil to bury him.” Instead, it is exposed limestone carved by wind and water. We rounded Hag’s Head and headed west with the winds at our back and going pretty fast, but unfortunately not fast enough to catch the noon tour. The tour guide’s father was kind enough to give us tips on where to go in the immediate area. I wanted to check out this abbey, but he warned us that the shortest way involves going through a field that has a highly territorial bull.

Instead, we walked about a mile and got to a place with a clear view to the north in to Galway Bay and started hiking up the path. The karst landscape was really fun to walk on and we hopped from stone to stone, taking a pretty scenic route up that went by boulders and stone walls until made it to the top. Not exactly an awe-inspiring summit but it was a good break from the bikes. I saw some rain clouds to the Southeast though, and we hurried back.





We rode back on to the main road by Galway Bay down a slope so steep, my rims were burning hot by the end. We then started to ride East in to Galway and got rained on pretty heavily with about 20 km to go. After ducking underneath a gas station for a brief respite, we figured that we might as well press on and get to Galway. The road turned in to a highway with a median with about 5 km left for town and Helen bolted in with the promise of dryness up ahead. I was cramping up and couldn’t keep up that well.

We dismounted once we got in to the main part of the city and walked our bikes around it. Galway has about 75,000 people in it, which makes it larger than every other city combined that we had ridden through. It was pretty strange to see so many people in one spot after being in rural areas for such a long time. It took us a little while to find the hostel, but we had a pretty nice setup in a very clean youth hostel and one of the most refreshing showers I have ever had. After that, we wandered the city and found a “traditional” Irish food place that served somewhat mediocre food with excellent Irish coffee. Drinking it made us both pretty wired. When we exited the restaurant, there was a mob of Spanish people yelling and chanting. Spain had just won the world cup and everyone was partying. We went over to the Spanish arches and chatted with some people. Three guys were drinking and seemed to think I was Spanish, so we went over and talked with them for a while. One of them offered me something in a paper bag which I drank, and Helen was fairly shocked at this action. I suppose the day is not complete unless I shock Helen just a little. And with that, we went to bed.





The next day, we walked around the city and checked out the art galleries. We found a cheese shop and got five different things, completing the Lonely Planet list of “Cheese to Eat” in Ireland. There was time to check out some of the art exhibits for the Galway arts festival as well. I really liked the blue paper Matisse cutouts. There was this weird Spike Jonze film about clumsy lovesick robots that I kind of liked. There was also utter trash. This one short film was just pictures of street lights. I think Helen and I stuck it out for about five minutes, then looked at each other as if to say “I thought you knew why we were here,” and walked out.


All cars make way for the Guinness Truck

The next destination was the Aran Islands. I was really looking forward to this part. The weather was looking pretty good and I wanted to see all these high cliffs with the ocean crashing against it like there were in Man of Aran. I bought the ferry tickets, and we started to ride to Rossaveel, about 40 km away which is where we would hop on the ferry over.

I like this picture of Helen. Take a note as to hour narrow the space on the side of the road is. Not even a foot.

The ride west was a lot fun. The hills were rolling a little bit but not enough to drain us. We gunned it at about 20 mph for a good stretch, just for the fun of it. I actually tried to attack a lyrca-clad cyclist about 200 feet in front of us, and closed the gap to 50 feet before he turned off. Everything was so perfect.

At about 16 km in, I felt a little bump on my right side, right when a car passed me very very close. All of a sudden, my front wheel started swinging left and right violently. I fought to control it, but I couldn’t maintain and with a final jerk, the front wheel turned 90 degrees to the right, clipped the curb and I went down pretty hard.

I can still the impact writing about it. My hands came off the bars on impact and were crushed and ground pretty good, and I gave the curb a solid headbutt before hitting my face. Everything went black for a couple seconds, then could open my eyes. My ears were ringing and everything was sounded about 30 decibels lower. Helen stopped and mouthed something at me, but I couldn’t tell what. I untwisted my feet from the pedals and dragged myself on to the sidewalk trying to think about what happened. I noticed that a good chunk of my two front teeth were missing as well. For some reason, that bothered me the most.

Helen got my stuff off the road, then we took a look at my injuries. My left hand had blood all over it, as well as bits of asphalt. As we started to bandage them, I knew that something was very wrong. Of my five fingers on the left hand, I could really only move one of them without difficulty. We hadn’t removed my shirt, but I knew there were abrasions all up and down the left arm that needed to be at least disinfected. The ringing in my ears had died down, but I was still woozy. I was worried that my head was bleeding, because every time I checked, I’d find blood. Turns out, it was just from my fingers instead of my scalp. Helen reassured me a bunch of times that my head was fine, at least on the outside. A kind gentleman who runs a Chinese restaurant in the area stopped and called the EMTs, and a man who lives in a house across the street agreed to hang on to our stuff while we went to the hospital.

I’m not going to go in to full details about the hospital, just things took a while but they repaired my fingers and put a pretty elaborate bandage on my left hand, as well as patched up my left shoulder, knee and ribs. My upper lip had to be glued back in to place.

I will say that Helen tried very hard to keep me upbeat, and for that I am very grateful. I’m pretty sure she’s sick of me thanking her.

We found a small hostel back in Galway, and grabbed a taxi van that brought us to the crash site. We got our bikes and stuff, thanked the man who helped us and went back, where we relaxed on the couch and watched Shrek 2.

That was probably a bad decision for me. I hate Shrek 2, for it symbolizes so much of what I dislike about some modern movies. Celebrity voices for no reason, catchphrases for things that had a shelf life of a month, jokes that you can see coming miles away, the whole thing didn’t put me in much of a better mood.

I called my mom, stating “I’m about to say something that sounds really bad, but it really isn’t.” She took the news pretty well. Helen and I went off to bed, and the pain started to go away when I drifted off to sleep.

Around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up and slipped out of the hostel. I was angry, and at pretty much everything. That driver ruined my trip because he just had to blaze down the highway and couldn’t wait to pass me in a safe manner. I was angry at an ER doctor who completely missed a dislocated ring finger until Helen pointed it out. I was angry that I wasn’t strong enough to keep control of my bike when it started to go out of control. For some reason, I was annoyed at Helen because she didn’t wear a helmet, and if she had gotten hit things would be so much worse.

I think a lot of my unhappiness came from the fact that this trip was mine from the start. I was out here on a trip that was mostly of my design. I made the call to do this on bikes, even though I’m not an experienced cyclist. I wanted to do this in a country where I had little familiarity. I was pushing my body beyond a level that I knew it could go. It was a fairly risky decision, and I just paid the price with injuries that I worried were going to be permanent. I knew that my fingers were going to be dented, even after they were done healing. I figured I’d be walking with a limp for some time. My favorite activities are hiking, rock climbing and biking. Without strong shoulders, I can’t carry a pack; without a strong grip, I can’t grab holds; if my mind is freaked out about errant front wheels, I won’t be getting on a bike anytime soon.

Then, I started thinking about before the crash. I thought about along the Ring of Kerry, telling Helen stories about working security at the Fremont Solstice Parade while the sun set over Dingle Bay. I thought about all the fun of Shane and Jin’s wedding and dancing in a conga line to “Is this the way to Amarillo?” I thought about strangers who were so kind to us, who thought we were such novelties, who didn’t care about how different we were from them and who talked our ears off with stories. Everything had been fun.

And really, was this crash a big deal? My bike would be okay, and my camera was alright. I lost one memory card that had pictures from the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren, but they weren’t that amazing and I just have an excuse to go back now. The netbook was tough enough to take the crash and I could recover the data if the whole thing went kaput (it was just fine). We only had two days of riding left. And I’ve hurt myself worse anyway, I have stories about falling off cliffs, bear encounters and other things I’ve done to myself in the name of adventure. Sure, we get hurt. But we also get better. I figured I’d be annoyed for a couple days and then I’d go back to enjoying everything.

I walked back to the hostel, stumbled in to bed and didn’t open my eyes until noon.