Hebrides ....part ii

OK so I set out on the A87 not really bothering to poke out my thumb yet; even so, I was picked up by a decorated woman of 50 by the name of Rose. I guess she commiserated since her husband, a full Appalachian Trail vet, was at the moment hiking the Highlands and she said my road was shit for walking anyway. One of the first things I learned about Rose is that she's a big fan of anime...plush Totoros everywhere! What the hell was happening? Why were all the Skyedwellers so untraditional and brilliant and alive? She had a laughing personality laced with that British sarcasm and it was all tied up in a breathtaking mountain home named Katie's Cottage. It sits by the jagged Black Cuillin mountains and is pretty much perfect...hitchhiking 1, caution 0.

But before I get to that I must say that the original plan was for me to camp at the foot of the Black Cuillins and continue on in the morning. She drove me to the perfect spot and as soon as I stepped out of the car it happened. We were breathing midges. They whiz around you and begin to madly feast on any and every part of your body. It's said around here that a swarm of midges can actually kill you, because you begin to panic and actually lose your mind, and then who knows what precarious cliff or passing truck that fate could come up with for you. I began madly search for my bug spray...where the hell was it??? Rose just laughed and said she'd drive me to hers; she just "couldn't leave someone in the middle of a midgefest." As my aching body was covered with dead midge, I had a right steamy shower when we got to the Cottage. She showed me to the bathroom and asked, "You don't mind spiders, do you?" Um...of course not? The bathroom window is filled with a spectacular array of spiderwebs and a handful of spiders, all named by Rose. "I just love them! They live there and if you're lucky they might just come down for a wee chat!"

She offered to keep me for the night. I personally didn't ever want to leave. The Katie in Katie's cottage is actually an 81-year-old woman who lives in the second, "next-door" structure. She struggled over to see us. Frail, hard on hearing, stubborn, happy to live alone--Katie is what you could call "the real deal." Her first language is Gaelic. She comes from a crofting family. She's lived on Skye almost her whole life. Anyway after she left, I had some homemade beer from Rose. My meals there were all made with homemade this and local that...this really did seem like the perfect place. In the morning she loaded me up with water, bug spray, magical anti-itching beans, pain killers. My next stop was the quaint Portree, largest town on Skye. I wrote by the docks. I listened to some dreadful bagpiping in the village square. I washed my clothes at a laundrette and met an amiable Scot named Blair. Blair was on holiday and didn't have much to do, so I gladly accepted his offer to cruise around the north shores of the island. Enter some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. You really almost get used to it here. When we got to the port town Uig, he bought me chips and that Cuillin beer which was brewed on the other side of the car park. We chatted up some of the bartendresses (only time in my life a bartender has asked if I wanted a smoke) and talked about girls and life. I know I'm in Britain. I know Britain is basically just a more traditional, smaller, older America. I know there aren't any mud huts. But I don't think there's anywhere you can travel where people aren't just like you. We're defined by the times, not by the distances.

Haaaaaaaaaa-hahaha!!! I wound up on the isle of Harris and Lewis and couldn't be happier with life right now. Life is perfect. I am now a creature of chance. I take chances. I love chance and this trip can go to hell if it doesn't rely heavily on chances because my chances have been good. Just put up there the possibility of luck taking you and fate takes over. Trips take you, yes sir. I hitched only a few miles yesterday to go back to Rhenigidale since I'd forgotten my ukulele. A good-ol'-boy-if-they-can-be-called-that Scot, nearly midaged and balding and calling himself Brian picked me up in a white utility van. He was heading back to pick up his mates who were all finishing some plasterwork. Three true blue collar (labour party?) guys--they cussed like sailors, they put faith in one another, they lived fully. On the way out Mal showed me the nude model that appears on page three of every Scottish Sun. They said that since they'd finished ahead of schedule they were relaxing on the island for a couple days. I thought that these guys had pretty much mastered living.

The next day I had a restorative three hours on the internet free and did my three posts from the other day. Then caught the bus for Luskentyre on the other side of the island. I wanted to see these beautiful Harris beaches on the west coast. You walk up a grassy path dotted with the occasional rustic cottage. Slowly the path unfolds to you that behind this country hill scene between the ranges lies one of the most exquisite white on teal beaches you've ever seen. I've only just been initiated but all the locals and regulars there must just laugh with each other in the eternal inside joke about all the other beaches in the world. Nobody expects this to be here! In Scotland? But one of the locals reckons it's the third nicest beach in Europe, whatever that means. It's certainly the most magical place I've been in many years. I walked down the beach as the sun set, just free in life and alone for a month now. I returned and I hear some men laughing just over a dune. I looked up and see a youth, bald man, and scruffy beefy guy. My plasterer boys!! Small island, I guess. They were happy to see me too and enjoyed my company that night as we just manned it up, "bro'd hard," you could say. That night I camped on the deserted beach, one of the true high points of my life. The next day we all fished off the rocks and Brian caught a starfish and a Pollack.

My time on the Hebrides is over and now I'm in Edinburgh at my friend Maciek's for the week. We met in Stornoway and he said I absolutely had to see the city during the festival. That festival is the month-long Edinburgh International Festival, the largest art, music, and theater festival in Europe. My birthday is on Friday. Haha. Don't forget to um...think happy thoughts for me. I'll try to find some kind of button and find a pretty girl to kiss me.