Saturday the 17th of June,
(Vee reporting) We got up quite early compared to what we are accostumed by now (6 am), but we had a tour-bus to catch at 7:45 am to begin our 2-day "Highland Experience".
Our bus arrived right on time, and so we met our guide for the trip: "Big John", a tall, very friendly, animated and funny scottish guy around our age who obviously loves his job. "Big J" has 3 passions which he made sure to share with us for the following hours: Scottish outdoors sports, scottish history, and scottish whisky. This was just fine with us, since Cliff and I have come to LOVE learning about the history of these beautiful countries and treasure when this information comes freely and in such a fun way. With 15+ people or so comfortably seated in the bus, we began our ride north driving through the famous "Forth Bridge" to pass by St. Andrews (this is the very famous and privileged private university from which Prince William graduated last year!). After a 30-minute breakfast break in Dundee, we continued north driving through Pitlochry until reaching Dalwhinne where we were allowed a 45 -minute lunch break. We skipped lunch, but enjoyed the free-whisky tasting that was strongly recommended by big J. We also picked-up a very tasty and authentic scottish whisky for Dad, AND some "walkers" cookies as a snack. Once again in our bus, we continued our journey to the end of the first part of the trip for us: Fort Augustus, more known as the small little village next to "LOCH NESS". As most of you know, Loch Ness is mostly known as the official residence of "Nessie" the scottish dragon-like monster that some people believe to have seen in the waters of this lake for centuries. This is also the village where John dropped us off not before explaining us where our Bed & Breakfast is located.
Our B&B was only 2 blocks away from the lake, which I guess is quite far, considering that the whole village was 3 blocks long! The "Caledonian B&B" is a gorgeous 3 story-victorian home with a beaitiful garden, and lovely en-suite bedrooms full of character. Our host was a SUPER-friendly lady from London who had moved to this small area a few years back with her husband. She inmediately showed us our rooms and made us feel very comfortable and at ease.
After leaving or bags, and with still a half day ahead of us, we walked down to the center of town (all two blocks) and headed towards the tourist information center to inquire about the bus scheduled to "Inverness" (the town at the other end of Loch Ness). Thirty minutes and 22 EUROS later (ouch!) we were seated on the Bus to Inverness. The trip was only 1 hour long, but the views were all worth it....Sctoland is a BEAUTIFUL land, covered with green valleys, hills, mountains and lots of red-haired "hairy-coos(cows)". Inverness was a nice town to see, but for some reason it wasn't quite what we expected. We walked through most (if not all the city) and before we knew it, we arrived back to our bus station. We had only been 2 hours in town, yet we felt ready to go (we also wanted to catch the USA-Italy soccer match on time).
The trip back home felt quick, and so after quickly buying our beverages and snacks for the night we headed back to our B&B where we watched the incredible match that ended with 9 US players against 10 italians, AND with an impressive 1-1 score.
Sunday June 18th,
(Vee reporting) We tried to get up early for breakfast, but with our very late nights it's not an easy task to accomplish. I finally got out of bed afer hearing a small knock on our door. It was 8:30am and apparently we were expected for breakfast at the table by 8am.
Breakfast was simply DELICIOUS!! You should've seen Cliff's eyes when he saw his authenthic scottish breakfast arriving to our table. Our host was very entertaining as well. She asked where we came from and where we had been so far, then she told us more about the small village, and what people were like. Her hilarious sense of humour kept me laughing all through breakfast. When we finally asked her why scottish people were so openly against the british soccer team, and therefore against anything english; she told us about a unique answer she got from a scottish friend of hers :"If we didn't hate the english, we would kill each other!". Her perfect imitation of the scottish accent made it even funnier, and pleased our curiosity.
We still had an hour before catching our 11am FREE Loch-Ness boat cruise, so we decided to walk a little beyond the village. Only a few yards beyond town we found a beautful farm right next to the channel that connects Loch Ness with another Loch (lake). This is where we met "Henry the horny horse". Henry is a very good-looking blonde-haired horse who was happily eating some grass a bit far away from the fence where we stood. We invited Henry to approach us by offering him some grass in the hopes of catching a close-up picture of him. Henry did come towards us, but suddenly stopped before reaching the fence. I kept trying to persuade him to eat the grass out of my hands, but apparently I wasn't trustworthy. This is when Cliff and I exchanged roles by handing him the grass and me holding the video camera instead. Well, this proved to be a succesful idea. Right when Henry was approaching Cliffs hands, the close-up lense of the camera showed me something else that was quite unexpected and made Cliff retrieve his hands inmediately: Henry had suddenly grown a fifth leg; 5 (yes FIVE) legs, instead of four... when I told Cliff, we both retreated. Henry the horny horse, needed some time alone...
After laughing our way back to Loch Ness, we got there right on time to catch our cruise. If you ask us if we saw the monster, then you'll have to wait to see the pictures and videos of our cruise....for now, lets just say that we had an "interesting" experience.
Back on land, we inmediately met big J who had just arrived with the new group of people that came with his bus to complete the 2nd part of our "Highland Experience". The bus was a bit fuller than the day before, but we had no problem getting our seats, and the ride back to Edinburgh was pretty much uneventful, bus still very beautiful and interesting. We drove by Forth William while learning some interesting facts about this area, we later stopped in Glencoe and once again learned some fascinating (and tragic!) stories about some of the old scottish clans like the McDonalds and the Campbells. The McDonalds in particular, have many stories that are still remembered and celebrated in scottish history. The views at this point were absolutely incredible. The mountains of the highlands are so beautiful that I won't even try to describe them, and will only hope that some of the pictures and videos will do them a bit of justice. From here we continued our way south to Stirling, which is mostly known for the famous battles of Stirling that William Wallace lead and WON against the english of Edward the 1st. This is Wallace land, and after seeing it I can assure you that it is a place that I will not forget. The trip until this point was pretty much perfect, with the exception of one little annoyance we experienced in the bus on our way back to Edinburgh. Out of all the passengers, there were only 3 americans: Cliff, a girl and her boyfriend. The "boyfriend" kept interrupting John's stories by telling some of his own stories about the US and how much "cooler", "bigger","better", "expensive", "glamorous", everything in the US is in comparisson to what he had seen so far. Cliff was soo embarrased, since we assume that probably the rest of the bus thought that we either were with them, or we were just like them. Our guide (big J) showed his annoyance as well, but was able to handle the interruptions with class and peacefully.
An hour before arriving to Edinburgh we made our last stop on the road. It was time to meet "Haimish" a 13-year old hairy-coo(cow), who was hard at work ready to entertain the newcomers who were there to see him.
Shortly before 8pm we arrived back to Edinburgh, completely exhausted and very much ready for bed.
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