To all those eagerly awaiting the next installments of my blog: sorry for the delay folks. A slight unpredictable adventure through the south of Spain and Morocco separated me from my computor for a while. All details in good time, though in this case, the next few days. "How on earth did she get from Scotland to Morocco?" I hear you ask.
Well ...
My last two weeks in Scotland way back in July were the best by far. Did I mention that the public health care system there is brilliant? I finally found a physio who realigned my back - thanks Mandy! I also managed to sell my car with great ease. I put an ad with photos on the Autotrader website on Sunday night. On Monday afternoon the ad was posted and within two or three hours I had foud interested phone calls. Within a day the car was sold and the date set to pick it up for the day before I was supposed to leave Scotland the next week. Perfect!
I took the opportunity and the car to go see to a few more towns around Kincardine, where I was staying, and partake of the local historical monuments. Scotland's like a bit of a theme park for historians. Almost every town I happened across, whether Culross or Clackmannan, had a deep historical heritage with numerous ruins and monuments standing as evidence and memorial. For instance, I made my way to Dunfermline to find the Robert Henryson memorial foundation, which had thus far eluded every telephone attempt to make contact. Robert Henryson was a fifteenth century Scottish poet who wrote a very comical, controversial, contemporary version of Aesop's Fables, which I studied for a university assignment. So I was naturally interested in visiting the town he lived in. When I got there, no one had heard of Henryson, but they directed me towards the town hall, which was a gloriously gothic construction with Tudor Turrets, complete with gargoyles and dragons (very reminiscent of Stirling castle). I walked from there down the cobble street road towards the old church I had spied, which stood around its old gravestones like a monument to the old world. It was the famous Dunfermline Abbey, complete with "King Robert The Bruce" carved out into its highest turrets.
Around the back fo the graveyard I found a small plaque dedicated to the victims of cholera from 1832. This was the first of a series of cholera pandemics to reach British shores that wiped out about a fifth of the United Kingdom over the eighteenth century. The disease took so many people so suddenly that in many places they were buried in mass, unmarked graves (another university assignment). It read "This plaque commemorates the 158 people who died in the outbreak of cholera which swept through Dunfermline in 1832. Victims of the disease are buried in this area." I know it seems morbid, but YAY! This was more evidence of the impact of the nineteenth century cholera epidemic on ... okay, I guess it's going to take a bit more travel to take the history nerd out of the girl!
Just behind the cholera plaque, I was transported back into the eleventh century by the ruins of the 'original' Dunfermline Abbey, behind the fourteenth or fifteenth century, 'new' Dunfermline Abbey I already described. The empty facades of the ruins whispered silently in the late afternoon of everything they had seen, which I will never have access to, no matter how long I spend investigating and researching. Inspiring, belittling and vaguely frustrating! I took a left into the royal botanical gardens, which turned into one of the most rewarding experiences for me in all of Scotland. It was a haven of exotic plants, fairy tale troll bridges, twinkling streams and best of all, a crumbling tower fortress (Malcolm Canmore's tower) of undetermined age, although it is at least one thousand years old so far. It was once part of a pre-Norman royal residence/ fortress for Scotland. Wow! (Check out the photos)
After wandering around the gardens for a while, I headed back into the town around dusk and was convinced by its cobblestone charm to wander around for a while. I never found the Robert Henryson society. Instead I found a pub, still in use, that is over two hundred years old, a wall attached to a house built in the fourteenth century, an old church or two, a few memorial plaques to successful sons of Dunfermline, another pub called 'Somewhere Else,' but mostly a gentle Summer evening in a pub filled town in countryside Scotland.
Week 2: Wickerman! Edinburgh! Barcelona?
The next weekend I bundled a friend into the car with me and we headed down to the border for the Wickerman festival. It was a conglomeration of music and arts, with fun rides and 'all the fun of the fair' for three days. I got to see dozens of bands, from electronica to folk and reggae, but the highlight was a fourteen piece keyley (traditional Scottish music and dance) band late on the first night which sent the audience absolutely wild! The sound was astonishing and suprisingly beautiful (now I know when I heard bagpipes back in Oz that they were playing them badly!) Another highlight was the midnight burning of the four or five metre high human effigy made of wicker.. Now I know you are asking, "Is this a branch out from the Burning Man festival in Nevada?" Well, I asked the festival goers this very same question myself. Turns out most people there had never heard of the Burning Man. The burning of the wickerman is a Celtic tradition going back over a thousand years, symbolising the end of the harvest season and the rebirth of the land's fertility cycle. When Christianity came to Scotland way back in the early Middle Ages, the belief was spread that the ancient Celts originally burnt humans at the Wickerman festivities as an annual sacrifice to the gods. Most of the evidence and recent research, however, suggests that the original sacrifices were wicker effigies, not human sacrifices. These were made of wicker (wood) to symbolise the rebirth of the harvest year. It was also a great weekend celebration with many happy Scots and much wine, song and merriment splashed about.
On the way back from the festival we stopped off at Dundrennan Abbey of the Cistercian, or white monk, order. This abbey is commonly believed to have been established in the twelfth century and its ruins stand as a monument of evidence to the crossover from Roman to Gothic style religious architecture. Although in ruins and surrounded by graves, Dundrennan Abbey is worth a few hours for its serenity and striking beauty. Even amongst the crumbled remnants you will find an intricate structures full of halls, doorways, high arches and steep stairwells. An odd point of note; a suprisingly high number of people buried in Dundrennan Abbey lived over eighty years, even during times of disease, drought and poor life expectancy throughout the rest of Britain. I wander what their secret was?
The next week I headed off to Edinburgh to spend a couple of days in the big smoke, staying with a friend I met at the Meadows firetwirling meets. We spent most of the day walking around and relaxing in the park on that sunny Summer afternoon. There was much talk about the Edinburgh fringe festival and the build up for it, which was due to start in two weeks, but I was headed back to Barcelona that weekend so was a bit detached from all the festival talk.
Follow up from earlier blog: Before I left Scotland I went through everything I owned and was carrying with me and cut it down by a third. I had been seven plus kilos overweight on the way into Scotland, had a mess of 'things' to sort through everytime I wanted to go out and had only recently recovered from an injured back. On the way out I wanted to be lighter, less bulky and more versatile. I knew it wouldn't last long, as usual, but as I was about to learn, travelling light has many advantages over travelling well equipped
After almost two months of up and down health, dramas, festivals and money worries (Scotland is not THAT much cheaper than England, and still rates as the most expensive place I have so far visited despite the free healthcare and the comfortable couches of generous friends), I was sorry to leave in the end. I felt I was just starting to get to know people, to make friendships and figure the ins and outs of Scottish life ... but I was eager to get back to my base in Barcelona, and to my firestick that I had bought three days before leaving it behind. A two week visit to Scotland had quickly stretched into two months and Barcelona already seemed like a far off dream.
The flight back to Barcelona was a bit of a nightmare. I missed the first flight - long story - on Thursday afternoon, so booked another flight for Friday afternoon. About a half hour off landing, news came over that Barcelona airport was on strike, so we were doubling back to an airstrip in France. The airline organised buses to drive us the rest of the way to Barcelona, so we spent over three hours all jumbled into a stuffy bus with all our luggage. I arrived tired and frustrated, but was met at Plaza Catalunya by an old friend from Belgrade who I hadn't seen in years. The friends he was travelling with had arrived that morning from a nearby village in France and were fresh, well rested and excited to explore the city. They insisted I come with them immediately and helped carry my backpack around with us to a number of random restaurants and bars for food and wine and a long night of catching up. I was definately back in Barcelona! I decided then and there I was going to stay in Barcelona for a few months, at least, despite having missed most of the Barcelona Summer, and get to know the place a whole lot better. After all, I had spent more time in Scotland than Barcelona at this stage, which was not my original plan. How the best laid plans do go astray ...
Next time on Tempest Trails:
- How did the 'stay in Barcelona for a few months at least' turn into an adventure like no other through Southern Spain and Morocco?
- How did Tempest survive 6 weeks across two countries with only a day pack?
- Who was Gus?
For more updates on the exciting adventures of Tempest, click onto Tempest Trails:
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