6:20am June 1st- 1:10am June 3rd 2012
*Pictures available on Facebook!
Although
it’s not fair to attempt to see any place in the space of two days, much less
an entire country, that is the time I had and what I tried to do. As most of you know, I booked a one-way
ticket to Sweden this past February via Iceland Air. If you’re going to be setting down on solid ground anyway,
what’s the point of spending only two hours in the airport while you wait for
your connecting flight? Luckily
the Icelanders seem to agree and they have a great option of extending your
layover for up to a week without adding any additional cost. (And in fact decreasing my cost, as it
allowed me to take the red-eye to Stockholm.)
With
such short time on hand, I tried to plan the first day to the fullest. I had arranged prior to leaving the
states to “couch surf” and I was able to get to the centrally located apartment
of Hermann H. Hermannson (Fun fact- Iceland still goes by the traditional way
of father’s name and son/ditter for surnames) and drop off my brand new
“brown-sugar” 50L hiking Osprey pack, recently packed to almost its
fullest. Hermann had already left
for work, but a neighbour let me in and I had enough time to change before heading
down the few blocks to catch the shuttle for my first real Iceland experience.
Thinking
a little caffeine wouldn’t be amiss after my short night of restful airplane
sleep, I had time to grab a quick latte and almost miss the van that would take
me to Laxnes Horse Farm for my Icelandic pony ride The latte, paired with a handful of hazelnuts, made as good
an on-the-go breakfast as possible.
We arrived at Laxnes around 10am and were in saddles half hour
later. My horse, of the “I-wanna-be-first-or-as-close-as-possible”
russet-colored variety, was named
Dreyri (drrre-erie) and quickly put us first in line behind the two guides with
his nose right to the rump of whoever was in front. Apparently this is normal. I remember hoping that none of them are prone to biting…
The
tour itself was very enjoyable and relaxing. Luckily we were a small group of 6 and even the
inexperienced riders quickly adjusted so that we could do a semi-advanced trail
for the next two hours. The
scenery was beautiful but also a bit surreal- bright green flat fields bordering up against the volcanic
black ridges with rivulets of snow.
As we climbed up in elevation, the ground gave way from lush green to
sunburned brown, reminding me again of the mars-seeming terrain I’d seen on my
way from the airport in Keflavík towards the capital.
A
little over an hour in we stopped to give the horses a break and got the chance
walk around. Not too shabby
surroundings. We were able to look
down the valley from above and glimpse a waterfall that poured into the valley
just below us. The climb up to
this spot had been undulating but also arduous for the horses, evident from the
dark sweat patches on their coats, and they were happy to relax and eat some
grass.
As we rode our way back down, we were
able to let the horses have enough reign to try some different speeds. Not to imply that we ambled the entire
way up; the ponies would often pick up their pace when going down inclines to
keep momentum for the next uphill.
But on the ride back to the farm we were able to have a break from the
jangling trot and relax into a much smoother canter. My slightly disturbed sits bones would have preferred to do such
a pace the entire way back, but the relief was short-lived.
It
was a fantastic tour, but I do wish the guides had been a bit more verbal. Nothing was mentioned about the
landscape or the names of any of the features. Though the brochure gave a bit of the history of the
Icelandic Horse, once we were actually on them we didn’t learn anything about
the horses themselves. I’d heard a
lot about the “tolt” and eventually asked on my own exactly what it was. I didn’t want to have done the entire ride
and then find out I’d never actually felt this special gait. I can’t know for sure that I actually
did, but the tolt was described as a “walk at double pace,” so that it is
faster than a walk but slower than a trot. I think I did get to feel this a bit, as there were times
that Dreyri increased his gate but it still felt slightly smoother than a trot. Or maybe it was just my imagination…
On
our return journey, the ponies knew they were getting close to home and rest
and food. We desaddled and before
I knew it I was eating a sausage (gourmet Icelandic hotdog) and was catching
the tour bus for my adventure of the Golden Circle afternoon tour with
Icelandic Excursions. Fun facts
about Icelandic condiments- much the same as ours, tomato ketchup, mustard, and
then some interesting mayonnaise-based herb mixes. Plus they like to add those crunchy fried onions.
Before
long I was on a large bus headed toward a southern section of the famed Ring
Road. The sightseeing activities
included first Thingvellir- the site of the world’s first parliamentary
meetings, held by the clan leaders.
The geology of the area with its rifts and rocks and surrounding water
created a natural amphitheatre, so the words of the ancient chieftans could be
easily projected for all to hear.
From there we went on to see the Gulfoss waterfall, bigger than Niagara
so they say. They must mean in
distance downward, as I don’t think it was as wide. We also got to see some glaciers in the distance; they were
so large I wasn’t able to capture their entirety in one photo. A short ride later we were at the
geysers near Stokkur. The most
regular one goes off about every 8 minutes, but only lasted for about 5
seconds. Barely time to snap a
picture!
While
the views were pretty spectacular, there’s obviously a lot of Iceland I didn’t
get to see. The stops were all
very touristy and our “tour” was mostly just a shuttle from place to
place. Not a ton of additional
information added and I had trouble staying awake on the bus, beginning to
really feel some jetlag.
I was amazed at how diverse the
geology and topography was. Some
landscapes looked absolutely foreign, like being on another planet, while
others looked like the lush farmland of Pennsylvania, and other areas gave views
of incredible lakes and oceans. I
was often reminded of the highlands of Scotland, but the colors were all wrong. I remember thinking that even the most
fertile fields looked like they could only have several inches of good
soil. The land of Iceland does
feel incredibly new, as if the newly formed igneous rocks- even when not
visible- couldn’t be more than a few inches beneath the surface.
That might seem like a full day
in and of itself, but I was home from the tour by about 7:30pm and it ended up
being quite a late night. I met
Hermann and the French couple that was also couchsurting, and we prepared some
tasty Icelandic salmon after heading for a quick trip to the store. *Salmon is often cheaper than chicken
in both Iceland and Sweden. My
kind of place!
Being at such a high latitude,
the sky was bright and sunny even at 10pm. This certainly helped keep my energy levels up even when I
should have been tired. Because of
the light and good conversations, we didn’t end up eating until late evening,
and during the dishes we got a good look at the sky at sun “set” about 11:30. The sky was still incredibly bright,
and though the sun did sink below the horizon, we never lost that pink-orange
glow before the rest of the sky began to brighten.
We rallied to see some of the
famous Reykjavík nightlife and I’ll suffice it to say we got home a little
before 5am. But when the sky is
never dark it seems odd to halt the good company and local scenes, and in face,
even when we left the last bar for home I felt like I could keep going. It is a nice feeling though, heading
back finally for some sleep with the sun bright on your face.
I finally got a few hours of some much-needed sleep and
then had a nice lazy Icelandic local day. The natural hotsprings
nearby Reykjavik are much too touristy and expensive but they have built
pools that are made to be similar that are much cheaper and open all year long.
In Iceland they value water very much and even small towns have public,
affordable pools with hot baths as well. Then we went on a picnic (Icelandic
smoked salmon, this time) and learned about the hidden folk, or elves and fey,
that apparently half the population believe in. Speaking of population, I
was amazed to discover that the entire population is only 300,000 people!
For dinner we had an Icelandic Tapas feast where I got to
try exotic things like puffin and whale, as well as fish and shrimp and lobster
and lamb. Then we got back and I went to the bus station to catch a trip
to the airport for my 1am flight to sweden. The parting words from the bus were “Did you like
Iceland? Have a good trip? Yeah? Well then you
should move here… we need more people!”
