Quick Hola from The Camino

Me on Day 1, about to start the Camnino, from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France.

Hola! Am on day 2 on the Camino, in Roncesvalles, Spain. Started in St. Jean Pied de Port (in France) two days ago, spent last night in Orisson in the (French) Pyrenees, and crossed over the border into Spain around noon today. (I am taking it rather slow.) I should be able to get a real blog post up in a couple days, hopefully in Pamplona. Everything is going well, even if a stray dog did nearly pee on my backpack my first day. Have fallen in with a great, fun group of pilgrims and met a Spanish George Clooney lookalike too! ;)

Some of my new pilgrim friends say Hola!

So does George.

See you in a couple days, amigos!! Ciao!

Speaking Of Walks...

Me, stepping on the road in Bolivia.

Leaving Ireland tomorrow morning for France and the start of the Camino de Santiago. Dealing with some last-minute panic. I get this a lot on the eve of a big adventure, not sleeping well and staying awake with thoughts like "Why am I doing this?" and "I don't want to go." Wondering what's it all about. Questioning the goodness, the point of travel and adventure and being on my own...

Along with the usual suspects of fear and self-doubt, there's the fact that I'm leaving from Ireland, a country that can have a very nurturing and lulling effect on me. During these last couple weeks especially my friends here have been more than generous to me, and I realized I was starting to become too complacent, even in such a short amount of time. Now just before my Camino, I feel a bit like a newborn wanting to crawl back into its mama's womb.

I don't feel very spiritual at the moment taking off on this supposedly very spiritual journey. I feel something of a fool. I've got some religious items to protect me or guide me or...I'm not even sure what. Superstitious crutches probably, if I had to be honest. I also have my dad's dog tags from when he was in the Army, a draftee in the Korean War. On his tags are a St. Christopher medal, even though my dad wasn't Catholic and was never even particularly religious or Christian. And even though they say St. Christopher, the old patron saint of travelers, has been deposed from holyhood. Nonetheless, I still trust the old saint--and whatever it is I may draw from my dad's old tags. My dad's tags to me will be a reminder of both home and survivorhood, of where I'm from and I suppose what I'm aiming for, what I'm wanting, what I'm seeking...a way of keeping me going and keeping me grounded. Wish me luck anyway, readers, wish me a buen camino. I'm superstitious after all.

My father's dog tags (he was a draftee in the Korean War) and St. Christopher medal.

Aran Islands Walks

Inis Oirr, Aran Islands, Ireland

Years ago when I lived on the smallest of the Aran Islands, Inis Oirr, I used to go for long walks around the island nearly every day. I nearly always walked alone (except for an occasional restless canine partner) and so had no one to interpret the strange island landscape for me. Over the years I learned tidbits of information about the island’s geology, flora and fauna, archaeology and such that I gathered from the islanders, from books and articles, from my own guesswork and estimation. But it was a crazy quilt history of the island I ended up with, just like the basic, broken, patchwork Irish I picked up over the years (or Frankenstein Irish I’d call it with honesty, horror-show Gaeilge).

One of my usual walking partners.

Meanwhile I always wondered why Inis Oirr never had someone available who could take a visitor around and tell the true, full story of the island. There were pony and trap tours and wagon tours and even van and car tours of the island, but…Inis Oirr isn’t really that big of a place. It’s a place of all kinds of stone nooks and rock crannies and narrow, half-hidden boreens. A place that better reveals its stories and secrets to those who seek them out at a walker’s pace, a rambler’s tempo rather than any driver’s rush.

I was happy to hear that this year a new tour business was launched on Inis Oirr—a walking tour company called Aran Islands Walks. Finally—someone who can show off the island the way it’s meant to be shown off, on foot.

Eoghan Poil of Aran Islands Walk, in the Inis Oirr cemetery.

Aran Islands Walks was started up this spring by Eoghan Poil, a native Inis Oirr man who’s only lived off the island during his college years. He lives full-time on Inis Oirr now, serves as a manager for one of the Aran Islands’ football teams, and just married (only a few weeks ago) a woman from neighboring Inis Mor. “I didn’t go far,” he says and smiles, when I ask about his new bride, who has also partnered with him in getting Aran Islands Walks off the ground this summer. So far they seem to be off a good start, with a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts already set up and strong support from other island businesses. Indeed when I ask another recent Inis Oirr entrepreneur, Brid Ni Chualain, who’s recently begun teaching summer adult Irish-language courses, about Eoghan’s new business, she confirms that a number of her students this summer took tours with Aran Islands Walks and reported the walk as a highlight of their week on the
 island.

A week ago while visiting the island, I met up with Eoghan and took a walking tour with him. There are many positive things I can say about Eoghan’s tours, and the best is that even after working on and visiting Inis Oirr over a span of 15 years, I still learned so much about the island that I never knew before.

The Plassey, a ship wrecked on the island in 1960

Grave of the island's patron saint, St. Caomhan.

English signal tower (foreground) and the first school on the island (background).

Interior room of O'Brien's Castle on Inis Oirr

Little stone face on exterior of castle wall

Aran Islands Walks offers three levels of walks based upon how much time visitors have and their walking ability: a 1 ¼ hour walk, a 1 ¾ walk, and a 2 ½ hour walk, the last of which takes in 14 historical/archaeological sites. The 14 sites include the island’s cemetery and patron saint’s church, which has sunken below the earth (or as Eoghan corrects me, was actually built on level sandy ground that blew up over time and buried the church), a shipwreck ruin that “landed” on Inis Oirr in 1960, a castle, an English signal tower, the island’s first school (a building I’d passed probably 100 times but never noticed—maybe for good reason, as Eoghan told me the island’s landlords only agreed to its establishment if it were built in an inconvenient location, thereby discouraging islander education), and a 10th-century church dedicated to St. Gobnait. Along the way you’ll also learn about the islanders’ field and stonework.

St. Caomhan's church in the island cemetery

O'Brien's Castle

Eoghan at the Plassey

Find out how a field like this...

...Gets cleared to look like this.

Side by side view of the two field extremes on Arainn

And this isn’t even including the “extras”—like the views of the Cliffs of Moher in Clare or the Twelve Pins in Connemara that you can see on a fine day from Inis Oirr, the walk from the pier past the island’s beautiful beach, the exercise in the fresh island air. And since I’m a women’s tour operator and take especial interest in women’s history, Eoghan made sure to tailor the tour to my interests, including the history of Cill na Seacht nInion, the Church of the Seven Daughters, a ruins in a hard-to-find field near the back of the island.

View of the island lake, the Plassey, and Cliffs of Moher beyond.

Eoghan at Cill Gobnait, dedicated to a female saint.

Remains of a clochan (beehive hut) at Cill Gobnait.

After the tour, I was glad to have met Eoghan and glad to have taken a walk with him. And glad he’s started Aran Islands Walks. Inis Oirr is a fascinating place—it’s captivated me for 16 years, if that’s any proof of its hold on the traveler’s soul and senses. A thorough, professional walking tour of the island for visitors was long overdue. Now it’s here for anyone up for a good stroll. 

After the tour with Eoghan I return to my old walking partner, to share all my news about the island. He was so curious to hear it all.

Hurricane Katia Comes To Inis Oirr

This past weekend I visited Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. I happened to pick the weekend that Hurricane Katia landed on the tiny island's shores and ended up stranded for an extra night on the island, with all boats canceled for a day or two. Strong winds be damned, I walked about the island snapping some pictures of what the storm did to the island's landscape. Here are some of the shots.

Inis Oirr beach before the storm hit.

Same beach after the storm.

Seaweed-covered strand.

More seaweed than sand!

Seabird and seaweed.

Waves rolling in from Inis Meain.

The calm lake, the wrecked Plassey, the storm waves, and shadowy Cliffs of Moher.

Storm clouds haunting the Plassey.

Dog and foam.

Inis Oirr lighthouse looking out at the storm waves.

Shore.

Stones and storm waves.

Rolling in.

Crash.

Hurricanes can make everything go topsy-turvy for awhile. ;)

Inis Oirr pier, covered in seaweed tossed up by the storm.

Inis Oirr pier, closed.

Clouds, cemetery cross, and children crossing.

Cross and storm clouds.

Me on the beach.

On the boat leaving Inis Oirr, first day going out again.

On the ferry.

Waves chasing the ferry.

Leaving.

Drenched ferry windows.

I Was A 40-Minute Mermaid

There's plenty of folks who love to swim in the sea, but no one likes the seaweed part of it. Seaweed is that stuff you swim away from, that slimy stuff that makes you sick to your stomach when you feel your legs or arms or fingers accidentally brush up against it beneath the waves. No one likes the touch of seaweed. No one would ever opt to sit in a bath of the stuff for nearly three quarters of an hour. No one but the Irish.

A bathtub full of seaweed??!!

Seaweed baths are an old Irish secret for good health. They're such a secret even many modern-day Irish people don't know about them. But the word is getting out--especially in places like Enniscrone, Co. Sligo, Kilkee, Co. Clare, and Newcastle, Co. Down. The last of these towns is the location of a 5-year-old spa called Soak. Soak is owned by Dermot Devine and Claire Dickinson, a husband-and-wife team who were inspired to open their own seaweed bath house and spa in 2000 after taking a dip in some seaweed tubs while on holidays in Enniscrone. It was Claire and her girlfriends who first braved the baths and then convinced Dermot and his male buddies to give the baths a go. They all thought the experience fantastic--and for Dermot and Claire apparently life-changing, as the couple would take the seaweed bath idea back with them to Northern Ireland and open up Soak in 2006. Their business would be (and remains) the only seaweed bath house in the United Kingdom and the only one on the east coast of Ireland. And it's been doing well enough to expand with a tea room, treatment rooms, and self-catering accommodation--everything you need for an ideal weekend getaway for the girls. For guys too, as while the majority of Soak's customers are women, men make up 20% of their clientele.

Soak spa, located on the lower promenade of Newcastle, Co. Down, Northern Ireland

Inside Soak seaweed bath house and spa

Soak's lovely front desk room

Sip, the Soak group's tea room

But let's get back to those seaweed baths themselves. Who would take one? Were Dermot and Claire crazy to bring the growing seaweed bath craze to Northern Ireland? Only crazy as the Victorians and old Irish fishermen and farmers of the west coast it seems. Seaweed baths arose in the 19th century out of the Victorian practice of "taking cures" for such problems as arthritis and rheumatism combined with the Irish belief in seaweed  and seawater as having especially good benefits and healing properties. Irish fishermen along the coast had long noticed that there was nothing better than seawater for healing the cuts and sores they often got while working. Irish farmers meanwhile knew seaweed was rich enough in minerals and nutrients to use as fertilizer on their soil and even to build up soil when mixed with sand. It was only a matter of time before someone had the idea to find out how well taking a bath in the stuff (both seawater and seaweed) might work for the human body.

There's a lot of good in this small space. Soak's stock of seaweed.

It turns out the benefits for people are multitude. Seaweed baths are everything from a great stress and pain reliever to a uniquely Irish detoxifier and hangover cure. While taking a long, hot bath is always nice for both the soul and the blood system, a seaweed bath in hot seawater has extra benefits to offer. For one, the seaweed has natural oils that come out during a bath that soften the skin and hair. As well, the tiny barnacles attached to seaweed can act as an exfoliator when the pieces are rubbed against the skin.

The white spots on this seaweed are little barnacles that exfoliate the skin. The red water in the bath shows the richness of minerals such as iodine found in seaweed.

As for the benefit of using seawater, in the early 20th century a French scientist discovered that seawater has almost the exact same alkaline level and composition of minerals as human plasma (i.e., our blood, spinal fluids, lymphatic fluids), so much so that human white blood cells can survive on their own for a time in seawater whereas they'd die in any other substance. This similarity makes bathing in seawater a great way to replenish our body's biochemistry. Indeed, using seawater instead of regular water is a key element to gaining the full benefits of a seaweed bath. At the beginning, Dermot says Soak used regular water for its seaweed baths, but switched to seawater (after implementing a system in which they could pump it in from the sea) once they realized regular water wasn't producing the benefits they'd noticed from their initial experience in Enniscrone.

The Irish Sea in Newcastle. What does seawater have in common with our own blood?

So what's it like to take a seaweed bath? Do the benefits justify the experience? Does sitting in a tub filled with seaweed feel gross? Slimy? Strange? Unnatural? Well, after enjoying a seaweed bath at Soak recently, I can report that while I was in the bath I felt a bit like a mermaid, and by the time the bath was over I felt like a melted mermaid, as relaxed and smooth as a cup of hot cocoa.

My seaweed bath initiation began with Dermot giving me a back-of-the-house tour of the spa. I got to see where Soak keep its fresh stock of seaweed and how the seaweed is cleaned before each bath. When seaweed is cleaned it changes color from a dull brown to a bright green. After cleaning Dermot takes the seaweed, about a half-gallon per bath, and brings it into the spa and pours it into the tub, adding a few inches of hot seawater to get the oils and minerals working for release into the bath.

Dermot with a bucket of seaweed for cleaning.

Before it's cleaned and soaked, seaweed is a dull brown color...

But as it's soaked it turns a bright green.

Dermot bringing two buckets of seaweed for two baths into the spa.

Inside the bath room, bathers begin their treatment with a 10-minute steam to open up the skin's pores and thus make the body more receptive to absorbing nutrients and minerals. At Soak, customers have an option of starting their treatment with a modern steam or a Victorian-style steam. The Victorian style involves sitting on a shelf inside a wooden box with a hole at the top for the head and neck to fit through. A button inside the box gets the steam going. While my friend Lisa chose a room with a modern steam, I chose the old Victorian style. I just like doing things the old way.

Victorian-style steam box inside the bath room.

After sitting in the box with a towel wrapped around my neck to keep the steam from seeping out, I was all sweated op anmd open-pored and ready for the bath itself. The moment of truth. Dermot told me beforehand I could fill up the tub with as much as I wanted, but warned me against making the water too hot for my first time. The bath comes with a cold and hot water tap so you can adjust the temperature to whatever suits you best. However hot you want it, Soak advises giving yourself at least 40 minutes in the bath to get the full benefits.

My tub of weed.

After lowering myself oh so slowly and a bit nervously into the tub, I admit at first sitting in a pile of seaweed felt a little weird. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with the stuff. Just sit on it or heap it up on top of me? After a couple minutes, the hot water started working its magic and relaxed me--that and the oils in the seaweed, which felt more silky and almost velvety than slimy. After a few more minutes, I started feeling experimental, even a little playful, and began draping the seaweed over my legs and arms, weaving it through my fingers and toes, piling it on top of me and even on my hair. It's like being Ariel in The Little Mermaid, I told myself, or Daryl Hannah in Splash! A few more minutes and I was more like a jellyfish than a mermaid, with my brain off in la-la-land. At some point I had a moment of clarity and realized my 40 minutes were just about up. But I don't want to get out, I thought to myself. Ever. I want to be a mermaid/jellyfish forever. It's just a life so easy.

My feet in the bath, seaweed-weaved toes and all.

Somehow I managed to pull myself out of the bath, take a quick cool shower, get dressed, and rejoin reality. Lisa, a seasoned pro at taking seaweed baths, was already finished with her bath and collapsed in a soft chair in Soak's front room. I joined her on another chair and we spent several silent minutes staring into space and out the window at the Irish Sea beyond, looking at it longingly like two stranded mermaids missing their under-the-sea home. Dermot laughed when he came out into the lounge and saw us, nearly sliding off the chairs in our maximum state of relaxation. He asked me how I liked it. I think it took me about 5 minutes for my brain to formulate a three-word sentence. "It was amazing," I said. "How will I ever get dinner made now?" Lisa wondered. Dermot told us to get takeaway. After opening up Soak, I thought it was probably the best idea he ever had. There was no point in in breaking our mermaid spell and ruining our nice seaweed bath buzz.

Me before my seaweed bath--standing a little too straight and rigid.

Me after my bath, red-cheeked and relaxed.