Moran's Slea Head Bus Tour, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

Being without a car on my solo trip to Ireland forced me to take a lot of day tours run by professional companies. This route of travel is a good option for tourists who are either tired of driving themselves around, or too afraid to navigate the winding coastal roads on the Dingle Peninsula.

Moran's Slea Head Bus Tour was scheduled to leave Dingle by the Visitors' Center at 2:00. By 1:30, people were milling around the pier asking each other if they were in the right place. Most of the time, in Ireland, no one ever knows if they are in the "right place" to wait for organized tours, but no one ever seems to worry about it too much. Sure enough, eventually a man noticed all of the confused looking tourists and directed us to his van.

There were about 30 people waiting and the van sat six. The first six people got on and the man assured us another bus would be coming. It did but that one sat twelve. Twelve of us got on, including me, leaving the others standing by the side of the road with hurt and confused looks on their faces. The 12-seater took us to a gas station where an embarrassingly huge, 50-seat tour bus was waiting. We were herded off the 12-seater, got on the 50-seater, and then went back to pick up the remaining stranded people at the pier. This seemed to make perfect sense to everyone "in charge."

A wide range of people takes these organized tours, that can be separated into two major groups. Group #1: the backpackers who can't afford a car of their own and are smart enough not to bike along the winding, traffic-ridden, narrow roads that go up through hills and along the cliffs. Group #2: tourists over sixty-five who never step off of the bus.

Despite the dangerous landscape (at some points I looked out the window and couldn't even see the road we were on-only the cliffs) it was the most beautiful I had ever seen. On one side of the road were endless fields of sheep and stone walls that rose up way above us. There were also sheep on the cliff side that, according to our driver, had a short set and a longer set of legs so they could stand easily on the uneven ground. "But the trouble is," he said, "Sometimes they get confused as to which way to stand and they fall off the cliffs." (Cue laughter from the old people and groans from the backpackers.)

We stopped a few times, only because my fellow back-seat companions and I would beg the driver to let us off to

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