Day 11 – The Golden Circle

Up at 6:15 and out of my alien spacecraft at 6:30.  I transferred our laundry to the dryer (thinking ahead), and went back to Laugardalslaug.  This was the perfect time to be here.  It was all old people, who knew the ways of the pool.  I managed the whole process correctly, following by example, sat stewing stoically in the hot pots with the old birds, and even used the hair dryers and lockers properly.   Back to camp, I started breaking, packed the car, waked my bro and retrieved the laundry.

Off to the camera store.

This is a matter of perspective.  Was it tremendously lucky that they had the exact same model camera as Derek’s flooded DSLR (only one of them), and that it had recently been reduced by 500kr, or did it really suck that it was still roughly twice as much as he’d got his on eBay?  It didn’t take very much discussion.

We bought it.

I tried to strong arm them for a further discount (pre-arranged; Derek said “I can never do that”; I said “for a thousand bucks, I can”), but there was no dice.  This is Iceland, she said.  Things cost more here; suck it up.   To preempt any suspense, the other camera came back to life (but waited until it was back in Canada to do so), and we recouped plenty of the cost, eventually.  But even without that compensation, that camera was totally worth it.

We left with the exact same camera, well, two actually, slightly a weird feeling, but one new one, working exactly like the old (new) one, now packed back into the (new) box.   All the lenses and accoutrements matched perfectly.  Derek was as overjoyed to have his camera back in his hands as I was to be driving.  Back out towards þingvellir, assured that it was worth seeing, on a now familiar road, under a cloudless sky.  Free to choose our destiny, and able to stop anywhere we pleased.

It was a very good morning.  We were bursting with happy and excited again.

At þingvellir in the blazing sun we walked around the historic area.  I really wasn’t feeling the whole “original democracy” legacy of this place, where the landowners and tribe leaders of Iceland’s history first gathered to argue, barter, revel and agree on early laws in the shelter of the natural ampitheatre of rocks, but I really liked the rocks, and we wandered far down a fissure away from the ”central attraction”, then back along the water of þingvallvatn (vatn= lake), looking at ducks and the elite summerhouses, to the little þingvallakirkja (kirkja=church) and cemetery at the bottom of the rift.

We wandered rather circuitously and timelessly around the paths and rivers in the sun, then back up through the Neðrivellir to the big, grandly flagged platform that now stands at the Lögberg, and up through the grand rift Almannagjá that’s as wide as a road.  This place is a tectonic boundary where Europe and North America are tearing away from each other (well, all of Iceland results from that fault and the associated volcanic activity), and here (as in other places in Iceland) you can see the ground literally splitting apart.  It’s sobering.  You can look down into the cracks in the earth’s crust at your feet.  Wow.

I had no patience for the cutting edge multimedia centre at the top of the hill, but let me tell you, the WCs were amazing.  Don’t miss those.  The entire wall of the bathroom was glass, a window looking out into the plain.  All the sinks and faucets were strangely suspended and automatic- you just waved at everything and it worked.  It was striking, like a magazine or art gallery, only with the whole room wide open to the wild with that glass wall so large it didn’t seem to be there at all.  Very impressive.

We drove around the other end of the park to look at Oxarafoss.  Yep, another foss.  I liked this one, I wanted to climb right into it, and it was very strong and blustery, so I got very wet creeping around the edges like Gollum at the pool of Ithilien.  We took some fun pictures and took some pictures for the other group of tourists there, quietly eating lunch on the rocks.  Remarkable- we were only a few hundred metres down the way from the logjam of tourists at the Lögberg, and here at this lovely spunky waterfall, almost no one.

þingvellir is one third of the “Golden Circle”, a trio of attractions that are so close to Reykjavík that almost everyone, even weekend trippers to the city, makes this circuit of Iceland’s features.  A foss, a geysir, some history, and we’ve seen Iceland.  Thank you come again.  This circle is so hyped and so abundantly supplied by every tour company in Iceland that I was all for skipping it entirely, but we were told not to, so we didn’t.  Despite the high traffic it’s still worth it- good advice.

Headed for Laugarvatn, it seemed to be a lot farther than we thought, and the gas light came on as we stopped at the caves.  Why here?  There was a little knot sign, (exactly like the command key on a mac, hmm?),  so we stopped.

An aside about the knots:  these little knot signs are EVerywhere.  They mark every and all “points of interest”, large and small.  What we found, though, when we started stopping at them, was that every one was totally worth the stop, for completely diverse reasons.  Most don’t qualify to “make the guidebook”, but every one is special.  One could make a project of taking Iceland knot by knot.  I’d love to visit every single one.

This one was the Laugarvatn caves, that the interpretive sign told us had sheltered a herd of sheep in a terrible storm, and had also been home to two families.  The men had been great carpenters and built front walls and doors on the front of the caves, and made them deeper, too, to accommodate growing families.  Looking into the “raw” caves, dripping and dark, it was a stretch to imagine.   The sign also matter-of-factly mentioned the elves that were known to live here (!).  Not to get all woowoo, but that was palpable.  It was  very magical place.

In Laugarvatn in the nick of time to tank up, there was a tense moment when both of my credit cards and my brothers’ didn’t work.  At least Derek’s was explainable; he hadn’t informed the bank he was going to Iceland, and he’d used his card in that vending machine!  Lockdown.  That could be fixed.  No idea why mine stopped, but it was a moment of stress.  I decided to ignore the problem and see if it went away (it did, by the next day).

Who needs money though, we had a car with a full tank, and we were off to see Iceland’s largest waterfall, Gullfoss.  We’d seen a fair few fosses already, and were prepared to be underwhelmed, but this one was really, really, big.  Too big for any pictures to really get it across.  It was like Niagara, in fact. Huge.

The giant swath of water turned a corner and dropped over two major steps.   You could walk around on the cliffs above it and it was big, you could walk down in the canyon, get soaked in the mist, walk right up to it, and it was BIG.  Massive.

We ambled around, taking pictures from every possible viewpoint, hanging out on the cliff above with the mist rising up from the river.

Here we got a good picture of what Iceland thinks about tourists.  Either they have far too much faith in “average intelligence”, or they don’t mind if they lose a few in the drink every year.

No guardrails, just a shelf of rock projecting into the bend in the river, with parents taking pictures of their kids standing around on it.  You can lie down and touch the water, screaming past at murderous volume and speed.  Niagara; I’m not exaggerating, and you can just walk around next to it.  Slip near the edge, and no one would even hear you scream, you’d just be gone.  This place sees thousands of tourists a day.   I was marveling.

The risk was intoxicating, vertiginous.  It was so loud, and wet, and windy.  I can’t believe you can be that close to so much power, and no one tries to protect you from yourself with sturdy guard rails.  I was frequently scared out of my mind in Iceland, but it was fantastic.

Next stop, Geysir.  O.G., the Original Geysir.  Yep, the geysir that all geysers are named after.

Geysir proper, the original 80m waterspout, has become irregular, reacting badly to people throwing stuff into it in the past and now erupting an unpredictable few times a day, but a literal stone’s throw away is “little” Strökkur, going off every 3-7 minutes, all day.  I was totally enthralled; we stayed here till sundown, and I wore

out a camera battery taking pictures of it.  It was great sport trying to capture the whole thing with multi-shot sport settings and video- there was hardly any warning.

This living pool of water would surge, ebb and flow, seething and subsiding out of the cauldron in the rust coloured earth, then suddenly would bulge like an overturned bowl with a great turquoise bubble, and shoot into the air, showering the whole area downwind with boiling water, which would then dart like snakes back into the hole in the ground to gather energy and repeat.

Amazing!  Lots of false quickdraws on the shutter.

I did get pictures of the bubble though, the most transient and pregnant moment, too fast to ever catch with the camera except by anticipating it with guesswork.

Again with the cavalier attitude towards tourists- all that boiling water flying around and a thin crust of earth over volcanic activity everywhere, and there’s a few ankle high ropes suggesting you stay back from the scalding zones- lots of little pools, pots, and spouts.  “Haetta” (=hot).  There was a bowl of water a crazy blue here, too, and up the hill, another brass marker pin, like we’d see lots of.

We stayed for probably 40 eruptions as whole sets of other tourists came and went; I was still unwilling to be torn away, still shrieking with surprise every time it fooled me.  Happy and satisfied, we eventually drifted away near sunset, taking the 500 north from þingvellir over some kind of pass towards Snæfellsnes (nes=peninsula).

We stopped randomly on the highway to take many many pictures of some horses, who promptly came up to the fence to visit and then gazed wistfully at us when we left.  Too cute.  We stopped again for Derek to take pictures of the developing (ridiculous) sunset, and I wandered off eating blueberries for supper.  Blueberries everywhere!  You could feed an army on blueberries in August.

Farther into this dirt road (that had looked like a highway on the map) and our surroundings turned ominous, to ash and rock before the light faded.  When the light died, we were trapped between nowhere.  Fog settled like a cage, and I could only see the edges of the road, and that barely.   Luckily the edges of the “road” were rocks mounded up, as though the road had been created by a plow pushing through rock (it probably had been, by a grader).  It was rough.  Derek revised his opinion of Kokanee Glacier Park road as “worst dirt road ever” on the spot.

The road seemed to climb forever, then it went up and down, and never once did the fog break even for a breath. It’s a bit weird to not see any other cars on a road for 12 hours too, and a bit disconcerting.   It was very isolating, and surreal, listening to Björk on repeat, three times through Gling Glo before we snapped out of it (after 2 weeks with 4 cds, I’ve lost the urge to ever hear Gling Glo again).

I was hugging the wheel always squinting at the ground directly in front of me and tensed, ready to correct, for sheep, or precipices, or pedestrians- who knew what could pop out of the fog. It was very fatiguing, and even after I said Ok, I just can’t go on like this, it was another half hour before the road seemed wide enough anywhere to park.

When I did park, we could hear water running, and I went to investigate.   I stumbled around in the dark off the road into a patch of giant ankle-twisting hummocks of grass, but I was so thrilled to see grass at all that I pronounced it totally suitable for camping.  Derek demurred, and pronounced me crazy.

I “set up” my tent (I had to get into it to hold it down in the wind- the video Derek tried to take of me wrassling with my tent in the headlights shakes with his laughter), and he elected to sleep in the car, which was actually rocking in the wind as well.  I had to wriggle around to get myself comfortable, curving my body to fit around the big mounds of grass, and my tent was bending to the wind down to my face, but I passed out effortlessly and slept without moving all night.

Right away we started taking glamour shots of our car, because everywhere we parked looked like a car advertisement. We ended up with 100s of car commercial photos.

I had one of my best nights of sleep ever, with amazing dreams.  I was just starting to feel the magic of sleep in Iceland, as we started to get out into the edges, and pretty soon I was like a junkie for sleeping on the ground here.

I have never slept and dreamed the way I did in Iceland, even on hard tilted ground or wriggled between chunks of rock.  I’m going to abandon trying to describe it, because I can’t, but the air and the earth in Iceland made sleep and dreaming a whole new layer of spiritual experience.

I can’t stop using words of shock and awe, “most, best, ever, never, -est, -est, -est”- superlatives all.  It all seems like hyperbole, but it’s not.  Iceland is superlative.  The whole place is elemental.  I really did see the edges of my experience there, with almost everything natural.

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Day 23 – Reykjanes

Woke up to a windy, rainy day.  We packed the tents wet and got out of there to warm up in a morning bakarí.  I left Derek there handling some technology and went to the local pool – an excellent choice.  It was a small pool with a very hot steam bath.  The morning pool crowd was talkative and huddled into the hottest hot tub, as usual.

We drove out for the south edge of the Reykjanes peninsula but got stopped by the most unique art park ever.  There were these bizarre, colourful, creative installations, just set around in the grass, walking distance to each other.  A bristling group of birdhouses on tall skinny poles, hard bumps in primary colours, a rippled wall of steel with cogs and gears “settled” to the bottom.  It was a very surprising discovery.

Taking the 42 towards Grindavík, we knew there was a lot to take in on this small peninsula.  At Seltún there were sulphurous, boiling mud hot pots like Hverir, but on a hill, with boardwalk winding among the hot spots, red and blue swathes of colour on the ground everywhere.  These hot places in the crust are so alien.

A little farther up the road there’s Kleifarvatn, a moody, brooding lake surrounded by grey sand and black lava formations scooped and scoured by the wind.  Big chunks of strataed lava were marooned in the sand, everything around them eroded away.   That was an amazing place, even in the stormy weather.

Today the wind and rain dominated the story everywhere.  At Kleifarvatn we got to witness a trip of people struggle with a doomed attempt to use the wind.  They had a two line kite, but every time they lifted it, the wind either put it into a manic drilling corkscrew or just whipped it straight up and smashed it directly back down on the beach.  We were filming their antics from a distance when  the kite just broke off and got whipped into the bank.  I think it was too windy for kiting.

And people trying to fly kites wasn’t the most shocking spectacle we encountered on that road.  Milli Vanilli came on the radio (Bylgjan) – perhaps it was some kind of joke?, and even that was topped when we suddenly overtook a runner, all in black, jogging on the side of this packed gravel road in the middle of nowhere.  That was a surprise.  Someone out there at all, but in this weather?

Just after having a quick look at the ruins of the Krýsuvík church, we pulled in to park at the Krýsuvíkurberg bird cliffs.  The wind was kind of crazy now, here at the water.  The sea was crashing on the rocks in the water with big plumes of surf and mist was being blasted sideways.   Exploring any kind of cliffs was out of the question in the wind.  Could get bumped off in more ways than one doing something like that.

We meandered north to the Blue Lagoon and took pictures of the very photogenic blue water on jet black rock, and the power plant that created the Blue Lagoon spa destination.  We had a very indecisive debate about whether or not to go into the pools now, decided we would, and then, approaching the door, quailed at the 28€ fee, and beat a retreat.

Back to Grindavík.  Hoping for some wifi, we pulled into Lucky Luke’s hoping we’d get lucky with wifi, but no.  Got a big pizza and a cheeseburger, though, and played darts while we were waiting for our meal.

In Grindavík near the community center there was this interesting structure.  Very elaborate stonework, it must have taken forever – there were passages and a circular walkway.  None of it made sense and it was very small.  The tunnels would be comfortable only for a small child.  It was mystifying, but impressive.  Great stone working skills.

We carried on west, to the tip of the peninsula.  At Gunnuhver, another hot spot feature, the wind was ripping sideways, strong and steady, rolling away the steam from the hot spots.  We ran along the wet boardwalks, frozen by the knifing wind.  I could lean into the wind, literally, putting my center of balance backwards so far I could lift my toes, and as long as it didn’t gust, it would hold me.  I could do a few seconds at a time.  The wind was so loud we were yelling at each other and the mist and rain was soaking us, so we didn’t stay long.

This former viewpoint deck, totally swallowed by the changing hot crust was sobering.  It prompted Derek to remark “Hunh, extreme tourism.”

At Valahnúkur the weather was elemental, and the sun was going down.  Derek didn’t even get out of the car.  I walked out and could hardly keep my feet on the slick basalt rocks, flat and slippery.  I had to at least get a picture of the Great Auk memorial, a bronze bird standing motionless, sad and proud.  This place is disputed to be where the last Great Auk was had for lunch, a tragic reminder of the unique life being squandered and destroyed all over the planet.  The rocks here are beautiful, glistening black out of the grey foaming ocean, but it was just too wild.  I could barely risk peeking over the edge, the wind was flapping me around so much, so I scurried back to the car.

Miðlína, the “Bridge Between Two Continents”  (wooo, so exciting in capital letters), is totally gimmicky.  It’s not even a useful bridge, just a wooden bridge you can walk out on and say you’re standing between the North American and European plates.  One can stand between the plates all over in Iceland – the split goes through the whole country.  We were not impressed.  However, in the sandy floor of the ravine, lots of people had written messages with rocks and stones, like organic graffiti.  That was cool.

Now it was dark we went for Keflavík.  We went straight into the crowded town and slid straight into a parking place, like magic.  The hard part over, we walked to the park on the water, following the overall movement of people on foot.  It was Keflavík’s Ljósnótt, Night of Lights, a party with a big band stage and fireworks display.  Everywhere there were families, strollers, kids running around, grownups all with a beer in hand.

We walked through the outdoor tents jampacked with people jostling around the tables of artisans selling jewellery and crafts.  Icelanders have a bold, unique style in everything they make, and lots of these artisans have their work in stores around Reykjavík.  I’d seen it.

We wandered over to the water, as Derek wanted to get set up for the fireworks.  Children had swarmed the statues in the park, clustered all over the only vantage points.  On the rocks by the water, kids of all ages hopped around on the big rocks, and we chose our perch for the fireworks by a boy around ten who struck up conversation in stunningly perfect English.  He admired our tripod and excited, he told us the reason for the festival was that “Icelanders know how to PAR – TAY!”, in a sudden holler.

The fireworks were typical Iceland too, like in Reykjavík.  No slow intro, crescendos, pauses, or building finales.  It just came on in a fiery barrage, with the slightest hint of intensity (finale), just before the sudden, and complete end.  I don’t know why this approach to fireworks amuses me so much.  Just, full on.  The effects were cool – they had some water fireworks, and everything was reflected in the water between us.

After the clear but abrupt conclusion, the band started up and everyone gravitated to the field in front of the stage.  After a while, we quietly left, and drove out looking for a place to camp for the night.

Headed vaguely for Grindavík, where we’d seen a nice campground earlier, we drove on the quiet road crossing the peninsula.  I was drawn to turn up a random dirt road, which had these small signs posted that were very hard to read.  Finally, leaning out of the window and peering in the beam of a flashlight, we read “warning : Military firing range area…. any unexploded shells…” and had instructions for what to do and who to notify if you found undischarged ammo.  Okay then.  That sealed it for Derek, and he demanded to go to the campground.

I had a funny experience, though, as we drove away.  The compulsion that I should stay and not drive away burst up in me, and the feeling grew stronger and stronger the farther we got from the place.  By the time we reached the campground, I was nearly frantic with the certainty that I needed to go back to that road.

It was a pretty ridiculous desire though, devoid of logic, so I even set up my tent before I couldn’t stand it any longer.  Knowing I’d just lie awake if I didn’t go back, I finally brought it up to Derek, practically hopping with anxiety.  “So, how would you feel if I went back to that road we were at and came back in the morning for you?”

Derek let me know in no uncertain terms that he was now sure I’d completely lost my mind, saying “Well, that defies all logic,”, and “I can’t think of a worse place to spend the night.”  Finally he conceded “If you must”, and got all he needed out of the car for the night, shaking his head at me.  I almost left rubber in the parking lot.

I probably could have the road without headlights, the pull it was exerting on me was so strong.  It was a very short drive back to it, and I parked by the first warning sign.  The relief at being back was immense.  Grabbing my sleeping bag and mat, I started walking up the road, which seemed to head up a hill, but the feeling turned me around.  I felt like I a dowsing Goldilocks, walking back and forth in the total dark, looking for the place that felt just right.  It turned out to be a pile of cindery gravel on the shoulder of the road, right in front of the car’s bumper.  I threw my mat and sleeping bag out on the “ground” – it was pretty much a pile of big sharp lava rocks meeting a pile of gravel, and curled up in it with a sense of total perfection.

I can’t explain the “why” of any of this, but the feelings were clear and strong.  I had one of the best sleeps of my life that night.  I remember what it felt like and will always compare nights of incredible restfulness to that night.  In the morning I realized I hadn’t moved my body at all all night, and took a picture of the absurd place I’d lain, my body all bent around the rocks under me, head higher than my feet.  It makes no sense why I felt so strongly (very, very strongly) I had to sleep right there, and that I was so comfortable twisted up like that.  Record setting comfort.

Our days in Iceland were running out now, and we were both hoping that something would erupt, soon, so that we’d be grounded and forced to stay.

Alas, that happened only in my dreams.  That same night I had a vision in my sleep, the kind that you know has happened or will, with a different quality entirely from usual dreaming.  There was a mountain to the northeast of me, erupting in bright red lava.  I was just watching it, and there were no indications of time or era – past or future.  In the morning I immediately looked for the mountain I’d seen at night.  It’s not there.

More pictures from Reykjanes.  My conclusion – seems less traveled, although so close to Reyk and Kef, and crowded with worthwhile attractions.

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