It was a serendipitous morning. A morning in a Scottish hostel in downtown Inverness where the coffee was free and the company was great. I had slept in that morning and had only gotten up when the cleaning girl from Slovakia came in the dorm to change the bed sheets. I wandered down to the kitchen where my ever-loyal travel companion, Cheeseman, was already awake and chatting up a couple of Canadian girls. I allowed myself only the briefest of introductions before helping myself to a healthy amount of the hostel’s free coffee. The sun streamed in blindingly through the windows and I cursed myself for not bringing sunglasses down with me. The night before had been only mildly alcohol fueled but the decided lack of water in my recent diet decided to manifest itself in the form of a splitting headache that morning. Forever a man loyal to his vices, the coffee helped me persevere.

The Canadian girls were traveling separately and had only met in Inverness the day before by happenstance. The shorter and more verbose of the two was named Madison, from Manitoba. A screenwriter and master of long-winded statements, she held the attention of everyone at the tables with stories of her past endeavors in the film industry. In addition to having been a stunt double for the kid in Home Alone 3, she had a number of original screenplays under her belt and the charisma of a caffeine motivated Chihuahua. The cinematic trailer of her latest work, a Canadian produced independent film called “This is Why We Fight,” was already racking up hits on Youtube. Amid all of her fascinating dialogue, I took barely any notice of the other girl.

Her name was Chelsea. A twenty two year old biology student from Victoria, Canada, Chelsea was soft spoken and curiously shy during our first encounter. She sat at the table with wide eyes but tightly sealed lips as everyone else conversed about their favorite films and inspirations for traveling abroad. It was only when plans of a bike ride to Loch Ness began to formulate that she piped up for the first time and said she would like to join us.

As the guys and the girls geared up in our separate dorm rooms, I realized that I had only Euros in my cash reserves and no Pounds. With everything I needed except cash in hand, Cheeseman and I rendezvoused downstairs with Madison. Madison needed cash from an ATM, so she and I left in search of Pounds together while Cheeseman stayed behind to wait for Chelsea. Madison got her cash easy enough just around the corner from the hostel, but converting my Euros to Pounds was a trickier matter. Eventually we came upon a tourist knick-knack shop where a German man behind the counter was willing to perform the exchange at a decidedly steep rate. But he was a nice man and even recommended a cheap place for us to rent bikes from nearby. On our way back to the hostel we bumped into Cheeseman who seemed to be in a somewhat frantic state. Apparently he learned from the hostel’s receptionist that Chelsea had come down before anyone else, and assuming we had left without her, left without any of us. Luckily though, we eventually bumped into her near the bus station and went on together to rent some bikes and start our day’s adventure.

It was a beautiful day. The scarlet and golden leaves diluted the brightness of the November sun above us with an ethereal fashion as we followed the River Ness out of the city and into the Scottish countryside. I was floating on a cloud of disbelief as I relished in the realization that I was biking my way toward Scotland’s most famous Loch. I allowed myself a moment to sympathize with my friends back home in the states that were currently enduring a bitter cold front as I felt the sun lightly kiss my smiling face. For all the effort it had taken to get to this very moment in life, I felt content in knowing that it had all been worth it. Not a single regret lingered in my mind as I peddled onward through the beautiful landscape toward the alleged hiding place of the Loch Ness Monster. To everyone’s surprise, we actually discovered said monster a full seven miles away from the Loch, sunning herself unabashedly in the center of a roundabout just outside of Inverness. Here is the picture to prove it.

About midway into our journey I saw the signs for a trail the bike rental company had recommended. Until then, we had been following the road and dodging light traffic in the direction of Loch Ness. Our foursome clambered onto the rugged trail and followed it for maybe a hundred yards before cries of muddy discontent from our Canadian comrades convinced us to return to the paved road. Still suffering from shin splint pain, I took the lead and set the pace for the group. This turned out to still be a bit too fast for Chelsea, who brought up the rear with a determined resolve. We eventually turned off the main road and took a delightful detour along a bike path through open farmlands, passing barns, cows, and glorious dew soaked meadows that glistened in the early afternoon sun. When a light mist began to fall, we took refuge beneath a large evergreen and shared water and orange wedges with each other. It was only an eight-mile ride from Inverness to the edge of the Loch, but the steady uphill peddling thus far had taken its toll on us all. When we finally emerged back onto the main road, we were all feeling a bit fatigued.

To everyone’s delight, there was a mile long downhill cruise all the way into the town of Dores. When the Loch finally came into view, I was awestruck. It was a much larger body of water than I had expected and it stretched along the valley floor farther than the eye could see. We rode our bikes right up to the water, leaving them in a heap against a shed as we clambered to see the deep blue water up close and personal. The sight was more than any of us could have hoped for. The sun streaming through the mist, the swans swimming in lazy circles on the water’s surface, the old man fishing in a kilt nearby; it was all absolutely perfect!

All four of us were famished from the ride, so leaving our bikes locked together by the water’s edge we took refuge inside a warm little waterside restaurant called the Dores Inn. The place felt a little too upscale for such a small town, what with the servers walking around in ruffled white shirts and handsome black blazers, but it was cozy and fairly priced and just the place to enjoy some authentic Scottish cuisine. Cheeseman and I ordered the haggis, a Scottish delicacy of minced sheep heart, lungs, and liver with chopped onions, and steel cut oats, all on a bed of mashed sweet potatoes with whiskey sauce. It took much too long to arrive, but when it did, it was cooked to forking perfection! Madison was content to eat just a scone and some complimentary bread, supplementing savory food with gratuitous amounts of mocha coffee. Chelsea, in an impressively startling revelation of character, ordered a kilo of steamed mussels in a garlic cream sauce. As Cheeseman and I polished off our plates of haggis, I could not help but watch in awe as Chelsea diligently wrestled each mussel from its shell with her fork, swabbed the meat through the sauce at the bottom of the big pot, and placed it on her tongue with undisguised gluttonous pleasure. This was not just a meal for her; this was a succulent art. I had never seen a girl so intimately enjoy a dish as much as Chelsea did those mussels. I think it was from that moment on that I began to look at the mysteriously quiet Canadian with genuine interest.

After our magnificent meal, we returned to the edge of the Loch and savored the perfection of the moment. The sun was still hanging gingerly over the low mountains and the mist had subsided to reveal an afternoon sky painted with a bruised pallet of pink, red, and purple. We took a number of pictures together, digitally immortalizing the moment, and I recall a moment of introspection while posing for a picture between the two Canadians. Was this real life? This setting with this company? Such moments are far too few to take for granted, and I am proud to say that I did no such thing.

The eight-mile ride back to Inverness split the group in half. Madison and I took the lead with a swift pace to ensure that we reached to the bike shop before closing while Cheeseman hung back with Chelsea to encourage her to keep steady. I am sure that during that time Cheeseman and Chelsea developed a much more significant rapport than Madison and I did during our tandem journey. He is, after all, impossibly difficult not to get along with. We returned the bikes just before the shop closed and had the owner take a victory photo of our group at the finish line.

The night was still young and our appetites were once again on the rise so we went to a small grocery store and frugally split the cost for ingredients to a stir-fry meal. We wanted to buy a couple bottles of whiskey, but the girls’ lack of ID prohibited us from doing so. Back at the hostel, we cooked an amazing meal together that solidified our newfound friendship. It is a curious phenomenon, cooking together. It seems that you could endure any number of experiences with someone and still consider them just an acquaintance, but cook a meal with them and you are officially best friends. As we enjoyed our meal, two big-boned American guys made their way into the kitchen with the remnants of a fifth of scotch. The taller of the two was Jack, a Boeing man out of Washington state. His face showed the shadow of a beard and his voice was hilariously high-pitched, both features that were perfectly topped off by a goofy, flimsy-brimmed rain hat. The shorter and decidedly hairier guy was named David, who had waist-length black hair and a Neanderthal-like bushy black beard. I liked them both from the moment I met them. They were loud, eccentric, crude, and absolutely hysterical! We also realized we had a mutual interest in acquiring whiskey, so we wandered the city as a group of six until we found an unlicensed shop where we bought four bottles of local scotch to try.

Back at the hostel, we rambunctiously consumed our whiskey and a copious amount of Halloween candy, supplied by expert trick-or-treater, Madison.

By the time quiet hours rolled around and we had thoroughly annoyed everyone else in the hostel with our drinking games and generally outrageous behavior, five of us took to the streets of Inverness again in search of adventure. We left the very sleepy Jack behind since apparently he had to drive in the morning. Passing on the bars and nightclubs, we wandered along the scenic edge of the River Ness just enjoying each other’s company. We eventually reached a bridge reaching out to a small island in the middle of the river, momentarily barred by a wrought iron gate emblazoned with a sign reading, “Closed due to flooding.” Since the island was clearly visible on the other side of the bridge, we decided that the sign was worth disregarding as we clambered over and around the gate and onto the bridge. The six of us took the island by storm, David and I with bottles of Inverness scotch in hand. The island measured barely a hundred yards across, but sported a couple of stone benches and a number of very climbable old trees. It was our own little paradise, secluded from the rest of the world, with spectacular views of the illuminated bridges and Inverness castle. Forget what I said earlier about cooking together being the catalyst to newfound friendship—taking over an island together is the epoxy that binds people together forever!

Eventually, we stumbled our way back to the hostel. On the way there, I learned that Jack and David would be driving in a rented car to the Isle of Skye the next day, a place that I long wanted to see. Seeing as how Cheeseman would be leaving me to return to London in the morning, I asked if they might have room for me to tag along. They said it might be tight since the Canadian girl Chelsea said that she would like to tag along too, but I was welcome to join nonetheless. That decision, as it turns outs, would be among the most integral and devastating decisions of my entire journey.