'My Journey Through Scotland' - Part Five: The Old Man of Storr & Inga
The fifth day of our journey was marked by another trip on our own. Our hostess was so happy with us, since we were so self-sufficient and tidy (for anyone who’s interested in inviting us anywhere), we were the perfect company—or at least she said so. She pointed our attention to the 'Old Man of Storr', where I knew a couple of movies were filmed, and I had already been annoying the people around me about wanting to go. A magnificent cluster of rocks that you can observe from far away as well as up close, which makes the view even more beautiful.
After yesterday, when we were shown how the weather works, we felt ready to see the northern part of the island. We got on that same bus and went even further from Sligachan. Lost in beautiful views all along the way, the time to Portree seemed to disappear. The north didn’t disappoint. We arrived in Portree, the capital city of the island, and immediately went to catch the bus for the Storr. What can I say about this small city? The streets, the harbor, the waves mixed with that misty, rainy weather really gave us this cozy ‘Twilight’ feeling that we were about to explore once we returned. Eyes on the prize, we took the bus, which drove for maybe 40 minutes to get to the base of the Storr. The views I had seen before were always sunny, which is weird, because the sun was nowhere to be found. We even missed the main attraction, wondering if we should move forward.
We started going up the hill to the Storr, and even though it was a perfectly made amateur path to get there, I felt it. Once we got a bit higher, the winds scared us. I’m not sure if I’ve ever in my life experienced such a strong and dangerous wind. It was coming from different directions, and on a couple of occasions, it blasted us from our spot, so we had to stay almost grounded if we didn’t want to learn to fly. The mix of rain quickly demolished that cozy feeling Portree created, and our survival instinct kicked in. So we started laughing, like I did during the flight, an evil, ominous laughter that you can hear on the original videos I made—before I muted them and placed some classical music (Chopin: Nocturne op.9 No.2) to reflect the feelings we had.
We went almost to the end of the path, where the wind was almost unbearable. There, we laughed some more in the face of death, then decided to go down to capture some more videos and reconnect with the cozy, warm feeling of Portree. Of course, moving around the island is usually easy if you check things and plan before you go somewhere, but what we missed was that we had more than two hours until the next bus, and the weather was getting rainier than before. Like I said, if you want to be prepared for Scotland, you have to understand that there’s nothing you can do—you’re getting wet.
Begrudgingly, we descended from the hill, taking some quick videos of the misty rocks, which had this horror vibe you can observe only in my video. If you Google it, you’ll see that there’s no bad weather in Scotland, but here we were, on the one day that it was misty and dark. Seeing a bunch of high schoolers on a trip with their teacher, heading to where we just were, made my evil side smile. We couldn’t wait for two hours to catch the bus, so we decided to eat our sandwiches and hitchhike to the city. After a series of bad luck and people passing us by like we were roadkill, a couple stopped their bus. They made a quick 30-second furniture shift and let us in. I felt like they immediately regretted their decision because we were wet and extremely needy. So much for our self-sufficiency. On bad days, we rely on people to get through—whatever. They told us about their journey, and how they meet every year from England and the USA to travel the world. They were cool. I would’ve loved an invitation, but they never asked for our contacts—strange.
Portree had one bar that we thought looked great, and even though we usually didn’t drink alcohol back then, the occasion called for it. We tried some local beers and talked with a hot 2-meter Serbian bartender, who repeatedly called Emo “Bratko.” Bratko, I’m telling you, if we had more time… no, I’m not going to tell you.
Trying to catch the bus and looking for some gifts is our specialty. We found Inga’s shop and went in. Emo has this bad habit of buying anything if he feels pressured, just to avoid being looked down at. Inga sensed that like a predator, and in 1 minute we gave her 45 euros for one small whiskey cake, a chocolate bar, and something else not worth remembering. I have an even worse habit—letting Emo get away with his bad habits for the same reason. While she told us how much she loves to cruise, my mind was going "honey, we just paid for your first night on your next cruise, all for the good story and these crap souvenirs," but I stopped myself, as I was exiting the shop with the fucking cake (which was horrible). I'm writing this with the same admiring, hateful tone I felt for Inga then and still feel now, going back, thinking about how viciously she pulled the money out of our asses, makes me want to eat cake. We left the shop with a brand new cake and bankruptcy, wishing Inga well on her next cruise that we just paid for, we found the station, got on the bus, and went back to our place, feeling utterly screwed by a woman for the very first time.
Iliya Badev
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