LocalTouring

Let me tell you about the rattletrap minibus that changed my life.

It was rainy. Of course it was rainy. This was the west coast of Ireland, and I'm pretty sure the sky there has a permanent leak. I had booked a one-day tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren region, mostly because I didn't rent a car and my options were "tour" or "sit in the hostel and eat instant noodles."

I chose the tour.

The bus—if you could call it that—arrived twenty minutes late. It was the color of a bruised banana. The windshield had a crack that looked like a lightning bolt. The engine made a noise somewhere between a cough and a prayer.

Our driver was a man named Seamus. He was seventy-two years old, missing two teeth, and had the kind of twinkle in his eye that said I have seen things and I will not be telling you about them.

"Right then," he said, not making eye contact with anyone. "In ye get. We've got cliffs to see and stories to tell."

The Cast of Characters

There were eleven of us on that bus. Eleven strangers who would never have spoken to each other under normal circumstances. Let me introduce you:

• Marta and Lena: Two retired schoolteachers from Berlin who had been best friends for forty years and finished each other's sentences.
• Carlos: A software engineer from São Paulo traveling alone after a divorce he didn't want to talk about but definitely needed to talk about.
• The O'Connors: A dad and his teenage daughter from Boston. She had headphones on 90% of the time. He was trying so, so hard.
• Priya: A doctor from London who had just finished a stretch of night shifts and was running on caffeine and stubbornness.
• Two backpackers from Australia: Names? Unknown. Occupations? Unknown. But they had matching mullets and an alarming amount of energy.
• An elderly man named Frank: From Newfoundland. He boarded last, carrying nothing but a small backpack and a harmonica.
• And me. The one who was just hoping for a few nice photos of cliffs.

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The Breakdown

Twenty minutes outside of Galway, the bruised banana bus made a sad wheezing sound and died.

Completely. Utterly. On a narrow country road with sheep on one side and a bog on the other.

Seamus got out, lifted the hood, stared at the engine for a long time, and said, "Ah. She's had enough."

"What does that mean?" asked Carlos, panic creeping into his voice.

"It means," said Seamus, lighting a cigarette, "we wait."

We waited. For two hours.

The Magic

Here is where the story gets good.

At first, everyone was annoyed. The Australians paced. The O'Connor daughter finally took off her headphones. Carlos checked his phone approximately four hundred times (no signal, obviously).

But then something shifted.

Seamus pulled out a flask of something brown and passed it around. "Tea," he said. It was not tea.

Marta and Lena started singing a German folk song. Frank the Newfoundlander joined in on harmonica. The Australians tried to harmonize. It was terrible. It was wonderful.

Priya, the exhausted doctor, produced a bag of digestive biscuits from her backpack and passed them around like Communion wafers.

Carlos started talking. About his divorce. About how he hadn't told anyone the real story. About how he booked this trip because he didn't know what else to do with himself.

And we listened. All of us. On the side of a rainy Irish road, in a broken minibus, we listened.

The O'Connor dad put his arm around his daughter. She didn't pull away.

The Rescue

A tow truck finally arrived. But by then, nobody wanted the tour to end.

Seamus called a friend with a working bus. While we waited for that one, he walked us to a nearby pub—a real one, the kind with a peat fire and a dog asleep on the floor and a barman who didn't ask questions.

We stayed there for three hours. Three hours of storytelling and laughter and bad singing and better crying.

Frank played "Danny Boy" on his harmonica and every single person in that pub went quiet.

Carlos smiled for the first time since he'd boarded the bus.

The O'Connor daughter taught her dad how to take a decent selfie.

Marta and Lena held hands and told us about the time they got lost in Prague in 1987 and ended up at a puppet show that changed their lives.

The Cliffs

We finally made it to the Cliffs of Moher at 6:00 PM. The sun had broken through. The cliffs were impossibly green. The Atlantic crashed below like applause.

We stood at the edge as a group. Eleven strangers. Now something else.

Seamus took a photo of all of us. He didn't ask anyone to say cheese. We were already smiling. Real smiles. The kind you can't fake.

The Goodbye

Back in Galway, we exchanged numbers. We made promises to visit each other—Berlin, São Paulo, Boston, London, Newfoundland. Some of those promises will probably be kept. Some won't. That's okay.

But here is what I know for sure:

Carlos sends me a postcard every month. He's been to fifteen countries since that trip. He's doing okay.

The O'Connors send me Christmas cards. The daughter got into her dream college. The dad learned how to text emojis.

Marta and Lena invited me to Berlin. I went. We ate currywurst and stayed up until 3 AM talking.

Frank passed away last year. His daughter found my number in his address book. She said his last words were about that day. About the rain. About the harmonica. About all of us.

The Lesson

I almost didn't book that tour. I almost stayed in the hostel. I almost missed eleven people who became a kind of family.

Travel is not about the places. I know you've heard that before. But let me say it again anyway, because it's true.

The Cliffs of Moher are stunning. They are. But I don't remember the cliffs as much as I remember the bus. The breakdown. The biscuits. The barmaid who didn't charge us for the last round because "ye seem like good people."

The world is full of broken minibuses and rainy roads and unexpected delays.

And those are actually the best parts.

Your Turn

So here is my positive tale for you: Say yes to the rattletrap bus. Sit next to the stranger. Share your biscuits. Listen to the sad story. Sing the terrible song.

Because the cliffs will always be there.

But that particular group of strangers? That particular rainy Tuesday? That particular moment when eleven people become one?

That only happens once.

Don't miss it.

P.S. I still have the group photo. It's faded and bent at the corners. Everyone is squinting because the sun was in our eyes. The Australians are making bunny ears behind Frank's head. Carlos is mid-laugh. The O'Connor daughter is actually hugging her dad.

It is the best photo I have ever taken.

I have it on my fridge.