Brecon Beacons National Park (Wales, September-December 2010)

All my trips in Brecon were around Pen y Fan, the highest point of the National Park. From Pen y Fan’s top I threw myself to the north face of the National Park in two different days and in two different ways. I would ever finish in Brecon village. North face of Brecon mountains are green cliffs, no rocky; they seem to be covered with a blanket of grass. One of the greenest places I’ve ever been.

In all this time in Wales, I think I just felt really well when I went to Brecon and Snowdonia. Once more I understood that I could be happy  between mountains and with ‘small adventures’ and I understood I could be very alone in the future as well.

My life in Cardiff was so different. First of all, the cold:

The cold here is tough

There is ice on the streets where I walk and run
Ice in people hearts

The air burns
And all day is night
My cold house doesn`t help
Isolation troubles?
In Both:
people and houses

The most interesting activity during the week used to be ‘salsa classes’. I liked that. Bars were warmer than my house and salsa classes were warmer than bars. And it worked a little: basic steps and two boring dates with the same interesting woman. 

When the town is at Uni, everything seems to be young and perfect. When the town is a huge dormitory, all the houses are the same, one house with thousands of bed-rooms. When the town is a non ending party, try to say the magic word: Erasmus, and some doors will be opened. When the town is a university world, just studying English and looking for any job is not enough to be part of it.

Anyway I tried to live my normal student life (as normal as it’s possible in an English school and being almost 40) but the Council of my town didn’t agree and I wasn’t qualified as student. That meant I had to pay the Council tax. All right. I would do. However, I didn’t. I didn’t because I was going to pay the very expensive bill for my whole student house. So was how I began my Council tax’s escape. A coward and very sad adventure. A matter of money. But I think money matters as you don’t like that life.

In December I left Cardiff and I missed Brecon.

Snowdonia National Park (Wales, September-December 2010)

Snowdon is the highest mountain of Wales and gives the name to the national park and hidden region of Snowdonia. I became interested in it even before I arrived to Wales. It looked important… the wild face of the dragon.

I got the “snow hill” soon, in my first month in Wales. And I used the most difficult way, following the ridge, but to be honest, I begun this beautiful and vertical route because I got lost following a guys and thinking that I was doing the main path from Pen-y-Pass. It’s got maybe the saddest summit, the most touristic one. I met there just a few mountaineers and many other sport men: runners, bikers and even rugby players in T-shirt, but most of the people were tourists, whole families of tourist, children and old people, always with ordinary clothes, of course. They didn’t matter the cold, the wind or the fog. The explanation is not the very easy normal way (a road without cars) but the train to get the Snowdon’s summit from Llanberis, because Wales is not only a country of dragons: It’s the country of trains as well.

With Snowdon, Carrauntoo and Ben Nevis, I had completed a very beautiful British trilogy. There are some people think there are no mountains in Great Britain. I thought so. I didn’t see mountains lowers than two thousands meters. A big mistake. Beauty and difficulty can’t be measured in meters.

Killarney National Park (Ireland, February-April 2010)

The true adventure should have been Dublin, not Killarney. The first time in ten years that I was living abroad. The first time in an English speaking country. The first time as a student, in spite of my age. Meeting people every day… but not her.

I got some of my best friends at the moment, but I didn’t meet a stronger reason to stay there more than three months (after that time I had to go back to Spain).

I began to look for the highest mountains in the map of Ireland, in the far Kerry County, when I understood that my time in Dublin was coming to its end. I disliked the town. I felt guilty with the kind of life that I had chosen, going out at the night three or four times per week, wasting money in beers and taxis and collecting some really disgusting experiences: the most embarrassing one when I had to avoid a fight in my second weekend.

I was in Killarney twice. 

The first time I did a very small version of Kerry Way: Killarney-Black Valley-Gap of Dunloe-Killarney.

I didn’t find great green landscapes and only one small wet forest. Close to Killarney, the National Park seems to be a city park (gardens, roads, golf courses), but 10 miles further, the Kerry way becomes a true trekking, with few people doing it.

Gap of Dunloe is interesting, five small lakes between walls of high mountains, but you will walk on a road, with many tourists and even cars, so it’s difficult to enjoy it.

I went back to climb the Carrauntoo.

In one of my last nights, Dublin hit me too violently. I was attacked by two young robbers. After that, I don’t know why I was still interested in travelling. Maybe to get a very good last memory (I thought that I wouldn’t come back); maybe to compensate the lack of romantic adventures with an important mountain activity (Carauntoo is unknown in Spain but legendary in Ireland, perhaps for the name of his normal way: ‘the Devil’s Ladder’).  Anyway, I went back to climb the Carrauntoo.

Carrauntoo

I think it was a miracle that I managed to plan the trip and travel with such pain in my rib (it was difficult even breathing). My left eye was a little black yet.

I did it. I succeeded because the family of the Bed and Breakfast helped me: they drove me early in the morning to the end of the road. I got out the car and got into the heavy rain. Three, four hours walking with rain and rib’s pain, climbing each one of the Devil’s stairs, thinking that maybe my rib could be broken… but I kept going… and I got the summit of Ireland.