Today was Aran Islands day! We stayed on the island
overnight, too. Looking back, Paul and I agree that so far everything in
Ireland has been awesome, but if there was anything we would take off the list,
it would be going to the Aran Islands. It was the least interesting part of our
entire vacation (so far). (Next off the list would be Ring of Kerry).
It started off with a ferry trip to the main island. I had
high hopes that it would be a gentle trip, since it’s only the bay of the ocean
and the ferry is quite big. Tragically, it was quite windy. Within minutes of
leaving dock, the ferry was swaying something fierce. Since the ocean and I are
not friends, I was frantically searching for my motion sickness pills in my
purse. The good part is that the pill started working almost immediately, but
the bad news is this non-drowsy motion sickness pill always makes me…super
drowsy. I don’t even wanna know what a purposely drowsy motion sickness pill
would do to me…
So we landed on one of the Aran Islands (Inishmore), thank goodness, but
now I was wobbling around like a drunk sailor. I was super chill but also
stumbling about in slow motion. I hate taking my motion sickness pills. So
first thing we did is stop for coffee. In hindsight, mixing drowsy pills and
coffee isn’t the smartest thing to do. After an hour of weirdness, I was
finally normal and ready to go.
We hired bikes in the “town”, which is really just one small
street of tourist attractions and one grocery store. Paul and I realized our
mistake right away: Aran Islands is a tourist destination, and we HATE touristy
things. Crowds and tacky souvenir shops galore, as well as guys standing next
to tour buses or horse-drawn carriages and boldly begging you to take a ride
with them. Yuck.
Also, the island was very obviously poverty stricken. Unlike
the rest of Ireland, which is mainly clean and tidy places, this Aran Island
was full of not as pleasant of homes, WAY less livestock, not much true Irish
culture, and yeah, it was just sad.
For being an island almost completely based on tourism, it’s
also not very tourist-friendly. We got bikes from a bike rental place, with no
maps or helpful directions. The streets don’t have signs or directions toward
the attractions, and there is pretty much no internet. So, we left on our bikes
with only a basic knowledge of what to see on the island, from the info when we
had reviewed the island online the day before.
We rode our bikes on a road, and hoped it would bring us
somewhere good. It was a beastly road, full of bumps and potholes and loose
gravel. We watched a kid wipeout on his bike and get slightly injured, poor
thing. It was also a lot of brutal ups and downs, which was not kind on my
knees. My bike options had been: a bike too high for me or a bike too low for
me. I chose the too low option since I could pedal, but that meant more strain
on my knees, which have always been bad.
We finally found a cool fort, made thousands of years ago,
so that was cool. Unfortunately, you had to pay with cash, and it was far from
town. I imagine lots of tourists get all the way there and then get turned
around super angry, since the only ATM on the island is next to the ferry. We
had the money, but it was kinda expensive for seeing an average looking fort
ruin. NOTE: while at the fort ruin, a bee attacked my cheek, and at the time,
it seemed like I did NOT get stung. This is important info for Day 14.
The whole island is made up of thousands of rock walls.
Apparently, the islanders get really bored and just make walls all over the
place. It was a weird island.
Then we went back to town for dinner and to crash at our
airbnb, which was really just a bnb, so it was a small bedroom and bathroom and
nothing else. We rode for 10 miles on bikes, up and down hills, so we were
SUPER tired. We crashed early, since our ferry left at 8am the next day.
Paul's Note: My favorite part of the island was this super majestic horse rolling around on its back.
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