There’s always a strange feeling you get in your gut when
you board a plane belonging to an airline you’ve never heard of, and I had
plenty of it stepping on to our Icelandic Air flight to Reykjavik. It may have
been a combination of factors influencing my nervousness; the creepy old flight
attendants on our plane, the fact that there are a heck of a lot of (active) volcanoes
in Iceland and that weird and freaky people come from there (the only Icelandic
person I knew of was Bjork). However the Butterflies were soon put to rest, our
eyes widened and our jaws seemed to remain permanently dropped for the next six
days. As it turns out Iceland is now our
new favourite visited destination on this adventure!
Iceland is about half the size of the state of Victoria, and
is situated roughly half way between the UK and Greenland, making it fairly
remote. The earliest known inhabitants in Iceland date back to around 900AD
when Norwegian Vikings started settling there. As to why they decided it would
be a good place to set up shop remains a mystery to me. I’ll explain why.
Iceland is relatively young. The entire country is a result of underwater volcanic
activity – eruption after eruption eventually breaking the ocean surface and
creating what we see today. So, as the country is entirely made up of volcanic
rock, pretty much nothing can grow there except for an ever spreading carpet of
Moss. Because of this, it is near impossible to raise any large quantity of
Cattle, Sheep, Vegetables or Grains. In fact, when you travel through the
country side the only life you see is Icelandic Horses (but I will come to that
later). If the Galapagos Islands are a clue into the mystery of Evolution,
Iceland is pretty much an open book on how the land on our Earth began. However,
despite the cons of living in such a country, the Vikings settled (or perhaps
they’d just had enough rowing). Over the next millennium and a century the
culture of Iceland was moulded and formed into what it is today – a very unique
and strange yet wonderfully cosy way of living, eating and conversing that,
along with the Moonlike landscape, make this country the most fascinating I
have ever stepped foot upon.
We arrived in Iceland very excited to see and experience as
much as this mysterious country had to offer. However, with only limited time
in Iceland - 5 nights - we needed to carefully plan our stay, about 3 weeks
would be sufficient to explore most of the country’s more remote regions as
well as the Reykjavik area. (I should
point out that at this point in our journey I had let my lazy streak get the
better of me once again, and to get me more involved Ingrid gave me the
challenge of being sole organiser of the next 2 weeks after leaving Paris – A
role I was both dreading and excited about.) We found a fantastic apartment
in a great location and with a stunning view of Reykjavik and booked 4 nights
there, leaving our final night available to change up the scenery if we wished
after we had explored the country a little. The apartment was so much better
and bigger than we had expected for such a reasonable price. Huge open plan
Kitchen, Meals and Living area, beautiful Bedroom with one of the most comfy
beds we’d had in a long time and a great shower (a combination of good
pressure, even spray, reliable hot water and well maintained doors is a rarity
while backpacking). The apartment had only one downside (well, at the time we
thought it was just our room, but as it turns out all of Iceland has this
common problem), the hot water absolutely STANK! It was like rotten eggs had
been thrown in the water supply. However, this is not a result of misplaced
poultry ovulations. Iceland is a major geothermal hot spot due to the volcanic
activity, and so the geothermal heat is used to heat the water supply – while
this is an amazingly clean and efficient way of heating, it also means that the
water inherits the potent Sulphur odour which is a little harsh on the nose to
say the least.
During our first full day we decided to stay in Reykjavik
and explore the nation’s capital. The city is so quaint and wonderful with a
combination of modern architecture and traditional sea shanty-like houses
lining the many one way streets which are notoriously easy to get lost driving
around in – something we knew all too well after a couple of days. While not
very populated (~200,000 people) Reykjavik is quite spread out and accounts for
roughly two thirds of Iceland’s total inhabitants. Most of our day was spent exploring
the shopping streets of the city, dashing from one shop to the next trying to
keep the time we spent in the Artic gale blowing through to a minimum. Some of
the retail stores were amazing. Traditional Viking Ornaments, locally hand-made
Jewellery and a Burlesque style retro Opp Shop (which was awesome) to name a
few. We had heard that Reykjavik’s sea food was some of the best in Europe so
we headed to a relatively new but very cool little Icelandic Fish ‘n Chip shop.
I tell you, it was some of the most gourmet Fish ‘n Chips I’ve ever
experienced. But it was simply delicious.
While on the subject of Icelandic cuisine, I’ll talk briefly
about some of the quite ‘unique’ fare available for consumption. As I mentioned
earlier, with little availability to cattle, etc, the Icelandic people made do
with whatever meat was available. To this day you can still sample the same
style food as the original Vikings had eaten. Whale, Shark, Puffin (small
Penguin-like sea bird) and various animal Heads are among some of the more
strange dishes. We did sample a few. The weirdest would have to have been Svith
which is smoked Sheep’s Head. It was nice, but I won’t be purchasing it again.
Harkarl would definitely be the most disgusting though and we didn’t dare try
it. Shark that has been ‘putrefied’ in sand and then slightly pickled – usually
served cold with a shot of what the locals refer to as ‘Black Death’, an
extremely strong local spirit (think highly concentrated Jagermeister).
That night we joined a Northern lights tour to go on a hunt
for the impressive Aurora Borealis. The venture was sadly unsuccessful.
However, we decided the best way to see the sights would be to hire a car for
our time here – pretty cheap as it turns out. We took another trip on our own
into the Iceland countryside to try spot the lights on our own. This proved
much more successful. We were blessed with a beautiful green light across the
sky which was just magical. Something we totally did not expect was an
alien-like beam shinning straight up into the sky out of Reykjavik. It
seriously looked like something out of Independence Day! This beam is called
the ‘Peace Tower’. It was a concept created by Yoko Ono and will shine into the
sky for all to see that this is a country of peace – it really is something
else!
Day 2 saw us take an amazingly scenic drive around the south
western peninsula of Reykjanes. We drove through lush green moss covered lava
fields, mountainous lakes and pristine untouched coastline. The drive also took
us to visit a symbolic bridge which represents the meeting of the Asian and
American Tectonic (continental) plates (the source of all of Iceland’s Volcanic
activity), and also some rather smelly mud hot springs. This fantastic day was
perfectly capped off with a visit to the famous Blue Lagoon. A natural hot
spring that attracts visitors from all over the world to bathe and relax in its
healing waters. The pools were created 40 or so years ago when a nearby
Geothermal Power plant was built. Two thousand meter deep bores were dug into
the earth to vent the hot steam up to the surface to drive the plants turbines.
What they did not expect was that the steam would then settle and create these
incredible sky blue coloured lagoons, at a very nice bathing temperature of 38
degrees. The blue colour is a result of the high concentration of Silica in the
water – which also has amazing cleansing and healing properties making this
place not just relaxing but quite beneficial on the body.
The next day we took a self-guided tour of the ‘Golden
Circle’ region. A famous tourist route, visiting some of Iceland’s most
beautiful natural wonders. First stop was an ancient volcanic crater with jet
black water due to the colour of the volcanic rock, quite eerie. We travelled
on to Gullfoss Falls, the most powerful in Europe, and then to Geysir. Geysir
is a Geyser (funnily enough), but is actually the ‘original’ Geyser of which
the phenomenon got its name (Geysir quite literally meaning something which
shoots into the air). This natural steam burst has actually been attracting
tourists (mainly from Europe) since the 1600’s! Our final stop was at Þingvellir National Park
(pronounced Thingvelleer), known for Alþingi
(Iceland’s first Parliament). Established in 930AD, this rock formation (which
amazingly lies directly on the border of the Asian and American Tectonic
plates) was used by the Icelandic Vikings as a gathering place for the nation’s
state representatives to discuss issues and conduct trials. Interestingly, the
governing body would give the rulings; however it was the responsibility of the
Prosecuting party to enforce it, often resulting in yet another long and cold
journey back to Þingvellir.
As mentioned before, our final night was not booked, so I
thought a night spent in a nice cabin somewhere was in order. We found a
beautiful little cabin on the shore of a large Fjord and stayed there the
night. It was just so surreal. There was a hot tub on the balcony and while
relaxing in it, it began to snow – so amazing! The next morning there was a
foot deep layer of powdered snow covering the country, which made the drive to
the airport a lot of fun.
Quite reluctantly (we wanted to stay) we boarded our next
flight. Next stop New York City – albeit quite briefly. Just a quick overnight
stop on the way to Montreal, Canada.
