Dzogchen Beara, Ireland

I've only been in Ireland for about a week and a half, but it seems like a month. That seems to happen to me a lot at the beginning of trips.

After a great weekend in London to celebrate Allison's birthday, I flew into the small airport in Kerry and got a taxi into Killarney. Unfortunately, there was a rally car race going on and Killarney was completely booked out...

I found out about a hostel 'just outside' Killarney - 'about 20 minutes walk'. Uh-huh. With my pack on, I hiked for about an hour to find the International Youth Hostel. I ended up staying there for three nights and not doing too much - a couple of walks was about the extent of my activities.

From Killarney, I made my way to Kenmare by bus. I stayed at a great little hostel there and met up with Denis, a French waiter, and Jayson, an Aussie chef who's been working in Galway. We hit the town to test out the Guinness. I was pleased to find it was up to snuff.

The woman running the hostel in Kenmare told me about a hostel on the Beara peninsula that sounded interesting, so I thought I'd make my way there. From Kenmare, Denis drove me to Glengarriff where he was checking out a job prospect. I hitched from there to the hostel [a series of rides punctuated with little 5km hikes], located on top of Black Ball Head right near the tip of the Beara peninsula.

The Garranes hostel is on the grounds of a Buddhist retreat centre called Dzogchen Beara, quite a ways away from everything. It was quite a place. The people volunteering were mainly Irish, but one was from England and one from Israel. As you can imagine, it was quite a chilled-out place. They offer guided meditations in the Shrine Room each morning and afternoon, and there were plenty of great walks along the coast. Some of the people staying there are on silent retreat for anywhere from a few days up to three years. I don't imagine they have too many Irishmen opting for the three year silent retreat.

An English couple who picked me up while I was hitching pointed out a pub as we drove through Castletownbere called MacCarthy's which looked familiar - it's the pub on the cover of Pete MacCarthy's book MacCarthy's Bar. When I arrived at Garranes, I noticed a copy of the book there so I picked it up to see what he had to say about Castletownbere. I had completely forgotten that he stayed at the very hostel I was in, so it was with great pleasure that I read his description of the place. Sitting on the couch while people made dinner, I read his experience of sitting on the couch while people made dinner. Tattooed Scary Man alas, is no longer at the hostel and is probably loose somewhere on the Beara peninsula.