SPRING BREAK 2010: Grand Tour
Day 2 (27 March): Iceland, Day 2
Hengill hike, Sólheimajökull glacier hike, The Volcano Show
Early the next morning, I set out on the Fire & Ice Tour with a couple from Manchester, a cute little accountant from outside London, and Joanna, a young woman from Sweden who was stopping through Reykjavík on her way to a new job in Ísafjörður, a small town in northwest Iceland. We formed quite a cute little group, rounded out our amazing guide Sigurjón Sigurgeirsson (brilliant, I know) but English-ized to “Sean”. But since we've established my fluency in Icelandic, Sigurjón it is.
Our day began with a hike through the area around the Hengill volcano (don’t get excited, a snoozer - last eruption around 2,000 years ago), about 40km from Reykjavík. Only a few steps in, we spied over the hills some serious smokin’, so we went to investigate. We came upon a massive cloud of hot steam emitting from the Earth. I mentioned this sensation in Day 1’s post, but hindsight is 20/20: this epic sight was truly the first time I was really tuned into how alive the Earth is. It was a little bit of terror and a little bit of disbelief and a lot of fascination.
It was massive and chaotic and humbling. To imagine that the Earth just sits around doing stuff like this all the time! Geysers are awesome (wait for tomorrow) and everything, but to see one out in the real world, functioning not as a tourist attraction but as a real, living, natural thing, was incredible.
The ground undulates over small hills of lava covered in grass, making for an interesting hike. It was a little like walking on a mattress; the lichen that coats the lava field is fluffy due to constant freezing and thawing that makes it super-saturated. There’s a more scientific explanation, but I ain’t got it. Fluffy is as scientific as I get.
By the midpoint of our hike, we were in this valley and gallivanting around in the streams that you can see shhmokin’.
And, we’re down!
This may or may not be paradise. I am thinking Option A.
This Y marks not the union of US-290 and Highway 70, but the point at which a natural hot stream meets with a naturally frigid one to create a pool the perfect temperature for a dip (seriously, Mama N is GOOD). Of course, silly me forgot my swimsuit so I just wandered around the valley and tried not to creepily linger around my bathing companions.
After drying off we made our way back to the van and hopped in for an hour or two’s drive (read: an hour or two’s nap) westward to the Mýrdalsjökull glacier where we were to complete the tour with some time on Ice. Of course, the ride itself was sightseeing enough, because Iceland’s just like that.
Glaciers can be very big. In fact, over one-tenth of Iceland is covered by glaciers!
Since I am super-pro glacier hiker I knew all this already and so I hopped into my harness and grampons, grabbed my ice axe, and away I went!
(Because obviously all super-pro hikers bring cross-body purses with them on glacier hikes. It complemented my ugly Icelandic-gas-station sunglasses well, I thought.) That’s Sólheimajökull, soon to be known as glacier-that-I-conquered.
…Which is actually a very over-confident statement to be making, given that hiking on ice is kind of actually very difficult, and unnerving for the first few minutes. Also there are big cavities like this one so it could be said that Sólheimajökull puts up a good fight. We walked along and passed many a crevasse, cool ice formations, and even an ice tunnel!
Looking back down the tongue, from one of our highest points. We didn’t go all that incredibly far onto the tongue (they didn’t know how much of a super-pro glacier hiker I am, I guess), but even just being on it at all meant that Sigurjón had to radio back to headquarters. Mýrdalsjökull is directly next to Eyjafjallajökull, the now-infamous glacier under which a volcano had erupted a week earlier, predicted to trigger other eruptions of too-long dormant volcanoes, including ones immediately under us. Exhilirating, right? Of course, what ended up happening was this whole deal, which we all know sucked and ruined everything and blah blah blah; but I’m going to be selfish and say that it was a good thing it happened two weeks later and not right then, because Sigurjón, ever the good guide, assured us that in the event of such excitement, he’d “still be our guide, but I’m not going to wait for you.” (So, yes, everyone, I did it. I hiked too hard on that stuff and the rest is history. To quote my own dear mother, “Are you responsible for shifting the tectonic plates or something that has caused this major eruption? I always knew you were going to change the world!”)
Remember that ice tunnel I mentioned earlier? Me and my girl Joanna came back upon it on our way down, stopped to look again, and next thing we knew Sigurjón was taking our ice axes from us and telling us he’d meet us on the other end. So in we went!
Beginning the trek back to Reykjavík, we were able to catch a glimpse of the Vestmannaeyjar Islands right off the southern coast of Iceland. One of these, Surtsey, was formed by an underwater volcanic eruption in 1963 – baby land! Today, it’s inhabited only by scientists who are studying the colonization of plant life. I asked how one would go about purchasing newly created lands (it’s the accountant, not the spoiled brat, in me, I promise!) but my fellows were not too entertained by my Veruca Salt-esque question. But really y’all, I don’t want to own it, I just love it: our Earth is so alive, and is so still growing! It’s mindblowing to think that in a country the size of Kentucky, there are lava fields dating from 16 million years ago (but these are still considered young) and then new islands born more recently than my parents (but just barely – hope y’all aren’t trying to keep those numbers secret!).
After another car ride (so, after another nap), we stopped quickly at an unidentified waterfall. The cliff featured a fantastic ledge to walk along behind the cascade, which was real nice because it meant I didn’t have to take a shower that night. Just kidding. Sort of.
Once back in Reykjavík, I shed a few layers and endured the aura of the world’s smelliest man in exchange for directions to The Volcano Show. I figured neither the 10-hour hike nor 45,000ISK ($450) helicopter ride were plausible additions to my trip, so I settled for the movie version. Adventure tourism as done by a lazy American.
On the way, I took a break at Lake Tjornin to make some friends and enjoy the sunset.
The Volcano Show was back-to-back showings of films by Ósvalt and Villi Knudsen, a father-son team who have devoted their lives to following all of Iceland’s volcanic activity over the past 75 years. The first film was a history lesson of Icelandic volcanoes; the second detailed the 1973 eruption of Eldfell on Haimaey, another one of those Vestmannaeyjar Islands we saw earlier. I loved learning about all of it through the eyes of someone so devoted to it; the theatre is actually in the ground floor of Villi’s house, and his screening room is on the other side of the entry hall! I chatted with him for a few minutes after the show, but was honestly a little starstruck and forgot all the questions that I was burning to ask during the show.
Then I followed suggestions of my hiker friends and hit up Saegreifinn, right on the harbor for some much-needed dinner.
The restaurant is a down-to-earth establishment with three long tables and buckets for chairs, and it was just what I was looking for. I worried finding casual eating would be hard in a city as expensive and trendy as Reykjavík, but Saegreifinn quelled all such fears and filled me up nicely. The skewers in the cooler are the only available form of menu; you order the meats at the counter and they bring them to you grilled and delicious a few minutes later.
I couldn’t wait for any grilling to occur, so I started out with what many sources have called the world’s best lobster soup, an assertion that I believe to be 110% true. And those Icelanders make a mean white bread, let me tell you. And butter, too. Basically, Iceland rules at everything. My main course was a skewer of cod, and then two girls sitting down the table from me offered me their second helping of trout that they couldn’t fit in – I found room for it and it was DELICIOUS. I crawled into my bed that night a very full, very satisfied little camper, feeling accomplished after another day of exploring and already looking forward the next adventure that was just hours away!
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