By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
It was a Sunday in County Clare, Ireland. About twenty American students, including myself, heaved out of an 'Lucky Charms' green bus. We were at the Cliffs of Moher, and it was storming. And I was in shorts. My classmates began trudging up the muddy slopes to heading towards the Cliff’s edge. I watched their feet sink in the mud, almost as if the dirt purposely climbed higher. All of the visitors were falling, fumbling for someone’s arm elbow to clutch. I stood with my back to the visitor’s center observing. I have vertigo. Even though I loved to hike and see the bird’s-eye-view on a mountaintop, there’s always a moment of doubt that breaks the very fabric of that glorious view. I’m quickly sedated by the gravity I feel sitting on my back as I look down, even from a small distance of just a of couple feet. So I watched as groups of tourists struggle like ants up a muddy hill battering the coastal winds and summer rain. Some of the tourists formed circles at the base of the cliff near the Visitor’s Center, working up the hillside in rotating circular movements. I wondered how these people could allow their eyes to miss a second of the splendor of the cliffs. It was a harsh view and certainly not the picture-perfect Instagram moment many no doubt had prayed for, but a beautiful view none the less. The swollen skies drifted between shades of angry and sleepy grays while the sea bathed the fronts of the Cliffs with stormy blue hues. The Cliffs withstood the blows and waved their shaggy grasses back to the wind. It made the gusts against my back feel like gentle caresses. I turned to go inside the center when a friend grabbed my hand and started walking us up the hill. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. I dragged my feet, but with almost two feet in height difference I succumbed to matching his dominating stride. We were walking up the hill. Hand-in-hand wading through the sea of grasses that looked so serene from the visitor’s center and now appeared sharp and menacing. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered. He squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and pushed on. I kept my eyes directly on my feet, noting the stark contrast my white legs made with the dragging black ponchos my compatriots wore around me. We took a small turn to the right and suddenly my feet were on the knobby edge of the earth. “Look up,” he said. When I did, I was breathless. It was glorious.