Fire and Ice: Iceland

Wbat we were in Iceland for!

We left Paris in 32˚ C weather, successfully making our way to Charles De Gaulle airport via public transportation .  We got off the plane some 5 hours later to wind, rain, and 4˚C weather in Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport.  The sharp wind was a shock as we walked across the tarmac to the terminal.  Before we’d come to Spain, Todd and I had discussed—briefly—the possibility of being stationed in Iceland, a move that we hoped would help get us to Spain, since Iceland was a “hardship tour” for a year, and Rota its reward.  Those plans were squashed when the U.S. closed the base in 2007. 

Lava, lava everywhere

We drove to our Flying Viking Guesthouse, nearly pushed off the road several times in our heavily-loaded Nissan Micra by gale-force winds.  Once we were settled at the guesthouse, a non-descript place despite its enticing name, we ventured out into Reykjavik, layering on nearly all the clothes we’d brought.  Sticker shock hit us pretty quickly—a meal of 2 appetizers, a bowl of soup and an entrée of bacon-wrapped minke whale cost over $100.  Welcome to Iceland!

Iceland: land of expansive vistas

Iceland Air offers a free stopover for all intercontinental flights, which has increased the tourism drastically in this tiny country of only 335,000 inhabitants, 2/3 of whom live in the greater Reykjavik area.  2015 was the first year in which tourism surpassed fishing as the nation’s economic heavyweight. 

Impressive Iceland

Despite its tiny size, Iceland fielded a men’s soccer team that beat England in the Olympic games this summer, while their women’s team is undefeated AND unscored-on this season, securing them a spot in the International Games.  They also have managed to put together a basketball team good enough to compete at the ___ games.   Quite impressive—Icelanders are clearly from hardy Viking stock! 

On the bank just before Godafoss

The next day we left the rain in Reykjavik behind, heading northwest up the Ring Road, a two-lane highway that circumnavigates the island.  This is Iceland’s biggest and most-traveled road, but still, we saw few other cars once we left the capital.  We got lost for a while looking for waterfalls on the way to the Icelandic Goat Center, and Todd remained incensed about the price of the tour ($38 for our family of four through the goat barn) which in his mind rapidly increased to 90 euros and more.  Yes, pricey for the priviledge of stomping through goat poop, but the little goats are so sweet, the big goats so gorgeous (several of them had starred in episodes of Game of Thrones), and we got a bonus tour of the kitten families in the stables next door. 

We loved the goats

The scenery is spectacular, wild and otherworldly, with steam vents on occasion, the vegetation turning gold and red moving into autumn.  We kept a lookout for a sign with a head in waves and a thermometer, which indicated some sort of geothermal pool.  In Bakkaflotbar we found one, a sterile tile-and-concrete no-frills affair with deliciously hot water in its fiberglass tubs.  There we met Mitch who, small world!, had dated my cousin Lily in Carmichael, California.  Funny.

Exploring the hot springs that burble up everywhere

We drove on, relaxed and toasty from the sulphury water, to a lovely apartment overlooking the bay with a view to Iceland’s second-largest city, Akureyri (population 18,000).   The next day we headed off to Husavik for whale watching, as the weather in the North was sunny and clear.  Two humpbacks and a pod of pilot whales later, we got off the water and headed towards more geothermal excitement.  Enroute to the Myrvatn Nature Baths (aka the Mini-Blue-Lagoon), we climbed the Hverfall, a beautifully symmetrical tephra crater, and gawked at the fumaroles and mud pots of Namaskard.  For every sight we saw, we passed up 4 or 5 others, driving home the painful realization that a week in Iceland is not nearly enough time to take it all in. 

Roadside geology lesson

The Myrvatn Baths were spectacular:  large outdoor pools of varying temperatures up on a ridge with an infinity-edge that dropped off into a valley of volcanic peaks and mesas and ringed by clouds of varying greys, whites, and blues.  At sunset the sky flamed golden for a good half-hour, creating the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen.  We finally left at 9:30 pm, wrinkled and waterlogged and thoroughly relaxed.

Steamy paradise

We hustled out the next morning to head south again, having barely explored the area.  The guidebook said that the inland F roads were meant for more-rugged 4x4s, so we returned via the Ring Road after testing out for ourselves how ill-equipped our little Micra rental car was on these gravelly, pot-hole-ridden lanes.  (Todd said, in so many words, “Told you so.”)

Beautiful farms around every corner

Next stop:  The Golden Circle.  This is Iceland’s most visited region, close to Reykjavik and accessible to layover travelers and a multitude of tour buses, jeep tours, and Monster truck-vans.  We rented a cute little cabin up on the slopes with its own sulphur-water hot tub to explore the area. 

Thermal beauty

That evening we checked out the lake (the guidebook said the lake was 104˚F, so we brought our swimsuits, but that must have been an average temperature, because we found only either scalding hot or freezing cold lake waters), and we headed over to Geysir, the birthplace of the name geyser for these fabulous spectacles.  Stand by the roped-off area and watch the water roil and churn.  Something is going on down there!  Without warning the water and steam come hurtling skyward with a deafening roar, all at once.  Even if you are expecting it, it makes you jump.  

Perfect at sunset

Icelandic horses (don’t call them ponies!) are everywhere.  Charming, shaggy, long-maned, and friendly, these horses come in a variety of colors, many of which don’t exist in other horse breeds.  We found a farm who could accommodate us later that day for a riding tour, and headed over to Gullfoss waterfall.

Autumn around Godafoss falls up in the North

Gullfoss is Iceland’s most famous falls, cascading down two levels over basalt rock lips and a combined 32-meter drop to thunder through a 2-km gorge.  In 1907, two Norwegian entrepreneurs tried to buy the falls from farmer Bjorn Brosohn in order to dam the river and create hydroelectric power; when he refused to sell (“Why would I sell and destroy my friend Gullfoss?”), they overrode him and leased the rights to the water from the Icelandic government.  Bjorn’s daughter Selfig started a campaign that lasted the rest of her life to protect the falls from destruction, even threatening at one point to throw herself over the falls if it came to that.  Finally in 1927, the lease was cancelled due to non-payment, and Gullfoss because Iceland’s most-visited waterfalls.  They are spectacular and wild.

Spectacular

That afternoon we saddled up on four sturdy Icelandic horses with our guide, Marie, a Norwegian who had fallen in love with both the horses and Iceland as well.  Sasha rode Trixli, a shaggy black guy with a curious white mark on his neck.  I got Vlitka, a ginger-colored mare, while Todd bounced along on Mosey.  Tia got the most gorgeous and, it turned out, the most accomplished tolter, Nero.  Nero was that curious horse-color only seen here, a brown that varied from dark to light, with a dark stripe down his otherwise lighter-colored back.  His immense mane was nearly black, except for a cascade of blonde in the top layer.  Nero was an expert tolter.  The tölt is a gait unique to the Icelandic horse; it is a very smooth gate, between a walk and a trot that is extremely comfortable over long distances.  Tia’s butt didn’t move out of the saddle, as Nero’s preferred gate was clearly the tölt.   The rest of us had to work a little harder to find this smooth ride. 

The tolting Icelandic horse

We traveled up into the Icelandic countryside at a good clip, moving alongside a rushing blue-turquoise river into the foothills.  We forded streams and clopped at times through thick mud, but mostly we tölted or galloped along lava-gravelled paths through the autumn scrub forests.  Magical.

Tolting along

That evening we were invited to dinner by Birna and Eli, friends from El Puerto who had lived in the same flat owned by our friends Conchi and Luis where we first started our Spanish adventure.  We lolled about in their wonderfully steaming hot tub to warm up after our ride.  Birna pulled out all the stops in her charming and quaintly decorated cabin that her husband Eli had built over the years, serving us dried cod with butter, smoked lamb on flatbread, Icelandic leg of lamb (Best. Lamb. Ever!!) and lamb tenderloin with mushroom gravy, sautéed onions, roasted veggies and potatoes.  A Viking feast with skyr, the local skim-milk-yoghurt-type dessert, and coffee to finish up, along with hand-made chocolate truffles from Birna’s brother-in-law Hafladi, who owns a world-class bakery in Mosfellbaer near Reykjavik.  Hafladi’s son Siggy rounded out the dinner guest list; although just 19, he spent the last 3 months volunteering in an orphanage in South Africa, a looooong way away from Iceland!

Majestic waterfalls dot the island

This year Todd and I decided to home-school the girls.  The reasons were multiple, not necessarily in this order:  1) They were 12 and 14, still young enough to actually WANT to travel around with us; 2) We were transitioning from Spain to the U.S., and they didn’t have an established friend group there that they would miss; 3) After 5 years in Spanish public school, they knew a great deal about Spanish and European history, but very little about the U.S.; 4) They’d traveled extensively in Europe and Spain, but almost nothing in the U.S. (that they could remember, at least!), and there are many places in the U.S. that Todd and I have wanted to visit as well; and 5) it’s been a lifelong dream for me to have just two students to focus all my considerable teaching acumen on while designing the curriculum to take advantage of all the cool places we would travel.

Definitely a place worth learning about!

That education has begun here in Iceland.  Iceland was formed on the Mid-Atlantic ridge due to an additional hot spot in the Earth’s crust that spurted enough lava to form this island.  This information only became available after the U.S. Navy mapped the ocean floor of the Atlantic, revealing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and confirmation of seafloor spreading and movement of the continental plates.  The Thingvellir National Park holds the above-sea-level portion of this ridge, providing a close-up glimpse of tectonic plates spreading at the rate of two inches per year.   Their first quiz will be on Icelandic geology! 

Splitting the continents

We walked the gorge between the North American and Eurasian plates in a freezing rain, inadequately dressed despite our best carry-on-suitcase-sized efforts.  We read the placards describing the Althing, the parliamentary meetings held each year in Thingvellir, its broad valley stretching out across the European plate, with the girls hurrying me from one landmark to the next in order to get back to the car.  It was beautiful and icy, and I could only wonder what January here was like if mid-September was already so sharp.  We hightailed it back to our little cabin to enjoy the sulphury hot tub one more time. 

I was fascinated by this ridge...the girls, not so much

After packing up and mopping the floor the next morning (no cleaning fees = you do the cleaning), we headed to our new friend Haflidi’s Mosfellbakari.  Haflidi is an Icelandic entrepreneur, having taken over an old bakery and transforming it into the most decadent and lovely pastry/dessert/café shop I have yet seen.  Haflidi spent several years learning his trade, and became good enough to land a gig baking for the Sheik of Saudi Arabia for four months as his personal chocolatier.   We chatted about Icelandic history over bowls of chicken curry soup, caramel cinnamon buns, and almond twists, and Haflidi loaded us up with boxes of chocolates when we left. 

Our new lcelandic friend

Our last night was spent on the Reykjanes peninsula in the south, in a tiny new cabin on the edge of a lava field that met the ocean not so long ago.  Rare mosses covered the black stones, and steaming thermal springs power the waters of the famous Blue Lagoon.  We spent the afternoon through the evening there, smearing our faces with white silica mud repeatedly, and lounging in the milky blue waters.

Corny but cool

That night we snuggled down into our double-sized bunk beds.  “Who has looked for the Northern Lights?”  I joked, as the on-and-off rain had squelched our hopes, along with the knowledge that September was often too early to see them.  Sasha peeked out the window.  “What are those??  I think I see them!” she shrieked.  We all ran outside in the icy cold to gape at the growing green illuminations, which spread across the sky underneath the Big Dipper.  We slipped in and out of the house for the next fifteen minutes, marveling at the green glowing streaks fringed with red, until the cloud cover blanketed the sky and hid them once again.

Icelandic magic

But what about the water slides Aunt Suzi had talked about?  We had not slid down a single slide, nor visited a single public pool that exist in every small town.  Luckily, the public pool at ___ on our way to the airport was open, and two twisty-turny slides, one orange and one turquoise blue, beckoned from the road.  We stopped for a last warm-water swim, enjoying the steaming water that burbled from the top of the slide, rocketing down the dark rainbow-striped tubes, and hopping from pool to pool before heading out to the airport. 

Basic but fun

Our most important realization?  That Iceland, with all its spectacular beauty, deserves another, longer visit!

We'll be back to visit you!