Well, folks, I’ve made it to Iceland in one piece, and am still intact for the most part. Took a nice, epic fall at the bonfire the last night in Germany, and somehow only managed to bruise my left ring finger. Don’t ask how; probably my natural grace that comes and goes Anyhow, I’m here in Iceland, and very sad there are only two days left! However, I am getting to the point where I’m ready to be home, but don’t tell anyone that though!
All right where to start, where to start? So much has been packed into these short past few days!
My first thought upon landing in Iceland and then driving to the hostel was that I’ve landed on the moon! No joke! This is the ultimate cliché but very true. The southeastern portion of Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic ridges for you budding geologists, and as such this area is very tectonically active, with the North American and Eurasian plates slowly breaking apart over the last 40,000 years! Okay, so that was a lot geek speak. Basically it means lots of earthquakes, and of course, volcanoes! So, the lunar landscape look to this area of Iceland comes from the many volcanic eruptions over the years. It’s very neat looking, desert like, nothing really growing, but still cool. We drove out to a spot where the splitting of the two plates was very visible. For a few minutes I got to stand both in Eurasia and North America at the same time!
The second day in Iceland we were up early to catch a ferry to the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman) Islands. We had calm seas heading to the Islands, but it’s definitely a bit more than taking the ferry on Lake Superior, even in calm weather. Fortunately there was no seasickness here! The Westmans are a cluster of 18 Islands, the largest which has a community of about 4500 people. The Westmans also are home to millions of seabirds, MILLIONS!!! Puffins are the poster child of Iceland (and the national bird). If I remember correctly Iceland is home to 1/3 of the world’s population of puffins!
Once we made it to the island, the bad weather began to settle in. Rain, rain, wind, and a bit more rain. Our plans to take a boat tour around the islands were put on the back burner for a while and in the mean time, what did we do? Climbed a volcano! Yes, we really did, in the rain and the wind, all up around, and in the crater in the fog, hardly able to see where we were, much less where we were headed. At the time, I hated it and wanted nothing but to be in my bed, but at the end, I was glad we did it. Turns out the volcano we climbed (now dormant) pulled a Mt. St. Helens even before Mt. St. Helens decided to erupt. This volcano, having been dormant for over 4,000 years, erupted without warning in 1973 and went on for six months. There were over 400 homes that were buried in the lava and ash. Amazingly no one died in the whole event! After our volcano hike, we walked though a project area where homes that were buried are now being excavated. They are calling the project “Pompeii of the North.” It was actually very neat. In one of the homes, you could see pipes and remnants of kitchen wear and furniture.
After the volcano hike, the weather decided to tone it down a bit and we were able to do our boat tour, which was awesome!!! We went all around the Islands, into caves, saw tons of seabirds and a jellyfish or two. In the last cave we went into, our captain pulled out a saxophone and gave us a little recital. The acoustics in this cave were almost better than sitting in a cathedral!
The next day, as it turned out, was just as rainy and windy as the day before. We took a bus tour of the island, up to the third windiest point in the world to see puffin burrows. We were supposed to help with puffin surveying, but with all the rain, it wasn’t possible, much to everyone’s dismay. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip. Instead, we had a few lectures by the “Puffin Daddy” as Einar (Ay-nar) our—awesome—guide referred to the gentleman who conducts the research. Mainly his work consists of population surveying and the possible links to the decline in many of the species of seabirds around Iceland. One of the big causes, as with a lot of species now, is climate change.
Today, we are back on the mainland! We spent most of the day sightseeing around more of southern Iceland—waterfalls, black sand beaches, volcanoes (Katla/Eyjafjallajökull), oh yeah, and glaciers! We got to do a glacier walk today with crampons and a pick axe! The glacier hike was awesome!!! The glacier—Solheimajokull—is part of the region where the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted this spring. We were warned that the glacier would be covered with black ash, but surprisingly it wasn’t at least not completely. We were also warned that we might not have been able to do it because of potential flash flooding in the area from all the rain the past few days. I am most definitely glad we were able to do the hike. There was a lot ash though, jet black, and very fine to the touch. If I’d had a baggie with me, it would have been full!
We ended our day with a visit to a horse farm and tomato greenhouse, all wrapped into one. Icelandic horses are one of the world’s most purebred horses, mostly because of its isolation and it is the only horse breed in Iceland. What’s also interesting is that the Icelandic horse masters five gates, while most horses master three. The man who owned the horse farm also runs a tomato greenhouse (his real job). The green house was neat. I’ve never seen a tomato plant ten feet tall before or drank Black Death out of a tomato shot glass. Black Death is an Icelandic schnapps. To me, it tasted like cucumbers, but had a really bad after taste! Don’t think I’ll be drinking that again too.
Tomorrow will be filled with lots of hiking and possibly a trip to a hot spring!!
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