Decision number one, which direction do we drive the major highway (ring road) around? We chose counter clockwise as there were more stops and attractions in the south and longer drives in the north and west. We took a short 5 hour flight on Icelandair, an efficient and organized airline (but no meal so BYO snacks) and arrived in Keflavik which is almost an hour from the capital city, Reykjavik. Our first stop was the infamous Blue Lagoon, a rather touristy yet eye opening outdoor, hot, public pool. 85% of Iceland's power is generated by geothermal energy, so these hot baths are littered across the island. The lagoon was yes, blue, rocky bottom and was surrounded by a surreal landscape of moon rock looking lava rock. We also put on white mud to aid in anti aging, think it works? Hot water smells like sulphur aka egg farts, so if you go, don't be alarmed by the random smell of eggs, it means hot water is bubbling up somewhere!
We rented a car for the 12 days, which, was not cheap $1500CAD, but we made up for it by camping each night for avg $12/person per night at a campsite with washroom facilities and hot water (of course bc it runs rampant underground). We also filled our water bottles up in any sink anywhere. Water is free, fresh, and delicious! If you have the time and are not doing Iceland as a stopover to Europe (marketing pitch-you can fly Icelandair to euro and do a free up to 7 day layover) then it's advisable to rent a car to see the best that Iceland has to offer. I think it's 1,400 km around the ring road, so busing or hitchhiking (yes some people do!) it would be less than fun. However there are loads of day trips from Reykjavik.
I did a lot of research before leaving and planned out our journey, but getting yourself to the plethora of Tourist Info places will help you loads along the way. They'll give you city maps that you can't always find in the lonely planet (ps I want to work for lonely planet and get paid to travel -anyone have connections??). Day one was spent in awe in Reykjavik enjoying the cute cobblestone streets and colourful roofed buildings. They have almost a hipster vibe at times down the main shopping street. Vegan and 2nd hand stores juxtaposed with traditional Icelandic wool sweater stores and boutiques. Icelandic food? Lamb, fish (lots of it), skyr Greek style yogurt,black liquorice filled candies, hotdogs, and micro brewed beer. Puffin and whale meat have their controversies as you can imagine. Bonus! The name of budget grocery store that offers complimentary coffee (thank you Bonus for my daily caffeine fix) and everything you need to eat on the road. This store will be your best friend. Heed caution before tossing things into your basket! Uber expensive compared to home, but hey, they're an island. Apple-$2.50, dozen eggs -$7, yogurt cup- $2, bread-$5-$10, beer- $8. They use krona as currency and if you kept up with the financial reports, their major banks claimed bankruptcy in 2008. They still use the krona, not Euro, and are very proud of their nation, arts, farming, and fishing. Biggest money makers? Tourism, fishing, and aluminium. They're also building a contraption apparently connecting to England to sell their geothermal energy...abundant and clean! There's no free lunch in Iceland, just free water. If you're considering visiting, I'd do so sooner than later because it could become more expensive as their economy repairs.
320,000 people make up the population with more than 1/2 living in Reykjavik. But there are enough people spread around the country to keep the farming and fishing industries up and to appease us as tourists. We learned that a lot of kids take their uni online and stay in their small towns to take over the farm or family business and don't often take off running for the major city or other parts of the world. They're proud and patriotic. They're a nation made of Vikings/Irish women once upon a time and they're kind, helpful, and generous. They all speak Icelandic and English. Just the older generations may not speak English. For the most part they use an alphabet like ours, with no Z and a couple extra letters that look like a short p and make a th sound. They also have a letter that's a lower case a and e merged which I believe makes kind of a long i. There are dots and dashes on some letters and most words are 10-20 letters long, or more!
I'd say I had wishful thinking as I had packed some shorts and tanks. 12 C is the average in the summer, and the wind and rain can make you want to layer up, but it comes and goes. There's perpetual brightness as the sun only partially set from about midnight to 4 am. Sleep mask required in the summer! Of course no northern lights for us, but if you go in the winter you'll see them. It's cold (but surprisingly only avg -10C) and windy, so take the good with the not so good!
Iceland is split up into sections. Reykjavik area, west, west fjords, north, east, south, and highlands (this is the center where you need 4 wheel drive trucks and there are mountains, glaciers, and potty roads). We mostly drove the ring road, but got off often to see the sights along the coast and to drive in and out of the fjords.
Counterclockwise to the south we went to see the Thingvellir provincial park where laws were made and recited back in the day and where two tectonic plate are moving apart 2cm each year. Off to the geysers, an abundance of hot water pushing up the cool surface water creating w massive eruption and lots of steam. This big one goes off every 5-7 min. Then a magnificent waterfall called Gulfoss blew our minds and was topped off with a stunning rainbow.
We hiked a lot to incredible sites and hot rivers or hot pots (hot tub in the rocks-au natural) near Hella. We saw black sandy beaches and hexagonal columns of basalt volcanic rock in Vik. Animal sightings? Viking horses (never been interbreed with others), sheep (alllll over the roadside and road! The farmers let them roam and graze all summer and have a drunken time/party on horses gathering the tagged sheep up in September). Also cows, birds---tonnes of bird species inc cute puffins!, and sea life like whales, sea lions, seals. Little to no trees, so a lot of birds are water loving birds.
We were awestruck at the glacier, Vatnajokull, the largest in Europe and learned that a lot of these volcanoes lie under the several glaciers, causing more flooding damage to the country than hot lava tragedies. We walked on the glacier (Interstellar and Bat Man movies were filmed here) and saw a lot of fissures or cracks in the ice which had blue water for metres. We also did some ice climbing in a naturally made tunnel from the rushing water. This country is a geologist's dreamland. Then off to Jokulsarlon, a lagoon with floating ice blocks and sea lions! Stunning!!!
The eastern fjords shed some light onto the daily life of fishing families and we understood better the laid back lifestyle of Icelanders. It wasn't until the 70s that the east was easily accessible from Reykjavik, so sometimes the easterners were 'out of touch' so to speak, but they didn't seem to have minded. We stopped by an amazing rock and mineral collection with geodes galore! Petra, now deceased, had collected 1000s of rocks in the eastern fjords over her lifetime and displayed them around her home. People began stopping in to see and for 15 years she didn't charge a krona. It wasn't until she decided to put in a bathroom for tourists that she began to charge. Now her daughters and grandkids run it during the summer months.
Icelandic fun fact: Last names are not family names like ours, instead they say 'son or daughter' of their father's first name. ie Leifur Eiriksson is Leifur the son of Eirik. Women don't take the name of their husband, they keep their own ie Pordis Haraldsdottir (the daughter of Harald).
To the north we go! Stopping over for w bit at Lake Myvatn and visiting another incredible hot swimming pool like the blue lagoon. Myvatn is home to a massive volcanic crater and loads of pseudocraters. It also has so much bird life and volcanic lava fields that look like black chimneys. This is where the 13 Yule Lads (aka their Santa) live. They leave gifts of you're good or potatoes if you're not! They are dwarf like creatures and are all known for their individual silly personalities. Most Icelanders believe to some degree or another in troll/dwarf like creatures ... But they're not super keep to admit it! They're all over the gift shops!
Akureyri the second largest city and another beaut! It's here we had lamb burgers at the Hamburger Factory and checked out the shops and coffee places along the city's main drag. Then we heading to a gorgeous infinity pool in Hofsos that overlooked the Atlantic, also played catch with the cutest little Icelandic toddler.
Viking Rafting, south of Varmhlio, home of white water rafting, an experience I had to get mom to agree on before leaving Toronto. I knew if I could get her there, she'd be hooked, as I am after rafting in Austria, Australia, and Peru! We pitched our tent out back the night before and got to know the guys running the show. They're from Kenya, Greenland, Nepal, Hungary, and Quebec! Nice little UN they have going there. Microbrews and some chatting led us up to the big day of rafting. Mom did great! Rapids were phenomenal and we did some 'unexpected' overturns to pump the adrenaline even more! Cliff jumping and waffles with a local farmer's wife's homemade whipped cream and rhubarb jam, and we were sad to say goodbye to our new rafting friends from Aus and the staff.
Western fjords! Driving experience required! Weaving in and out for hours on mountain cliffs with nothing but the Atlantic below. White knuckling and yielding for sheep crossing summed up a lot of hours. But we stopped for cool little museums about witchcraft in Holmavik, fish and chips along the coast, and best of all...a colony of puffins on the cliffs in Latrabjarg!! Puffins make their way to land to nest from May-August and build burrows along the edge of the cliffs to lay eggs and nest. Mid August they set sail for the ocean again. They were super tame and incredible cute!
West Iceland offered us a pretty unique (**cough-yucky) snack of petrified shark near Stykkisholmur. Because so much of Iceland was isolated with the mid-highlands and the windy weather making it hard to travel, the west had to depend on the sea for their food. 100s of years ago they caught shark and realized if they buried if for months, then hung it to dry for a few more months then the meat would not be poisonous anymore. They don't season or smoke it, now it's eaten only on a special occasion. It's putrid and tastes a bit like ammonia. But, when in Rome, right?
Back to Reykjavik for one last bite of lobster soup at the Sea Baron, a family owned restaurant, an interesting museum of animal's phallic parts...a whale's??? Taller than me!!! We checked out some of the PRIDE events going on that weekend, walked the coast near the Harpa, the new concert hall, and felt we were now experts compared to 12 days prior walking the same streets.
But the journey doesn't end just yet. We toured the peninsula where the airport is to see several strokurs (columns of hot steam from natural springs). These natural springs spout out water so beware because temps are boiling at 100C. There's a hydro plant near Grindavik using all natural energy, which is great! And a bridge built between the North Atlantic and Eurasian tectonic plates. These plates are spreading apart 2cm each year...hence all of the volcanic activity. Nearer to the airport you'll see unused army barracks and army shooting ranges. The U.S. Army was present from the 40s to 2006. I was surprised to learn that Iceland doesn't have an army of its own. A safe, clean energy, friendly country-what a haven! As you can imagine, mom and I are feeling a bit blue about leaving for here. One piece of advice, if you've always wanted to go or never even considered going to Iceland...Nike said it best. Just do it!
Incredible Iceland marks country 32 on my list. Next up? Central America!
Volcanic crater, geyser, Golfoss waterfall
Basalt columns, black sand beaches, Viking horses, hot river dips
Glacier walk, ice block lagoon
Infinity pool, local kiddies, mountain side drives
Road blocks
Puffins, hot pot tubs, tenting it
Green lake, lobster soup, tectonic plate gap, hot spring, whale penis! :/
White water rafting
No comments:
Post a Comment