Examples
Hunting Celtic Spirals in the Dingle Peninsular, SW Ireland.
It is a bad habit of mine – eavesdropping in pubs. In Cork I heard old jokes making fun – not of Irish naïveté – but of the simplicity of the people of Kerry. And when I first saw a curragh rowed with oars with no blades there I did wonder about local inventiveness. Yet even in a seething pub where it is hardly possible to reach the bar and the excellent music makes communication difficult, good food will arrive in no time and a niche freed to enjoy seafood chowder or steak sandwich.
We turned our trip to the Dingle Peninsular into a treasure hunt by noting archaeological remains marked in red in Gaelic on the 1:50,000 map and then trying to find them. Our guidebook and local literature helped. Clochán means a ‘beehive’ hut built in the manner of a dry stone wall without mortar, but cleverly shaped so that the stacked stones met at the apex of the roof and rendered a whether-proof home. We also worked out that a gallán is an undecorated standing stone, but the other unintelligible Gaelic descriptions made it challenging to find sites of significance. From a distance some looked like contemporary dry stone walls. Some turned out to be mere bumps in the landscape: ancient field systems or burial places. Others were superb early Christian carved obelisks or crosses. Bewilderingly the best of the crosses which was decorated with simple Celtic spirals and which starred on local post cards was beyond several barbed wire fences and across a couple of squlechy fields. In between our quest to find the best 1500-year-old carvings we ended up walking a spectacular coastline whence we watched gannets dive-bombing fish and seals rolling with the swell. Grey smears on cliff ledges turned out – on examination with the binoculars – to be huge bags of fluff-covered blubber that were fulmar chicks sitting patiently awaiting the next regurgitated fish meal.
After five days exploring the Peninsular we headed for a site on top of a hill overlooking Dingle harbour where the red Gaelic lettering on our map promised a whole collection of oghaim stones, representing the earliest form of written Irish. The gate into the field bore a notice, ‘Beware of the Bull: visitors enter at their own risk.’ Just as we were deliberating whether this was a real warning or to discourage tourists, a large reddish bull with a ring through his nose appeared and blew disapprovingly at us. We tried another approach. At a second gate a local asked, ‘Do ya know where you’re going?’
‘Yes but we weren’t sure about the bull.’
‘Mmm well the wind is in our direction so you have the advantage. And maybe this will be the high point of your holiday – when you ran for your lives before a charging bull…’
We risked it and found the hilltop littered with rounded stones each over a metre long and each carved with series of parallel lines. Not exactly a sight to die for.
A shortened version of this article was printed in the Independent newspaper as Last Resort:
Rocks of Ages on page 5 of the Traveller of 21st February 2004.
Flesh-eaters
Most of us will be mindful of malaria when venturing into the tropics but there are some altogether nastier, more squirm-making hazards. In central and tropical south America there is the cunning bot-fly which hitch-hikes on mosquitoes and lays eggs that hatch into flesh maggots.
In tropical Africa there is a beast with a similarly unpleasant lifestyle. The tumbu fly or putsi is related to the blow-fly. The female lays her eggs on clothes that have been left out to dry on the ground or pegged to a line in the shade. As with the bot-fly, larvae hatch and penetrate the skin when they sense mammalian warmth. They then cause crops of boils which ‘hatch’ 15mm club-shaped grubs that fall out after about eight days.
With both species clumsy removal attempts can lead to infection and scarring to it is best to seek advice: often locals will be skilled in maggot evictions. Putsi is avoided by ensuring that laundry is dried to crispiness in the direct sun, or everything is ironed: including sheets, nappies and the elastic parts of underwear.
Keeping covered with long loose clothes (preferably impregnated or sprayed with permethrin) and applying DEET-based repellent to any exposed flesh reduces the risk of acquiring these nightmare hitch-hikers. |