Inishmore Cottage among fields
An island cottage among fields along the Galway Bay coast, the twelve pins of Connemara beyond.
Notice the playhouse, a replica of the larger cottage.
Time and Hands
From the heights of Dun Aonghasa the karsk of Inishmore falls away for the sight of the twelve pins against Galway Bay. These unworked, barren slopes have a pale green covering growing seemingly on air.
On approach to Dun Aonghasa, Cottage Road dips closer to the road for this view of a field with enough dense grass for five cows to feed, the rest on the cushioning green. Where did this come from?
The answer is simple hard work, hundreds, a thousand years of hauling seaweed and sand, mixing it on the barren limestone, allowing the rot of time to work. Hold it down with roots, till and refresh.
Wide enough
Enjoying travel on a horse trap, a type of carriage, on Inishmore (Inis Mór), the largest Aran Island in Galway Bay we headed up Cottage Road from Kilronan, the main island settlement. It was there we embarked from the Doolin ferry, hired the driver, his horse drawn trap. Our destination an iron age fort, Dun Aengus (Dún Aonghasa, the Irish language name) and the sights along the way.
The feeling of this blurry photograph is too good to let lie. I just kept snapping away from the moving carriage, here we are descending a hill and moving a bit faster, the elevation provides this view of Galway Bay, Connemara and the Twelve Pins beyond.
There’s a gate in the cow field, though some fields with cows were gateless. There is a simple answer to the mystery. At one point our driver stopped by his field and and demonstrated how the wall is pulled down to make an opening, the rocks stacked to make this easy. When the cows are in, the rocks go back up, a matter of 10 minutes or so to make a cow-width passage.
Daisies are a plus
Enjoying travel on a horse trap, a type of carriage, on Inishmore (Inis Mór), the largest Aran Island in Galway Bay we headed up Cottage Road from Kilronan, the main island settlement. It was there we embarked from the ferry, hired the driver, his horse drawn trap. Our destination an iron age fort, Dun Aengus (Dún Aonghasa, the Irish language name) and the sights along the way.
Dry Stone walls abound throughout Ireland. Ancient walls, buried in peat, were discovered in County Mayo and dated to 3,800 BC. This is a field wall on Cottage Road with daisies growing at the foot.
The wall is composed of stones, not rocks. I have read in places a stone is a rock put to use or shaped by human hands. Other usages have rock and stone used interchangeably. For example, an internet search on “Dry Rock Wall” will return hits on the same. “You pays your money and takes your choice.”
Sources for this post: search wikipedia for “Dry Stone”.
Stray Thoughts on Labeling, Valparaiso Port
Shortly after breakfast Pam and I were among a gathering of travelers, several friends made in the last ten days among them, waiting in the Regatta lounge for tour assignments. In my previous posting, “Valparaiso Separation, you can see exactly where the Regatta was docked among the orderly chaos of the port as seen from the Ascensor Conception. “Valparaiso Separation” also includes several photographs from my early morning hours on our port side stateroom terrace photographing the approach to Valparaiso and the city itself.
Walking down the gang plank, our bus assignment in hand, number 17, we boarded a shuttle to take us through the port, to customs. See the upper left corner? Here is part of a loading crane, seemingly the underside of a bridge. In “Valparaiso Departure I” you saw it loading rolls of wire.
The structure labeled TCVAL is called the Gottwald, a mobile harbor crane from the TEREX based in Dusseldorf, Germany. TCVAL is an acronym, “Terminal Cerros de Valparaíso” (Hills Terminal of Valparaiso), and stands for the port management company.
I caught two overviews of the area from our stateroom balcony.
Looking along the port side of the Regatta. Our room was on the same level as the bridge, visible on the right with several Regatta officers enjoying the Valparaiso port view. From here, the shipping containers (“Hamburg SUD”) are loaded onto semi-tractor trailers for points all around South America, they call the southern most land “The Cone.”
We are surrounded by labels, the #17 in our hands, “Regatta” on the ship bow, all with a story to tell.
Unlabeled from this side, two towers covered with multi-colored panels, shades of green and blue with white, the Hotel ibis Valparaiso. I looked it up on Google Maps.
To the right is AIEP Valparaiso, a technical college, founded just three years before, 2013. We are seeing them from behind, the side that faces the harbor, both the hotel and school front a street named Errázuriz.
Take note of the lower floors with the large, crisscrossed supporting struts.
Back on the shuttle, we pass along those lower floors. Look to the right of the Gandara Chile, SA truck….dinosaur models. The floor above seems to be retail displays of bulk packaged products.
Everywhere stacked shipping containers….
…throngs of busy workers. This fellow works for “Building Services”, a cleaner.
We’ve looked right. To the left a view of the port opens. War ships in the distance. Foreground is a general cargo ship, the crane midship is used for unloading in smaller ports. Currently unloaded, we can tell by how high it is riding. There is a rope ladder on the visible starboard side, a landing boat with an outboard motor along side. One person is visible on the upper deck, wearing a baseball cap.
Named “Danstar” home port Valparaiso, the Chilean flag hangs stern side. A general cargo ship, I looked it up. On the day I started this post, it was sailing the southern pacific heading from Hanga Roa, Easter Island. The label on the bridge, CA 4392, is the radio call sign. The bilge pump is working….wonder how strict the pollution stands are for Valparaiso harbor?
Back to the left, an unpromising aspect. No labels here. Shortly after the transport unloaded us for customs. I generally do not photograph those workings, no use being pulled aside for questioning by unsympathetic officers. Just a precaution, the entire trip the customs people were friendly and the inspections cursory.
Here is where our slip of paper, #17, is used just in case we forget the number. Here is wonderful guide, Ricardo, holding a loft the #17 flag in from of bus #17. The wonderful city of Valparaiso laid out for us in the morning sun, the sky cloudless.
New buses, nice!!!
Ricardo introduces himself. His name tag “Oceania, Your World, Your Way.” Cannot help getting some humor from that.
Learn about funiculars
To begin with an epilogue to my last post, “Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame on Conception Hill” , our meeting with the El Mercurio reporter never appeared. Inquiries to the newspaper per promptly and courteously replied to, there was nothing. They suggested a search of the online archive and only a January 2014 fashion show, the article featured a photo from the same terrace. After our pleasant time we walked off some calories on Gervasoni Promenade, a showcase of city harbor and hillside views.
Most city visits on this cruise we traded independence and flexibility for the convenience of the guided tour. Ricardo, our guide, was a knowledgeable, good humored companion to our small group. After we left the promenade for Calle Conception Ricardo was most helpful.
It was here I entered a photographic fugue, losing touch with my surroundings through concentration on capturing the moment.
I walked ahead of Pam, expecting her to follow, and caught the view of the arriving care of the Conception funicular.
Wow, that’s the Regatta at dock. Other elements of this vista are the harbor, of course, then the famous Turri clock tower. Hmmm, almost 1:30 pm.
I was fascinated by the view of a drydock the Regatta passed while docking early that morning. It is the red structure with the letters “Sociber”, it even has a Facebook page!!!
Once at street level the experience of the crowd on the alley opening onto Calle Prat, waiting for the ride up, brought back reality. “Where’s Pam?” I could not go back up because of the crowd, the views from the car fell from my mind.
I was on the street, disoriented and alone.
I fell back on photography to pass the time. Nowhere near the charm of Cerro Conception, typical downtown urban environment.
A man approached the family across Prat, “What is going on?” I wondered when the tour bus arrived. Still no Pam.
Oh, it is an ice cream vendor. Delicious. “Where’s Pam?” Ricardo not around, either. Back on the bus, waiting, a younger member of the tour was an Irish wag who declaimed on the benefits of freedom, even temporary.
Finally, Ricardo arrived followed by a few other tour members and Pam. Whew!! I’ll never live down “deserting” her. She was not able to find the entrance to the Conception funicular. Along with a few others they kept each other company until Ricardo rounded them up. That was a long 20 minutes (reading from the photograph metadata), I was worried. As I mentioned, at the time I was clueless about my whereabouts. Reviewing the numerous photographs, I found the “Servicio Nacional de Aduanas” (National Customs) building across the where Calle Esmeralda joins with Cochrane and pieced it together from there.
About the Conception funicular, that morning while the Regata docked I caught this view of Valparaiso hillside. It is a microcosm of the Andean topography, ravines cut through the heights. This is when I noted the Sociber drydock, it is on the lower left…look down into it — the business is to sell that dry space in the middle of the harbor for ship repair. The space and be flooded, opened to allow entry of a ship, then drained for work on the hull or whatever.
The city pioneers adapted to this terrain. As a entrepreneurial endeavor, in 1882 Mr. Liberio E. Brieba Pacheco founded the Mechanical Elevators Company of Valparaíso. Conception funicular opened the following year to facilitate the urbanization of Alegre and Concepción hills. Conception funicular is closed for repairs currently, from 1883 until recently this, the oldest and first funicular of Valparaiso lifted people from the downtown Plan (plain) to the hilltop for a small fee.
Funicular is derived from latin “funis” for rope. It is an elevator that runs two counter balanced cars on a rails on a steep, less than vertical, slope. As one car rises the other lowers.
Here are some views of the Conception funicular and environs as seen from the upper Regatta deck. First, a 24 mm wide angle view. Look to the center for the rails and one car at the top. Above are the buildings of Cerro Conception (Conception Hill).
The funicular emerges from downtown on the right in the following view. The prominent church is Parroquia Perpetuo Socorro, just above the midpoint. It rises from Cerro Cordillera, above Cerro Conception. A Catholic church founded by the Redemptionist Fathers, the first stone was laid down 1905. Learning from the devastating earthquake of 1906, the engineer Juan Tonkin chose construction of Oregon pine and concrete to stand tall today. What a view (I’ve seen photographs).
A view a bit to the right, many of the colorful exteriors are zinc panels brought from early sailing ships, repurposed as siding.
After the wide angle shot I used the variable “zoom” lens for the rest. Here is a close view of the Conception funicular. The business of building and running these services thrived, over the years up to 29 funiculars and one elevator, served the city portenos (people of the port). In 2018 seven are in operation, nine are under a process of restoration and modernization, including Conception.
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
The morning of our day on the Dingle Peninsula I left the room early, my Sony Alpha 700 in hand, while Pam finished her preparations. The elevator deposited me in the lobby and I proceeded to capture images of the Killarney Royal Hotel, our base for three nights.
This marvelous “antique” mirror caught my eye. We are used to seeing convex mirrors in the upper corners of elevators, strategically located at hallway junctions, automated teller machines and parking garages all with the intention of providing a wide, fisheye, view to detect unsavory, lurking types and danger.
This spotless, framed convex mirror is from a older, saner time. Such objects came in use from the 1400’s (15th century). When all glass was blown, a convex surface was easier to produce than a flat and, since all glass was expensive to produce, a convex mirror was a popular luxury item, an expensively framed status symbol.
As the mirrors were an element of elite surroundings, art came to include them as objects in the midground, the surface reflecting back to the viewer a different viewpoint. An opportunity for an artist to demonstrate virtuosity. Examples are Jan van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait” and the left wing of the Werl Triptych by Robert Campin.
Known as the “sorcerer’s eye” from the all encompassing view and, in keeping with our modern uses, even back then also called a”banker’s eye.” Symbolically, the 15th century paintings used a pristine mirror to represent the Immaculate Conception.
The five images here are the final result of trial and error, working out the details of using a flash in the relatively low light of the morning lobby, avoiding my reflection, maintaining a sharp focus throughout the field, capturing the unique details of the frame without distortion and the mirror’s wide angle view. I gave up on the flash and, instead, did this series at f5.6 and the ISO incremented 800 to 3,200. As such, the exposure ranged from 1/5 to 1/25 of a second. All shots were handheld.
I hope you enjoy the results. This was a promising start to our memorable day of exploration.
Here’s the next installment of our Dingle Exploration….
Here’s a previous Ireland posting…..
