ICELAND IMPRESSIONS

Just some final thoughts about Iceland. My previous posts and videos focussed on what we saw in Iceland, this time I'm going to attempt to tell you how we felt ...

Wandering  jet lagged through a foreign city, cool wind and warm sunlight, written words that could have come from a fairy land, more like sigils than language ...

On the bus, passing through a long tunnel under a fjord, a long narrow corridor of concrete carved out under the crust of a volcanic land, aware of tectonic plates and magma and great pressures and the earth moving around us and we move through it ...

Rain streaming across the windows of the bus, the land outside sliding by us or us sliding through it, the land seemed to be moving as we stood still although the opposite was true, the rain wrapping us, cutting us off, travelling through a worm hole ...

A land of smoke and rain and mist and steam, steam white as cotton, drifting low over the earth, plumes of it wafting out of the earth out of rents in the earth, the breath of the planet, hot and white on the pale delicate dome of the sky ...

Black rock, black sound, black stones on the beach, gleaming on the beach, the waves sighing across them, the ancient susurrus of the ocean ...

Black stone formed from fire and earth, broken shards standing tall in the water, surf pounding the stone trying to further  break it but smashing into foam as white and delicate as Irish lace, falling back to the sea, defeated ...

Drinking beer on the bus from tall cold cans, soft cheese and wheat bread and skyr, the food of the gods, flavoured with berries ...

Sky so blue it almost hurts the eyes streaked with delicate strands of white cloud arching high over sand a deep lambent gold fringed with tortured black rock, you feel it under your feet, the warmth, the heat of the heart of the planet, pulsing from somewhere deep below ...

The smell of this country is rotten eggs. Sulphur. Acid. Richness, fecundity, life, warmth, sharing the murky hot water with strangers who become familiar in this place, the environment, this shared ritual of the bath ...

Lava fields, miles and miles of them, low black ragged shapes covered in moss that is green with flashes of red going on forever outside the bus; through the window it's like it's flowing, like an ocean or a great green lake with black below, deep and bottomless going to the heart of the world ...

Long narrow vallies, incredibly green with giant fjords sprawling along their bottoms in some sinuous lazy fashion, giant bales of hay wrapped in white plastic, white blobs of sheep like tiny clouds pinned to the grass, wind moving through the long grass, undulating, and ever in the distance are mountains, frosted with white ...

Glaciers sprawl across this country, indolent and powerful like some kind of lazy gods, their waters feed the greeness of this land or their waters drown this land, the glaciers own this land, have formed this land, we travel along deep vallies that are the footprints of the glaciers, lakes that form perfect circles filled with flat water gleaming harder than any jewel ...

This is our bus, it is our home, at night we stay in little hotels all over the country but the bus is our home; Anna Laura is our mom she organizes our day and makes sure we're fed and wants us to learn and tells us when it's time to eat; Sigi is our uncle, he drives the bus for us, we like Uncle Sigi but we think we shouldn't give him the code to the lock on the beer fridge ...

These are the people on our bus: Canadians and Belgians and Australians, oh my!

This place is an island and therefore surrounded by water but it is a place affected by water in many other ways, the long salmon rivers fast and cold, the frozen water that floats as ice bergs in the lagoon, and of course the waterfalls that cut the stone that wear down the stone that break the land and fill it again with water ...

Horses. White and black and black & white and russet and gold with shaggy coats and long feral manes they move across the spines of the hills, sleep in the lee of the volcanic outcroppings, drink deep of the fast mountain streams, watch us as we watch them passing each other with only that contact ...

Every roadside diner at which we stop serves soup. It's good soup, Peasant soup, It's tasty and it's cheap. After the third day we stop eating the soup. Why? Every roadside diner at which we stop serves soup ...

The toilets in Europe don't flush with little handles. They flush with big push buttons on the top of the tank. If you want to confuse a European person, show him a handle ...

As the summer wears on the days here are getting longer. After a long day trekking through forests of volcanic rock and basking in waterfall spray Collette tries to stay up, poised in the window, camera in her hand, wanting to take a photo of the midnight sun ...

Skyr is the food of the gods. They say it is Icelandic yogurt. That is a ruse. It is a creamy rich orgasm inspiring gift of the gods. I love skyr. Skyr makes me nervous. Something this good, there has to be a catch ...

One of our tour mates is a doctor, his name is Mark. As we climb several hundred meters to view the ice cap in the thin air he quietly comes up beside Collette, hands behind his back, talking to her, watching her colour and her breathing but smiling softly and just walking with her ...

The sagas of Iceland are generally more realistic than other Viking saga's, not poetry but one of the earliest examples of something we would recognize as a novel. Many of them are family saga's or tales of accounting or legislation but still they fanciful and filled with magical characters. The sagas of Iceland are realistic. Puffins are fairy tales. Or clowns. With wings ...

I'm now scared of flying clowns ...

We see snow here on tops of mountains, in floating bergs, laying hundreds of meters thick across the backs of glaciers; it is striped from the ash of a recent volcanic disturbance, the same ash that filled the water pouring over the Dentifoss making it dun colored laced with foam ...

Iceland produces it's own beer, it has a couple of large commercial products like Viking and Egil (each come in a strong version that is always better) and a growing cottage beer industry that creates some very drinkable beers. From 1915 to 1989 beer was banned in Iceland. In the VJK lexicon that period of time is known as the Icelandic Dark Ages ...

We ate putrefied shark. That is shark that is hung in a shack, salted and allowed to rot. We ate it and we smiled. All that means: The guy who runs the shark museum is one scary old fisherman ...

Forests of stone. Cities of stone. All shapes and sizes, some surprising, groups and clusters then individual menhirs standing away from the rest as if leading the way, trailblazing, the stones moving as the thin crust of the earth moves under us ...

The most popular eating place in Iceland is a hot dog cart in Reykjavik ....

The hot dogs in Iceland are made of lamb meat ...

There is a town in northern Manitoba called Gimli, I've been there, it's a tough town. Gimli is a character in Lord of the Rings, he's a tough character. Gimli is an Icelandic surname. Our guide's grandfather heard of Gimli Manitoba because he liked the name, it means something positive. He found an old age home there in Manitoba and returned to Iceland and used it as a model for senior care. He was a tough man ...

Icelandic people are tough. They came a long way to find this island in the middle of Atlantic Ocean, glaciers and volcanoes and floods and earthquakes, no forests and decided what a lovely place to live. Several times their country has tried to kill all of them. For a long time Norway owned them. But here they stand, their own people in a place faraway, their own language their own horses their own sheep ...

A black furry dog with white flashes running on a long black sand beach with huge surf shattering just feet away from him ...

What does a tour bus smell like? Skyr and expectations ...

While in Iceland I did  not hear one song by Bjork ...

The bus was our home, it took us to places we could hardly imagine. When I close my eyes, I'm still on the bus ...


In this video I tried to capture what Iceland feels like. Probably I failed. Oh well, we'll just have to go back there some day. The song is by the Icelandic band The Soul's Release

ICELAND EDITED: DAYS NINE & TEN

I've decided to combine our last two days in Iceland into one post for reasons that will become apparent later

DAY NINE

Day nine we were back in Reykjavik. We started our vacation here but we were so jet lagged that most of the experience was a kind of blur. This time we were alert as we ever were and went off to explore the town in whose environs the majority of Iceland's population resides

As the major city in Iceland, Reykjavik faces the dichotomy of past and present and future. They are trying to build for the future ...

... while acknowledging the past

The day before we had visited the Althing, Iceland's historical parliment, today we visited the current building that occupied a spot with a lot of other historical buildings many of them preserved, some of them "recreated".

We were back in weather a bit more typical for this time of year in Iceland, not terribly cool but with little rain showers popping up suddenly. We developed a formula to deal with it: Rain shower = pub, it worked quite well.

As summer wore on the days were getting longer, we were not quite yet into the midnight sun but it was light out quite late into the night. Reykjavik has a very active music scene and there were bars featuring a wide variety of music late into the night. There are a lot of resturaunts and bars and clubs in the town; we found one with a pool table large enough to accomadate soccer balls

Besides music, Reykjavik is a major centre for many arts. We found this little public square the celebrated what is, apparently and active and appreciated graffitti art scene

The city has always been a haven for the country's artists. We found more statues dedicated to artists than we did to politicians. There were several public sites, such as parks, that were inspired by famous works of Icelandic fiction

Like the last time we were here, we enjoyed the many colourful houses, reminiscant of Newfoundland

Reykjavik is a place where you can book a lot of day trips, like whale watching or going over the Westman Islands, a group of very active volcanic islands just off the course but after living on the bus for several days we were happy to wander around, take it easy and enjoy our final full day in Iceland

DAY TEN

This was our getaway day, when we would fly back home to Toronto. Our flight however would be in the evening so our travel agent had prepared for us a special treat. There are natural hot spas all over Iceland but the most famous in the Blue Lagoon, on the way to Keflavik Airport

The Lagoon is the most luxurious spa in the country and definitely one of the biggest tourist traps. We'd been to one other spa, in the north and it was a lovely, homey, communal kind of place, frequented by locals. The Lagoon is a different experience, not many locals come there and it didn't have that communal spirit. Still, the springs are lovely and surrounded by interesting lava formations

The spa is lauded for the healthful benefits not only of the water, but of creams and lotions made out of the natural sediments. You can buy a massage, there are sauna's, hot rock treatments and you can sample some of the creams right there in the spa. Mostly it had a swim up bar, now I find that extremely healthful

We had a very relaxing couple of hours then it was a short trip to the airport and on our way home. Always happy to go home of course, but it was also sad to leave. Iceland would give us a lot to think about, a lot to dream about, and lot to look forward when next we visited this remarkable island country

ICELAND EDITED: DAY EIGHT

This would not be our last day in Iceland but it would be our last day with the bus tour. The day began as the previous had ended: Cool and grey but not quite as rainy. We were very much looking forward to this day. Since arriving in Iceland we had heard much about the Icelandic horse and had often seen them as they wandered freely around the countryside. This morning we were visiting a farm which made their living from growing hot house tomatoes but who also bred, trained and showed the remarkable little Icelandic horse

The Icelandic horse is considered to be one of the "purest" horse breeds in all the world. Not terribly unusual on an island but the Icelanders work very hard to keep it this way; no horses are permitted to be imported to the island and if a horse leaves Iceland it or its progeny may never return

The lovely family at the farm put on a show for us, explaining the unique traits of this horse and demonstrating them for us

One of the things that makes the Icelandic horse special are its gaits. It was explained to us that there are six possible gaits at which a horse may move. Most horses do the same four gaits. Some horses can do five but only the Icelandic horse can use all six gaits

The Icelandic horse has had historically many uses: Transportation, haulage, sheep herding and they do all of this in one of the most extreme and diverse environments on the planet so they have to use all their gaits to travel across it, including the rigid lava fields. The horse show demonstrated this horse's remarkable dexterity (does that word apply to horse hooves, well  now it does) by riding the animal with a full mug of beer without spilling any ... now that is a unique waiter

It is easy to see why Icelanders love their horses. Even to the point where they use their images to adorn the walls of their .. um .. bathrooms

After the horse show back on the road, travelling across the southern part of the country to look at .. what else .. another spectacular waterfall

This is Sigridarstofa, a waterfall on one of Iceland's numerous salmon rivers. There is, in fact, a salmon run down the side of the falls and the day we visited an ardent fisherman was taking advantage

On our way to our next waterfall we saw more Icelandic horses, this time in a more "natural" environment. Like the sheep here the horses are free range, during the summer they are allowed to roam where they please finding the best fodder and water

Our next waterfall was Gullfoss, the Golden Waterfall. This was to be our last waterfall in Iceland but it was a pretty spectacular one

Almost hidden in a deep valley, if it wasn't for the sound and the mist this waterfall could surprise you, falling down a series of terraces into a chasm 32 meters deep

Gullfoss is one of the most popular waterfalls in Iceland. Even on this cool and windy day there were tourists everywhere, including this incredibly attractive and powerful couple from Ontario Canada

Back on the bus and continuing along Iceland's famous Ring Road. The weather improved, still overcast and a bit cool but not as much rain. We stopped at one of the biggest tourist attractions on the Ring Road. Collette's pic below pretty much says it all

Yes, this is the area that gave us the word geyser, the first hot spring of its kind to be recorded in print by Europeans. This is an area with several hot springs and a few geysers, but the one that we came to see goes off about every  15 minutes or so. There was a lot of activity in the area besides the geyser itself

It was always fascinating to walk around these geothermal areas and be reminded that where you are walking, the crust of the earth is thinner than virtually any other place on the planet. Some of the water that was coming up to the surface was in excess of of 100 degrees Celcius.

But of course the main attraction at Geysir is, of course, the geyser (that is a real "duh" moment for you) and never having seen one in actuality before, it was definitely worth viewing. The "pot"  from which the geyser spews is constantly steaming and slowly roiling. Then every 15 minutes or so pressure mounts under the earth, pushing at the vast water table that lays under the entire site up through the relatively small opening; you could see this huge bubble of water pushing itself up until it exploded into a spume of water and steam about 70 meters high

 

We continued west back towards Reykjavik and the rain was following us now. Our next stop would have us move back in time. Iceland has one of the oldest and most firmly established democracies in Europe. The Althing, or general assembly, was created in 930 at Pingvellir, the assembly fields. This was where we were headed.

The current parliment is no longer at this location but we went to the spot that held the speakers stone where any person, regardless of economic or social standing could be represented, usually by someone else but you had the right to do so in person.

As in most of Iceland, there is also a geographical significance to this area. This is the continental divide, where east literally meets west. The southwest tip of iceland pretty much straddles this divide, which is why things are so active in this country.

For a place that encompassed massive tectonic plates at war with each other, and even in the cold blowing rain, a lot of it was quite idyllic. The water here was incredibly translucent, pooling amid the broken, moss backed volcanic rock

That's pretty much it for Day Eight. Forty five kliks later we were back where the trip started, in Reykjavik. We were a little tired but not jet lagged as we were the first time so we were looking forward to seeing the town, finding our new hotel and as much as we loved our bus tour, just not moving for a while.

ICELAND EDITED: DAY SEVEN

Vatnajokull, the Glacier of Rivers. It is not only the largest glacier in Iceland, it is by volume the largest ice cap in Europe. Over 3 square kilometers, rising to 1300 meters, comprising about 13% of Iceland's total mass

The national park named after the glacier is equally oversized, the largest in all of Europe. It is not only the jumping off point for excursions up on to the glacier, it is also home to Iceland's largest forest but of course, this island is not a place of forests.

We would not be going up on to the ice cap itself on this trip to Iceland. Perhaps next time. But we would be hiking up some 800 meters through the light forest and alpine meadows to gain a view of a massive glacial tongue, overlooking a broad glacial plain

The trail wound up through meadows and brush (an Icelandic notion of a forest differs greatly from a Canadian's I'll tell you that much) where Collette found these pretty little flowers, common to the south of Iceland

On our way up we passed by, guess what .. a waterfall. Everywhere you go in Iceland you pass by a waterfall. This one poured down over cliffs of basalt that time and the glacier had formed into impressive geometric patterns

We continued up, leaving the forest behind, giving way to glacier-carved vallies where giant moraines of rubble dotted the horizon

As we climbed the air became clearer, a bit thinner, it was another beautiful sunny day and we began to see the tongues of the great glacier dominating the skyline

Anna brought us to a place where we were surrounded by the glacier and far below us was vast plain with perfect circular lakes and long sinuous rivers created by the passage of the glacier thousands of years before

At the visitor centre of the national park we learned about the negative side of this incredible and beautiful natural wonder, that severe flooding from the glacier created a disaster that took many lives and changed the face of Iceland forever, diverting rivers and causing bridges to be rebuilt

Iceland is a remarkable country where its unique and powerful geography is both blessing and curse. This is a tough country; without real forests, early settlers relied upon driftwood from Siberia to build their boats and houses. Fish is abundant here but it was settlers from other regions who had to bring in boats big enough for true commercial fishing. There are many rivers rich with salmon but those rivers try to kill you. The volcanic soil is equally rich but those volcanoes regularly try to kill you.

We drove south through Eldhraun where two lava fields combine to create a space of about 560 square kilometers. This lava resulted from a year long eruption that was one of the most poisonous in history; about 80% of the animal population and over 20% of the human population was killed

But Iceland overall is not a bleak and lunar landscape. It is this country of clamorous waterfalls and rich green vallies where it's volcanic heretidge can suddenly appear in the most surprising and spectacular way

A beautiful landscaped occasionally used photo staging areas by ernest yet goofy tourists

We drove south, along the coast and as we did in the west, ran into more typical Icelandic coastal weather. The rain was coming in sheets off the Atlantic and it gave an eerie feeling to stone spires that we could see in the distance as we entered the area of Vik, the wool capital of Iceland

Vik is the southernmost village in Iceland and is known for its long black sand beach, caves that were once used by pirates, and cliffs that host  nesting puffins, birds that generally spend most of their lives at sea

And of course, in southern Iceland, Collette and I managed to find a border collie. OK, he wasn't a collie but he was a herding dog from a nearby sheep farm who came down to the beach to mug for the tourists and to herd the ATVs

The rainy cool weather followed us as we made our way to Seljalandsfoss, a large waterfall that you could actually walk behind

It was a crazy kind of day. We started off climbing through alpine pastures to look at a glacier. In the sunshine. We ended by walking a black sand beach and strolling behind a waterfall. In the rain.

That's Iceland. Here's the video