The Beginning/Iceland

When does a trip begin? At the moment of decision or the moment of departure? The travel insurance companies will say departure. However, the process leading up to departure has certainly been an adventure and thus, as far as we're concerned, part of the journey. Needless to say, after hours of trying to figure out the fine print of special Asia Air Passes and Around the World Tickets, Credit Cards, and Health Insurance, we've learned that the sales people really don't know diddly about the small print. In the case of the ticket packages, asking "Do you actually sell this ticket?" was the most productive question of all (yes they do, but when she started taking all our information found the computer wouldn't accept it because our trip parameters didn't fit the conditions - information a trip to the airport and multiple phone calls hadn't uncovered).

After the packing up which took longer than expected, a lovely (albeit wet) farewell party in the Vondelpark, and final cleaning of the apartment, we flew off into the sunset on Iceland Air. And the sunset kept going for the whole 4 hour flight to Reykjavik. What a shame I'm not a romantic. 

Amsterdam

Iceland

The next day we had a lovely breakfast at a café in Reykjavik with Kristin (back in Iceland for the summer) and Céline, a French friend of mine whom I met in Berlin and who coincidentally was visiting Iceland too. 

A quick stop at the supermarket for Icelandic treats like skyr (special icelandic yogurt) and off we went to see as much as we possibly could in two days. We quickly realized that with this goal in mind we should stop at not only the roadside pull offs marked with the “of scenic interest” symbol, but also the picnic stops, as each pull off had something of interest to see and read about. The information boards were extremely informative and up to date (we saw one about the 2010 volcano eruption). And in fact, the following two days were a whirlwind of driving and visual input. As a result, the following is more a list of where we were and what we saw than thought provoking travelogue- more for us as a memory aid than for an audience. I suggest skimming.

In Selfoss we turned around to go back and pick up some hitchhikers to help build up some good traveler karma. They were a friendly Swiss couple and we chatted about living in Switzerland and teaching, as he was a teacher too. We let them out at Hella where they were hoping to get a ride inland to go hiking.

Our first longer stop was at Seljalandsfoss with a great path around behind the powerful waterfall.

At the next large waterfall, Skogafoss, we decided to wait until the way back to walk up above the falls and continued on our way, again picking up a hitchhiker – a German speaking Belgian who chatted enthusiastically (more than Machiel liked) about the international Viking reenactment/workshop he was going to be attending in the north of Iceland. He was going to be collecting whale bones from a beach up there to build shelters. We let him out to go explore the beach at Dyrholaey on our own. Luckily he had found a ride by the time we returned to the main road, so I didn’t feel guilty anymore for not having taken him with us to explore the beach. We were planning on heading to the same destination (Skaftafell National Park) as he was, and he could have easily stayed with us for our day of wandering on in that direction, but it was nice to be free to go at our own wandering pace, chatter free. 

This beach was beautiful and it was fun to see puffins and eiders, but it wasn’t the beach I’d seen pictures of with huge basalt columns so we continued on towards Vik keeping our eyes out for another road down to the coast. Unfortunately, we saw the road too late to turn down and with no easy turn around spot presenting itself before Vik itself and the drizzle that had started, we decided to leave exploring that beach also for our return trip.

In Vik we went down to the beach to check if the basalt columns were there by chance (which they weren’t) and then decided to try out our new fancy lightweight campstove (a Bushcooker – it burns the wood gas to create a dual flame allowing for cooking with just a handful of twigs). We managed to find some dead branches on the undersides of the few pine trees near the beach. Unfortunately, due to the drizzle, they were damp enough to make starting the fire quite challenging. Perhaps the volcanic ash that covered them contributed to this as well. In the end, hand sanitizer helped as an ignition aid. Unfortunately, uneven ground led to spillage of the just boiling water and we had to start all over again. It was a late but delicious pesto meal under the cliffs with puffins and gulls flying and roosting overhead.

After dinner we headed to Skaftafell, continuing to stop along the way to enjoy the varied landscapes and other sights such as wild swans (trumpeter swans).

We arrived at 11pm, set up our tent and fell sound asleep despite the still light sky. Sidenote: while it was nice to be able to drive so late with light skies, we realized when we left Iceland how stressful it had been on our bodies to have so many hours of light in each day. 

We were awoken early with the sounds of birds (one of which we later learned was a snipe) and after breakfast (skyr and muesli) we set out to find Svartifoss (another site I had seen pictures of and wanted to see in person). On the way back we walked via Sjonarnipa which offered an amazing view down and across the nearest glacier. The glacier really played tricks on our eyes, seeming to be so close and yet when we saw the small dots of people below, revealing how far away it really was. 

Can you see the people?

The next stop was to try and drive closer to the glacier so we could walk right up to it, but we missed that road too and one more thing was added to the “to do on the return trip” list. The camping ground had posted a storm warning for high winds and heavy rain in the afternoon and evening, lending the day an air of uncertainty but we decided to continue on as planned.

Our plan was to drive to Jokulsarlon before turning around to begin the drive back to Reykjavik. Along the way, we stopped at a picnic stop by a river and tried walking to the “near by” glacier. 

Unfortunately, we soon saw that there was a sizable lake in front of the glacier and again, it was much further away than it appeared. However, it was a beautiful walk and we saw gray loons (one swimming and one sitting on a nest with a great skua lurking hungrily nearby), plovers that led us away from their nests with an elaborate injured wing act, and a very small seemingly insectivorous orchid. 

Can you see the plover playing injured? (There are 2 plovers in the picture)

M passing a great skua

We managed to reach Jokulsarlon in time for a picnic lunch in view of this impressive iceberg filled lake. Even knowing what we were going to see did not diminish the awe I felt as we came around the dirt hill that blocked the view of the lake from the approaching road. Wow! Eiders swimming, small icebergs turning and slowly floating out towards the sea, arctic terns, bird with the funny tail (maybe an arctic skua), blue ice (I found out this means the iceberg has recently flipped as the blue color is seen in the ice that is the clearest and the longer it is exposed to the outside air, wind, dust, etc. the less clear it becomes), and a massive glacier in the distance were all a part of the spectacular view. After lunch we ventured over to the visitor center and I was persuaded to take the half hour boat tour in the lake while Machiel took a nap in the car.

It was fun to see the icebergs from various angles and the informative speech about the glacier, lake and local trivia was fun (the lake was dammed up to cut off the incoming salt water so that it would freeze – the already present salt water sank – and the cast of a James Bond movie could drive their speedy fancy cars all over the lake for 20 minutes of movie footage and an Icelandic brewery has begun taking parts of the glacier to use for the water in their beer). The boat crew also chipped off a piece of an iceberg (around 900 year old ice) and broke it into smaller pieces for us each to take (needless to say, the beautiful round rock Machiel found on the Dyrholaey beach was a much longer lasting souvenir).

At 3:00pm after the tour ended, the rain started and we began our return drive West.

Luckily we seemed to be driving faster than the storm, so once we rounded the southernmost corner of the Vatnajokull glacier, the rain stopped and we once again set about stopping at the scenic/picnic stops we’d missed on the way. The first stop was a road that took us quite close to the glacier and we were able to walk all the way up to it and touch it. Finally. 

The next stop was also a road up to another piece of glacier by which point we were "glacier overloaded" and not nearly as impressed by the views as we had been so far.

The next stop was the monument to the destroyed Gigjukvisl bridge (due to volcano activity-flooding) and impressive views back towards Vatnajokull. That is one big glacier! 

Eventually the storm caught up with us but we thankfully still stopped at a picnic stop which turned out to be a very cool hill of basalt columns called the dwarf cliffs.

We had dinner in Kirkjubaejarklaustur but afterwards I couldn’t convince Machiel to walk up in the rain and heavy wind to see the lake above the waterfalls. Something to put on the list for next time. And he was right. It would have been pretty silly to get wet and cold when we still had a long way to drive in order to get closer to Reykjavik so that we wouldn’t have to stress about getting to the airport in time for our departing flight the next night.

So we kept driving and it kept raining. It was only when I stopped to get gas that I realized just how windy it was. As there were so few trees there really was little to no evidence of the wind in the landscape and as it was at our back, I hadn’t felt its affects on the car. When we reached Skogarfoss, the storm hadn’t abetted as I’d hoped and it was time to review our original plan of camping there for the night. Machiel was all for driving the remaining 2 ½ hours back to Reykjavik (we would have arrived around 1am). I was having trouble letting go of our “saved for the return trip” expeditions such as the missed basalt column beach and walking up above Skogarfoss. In addition, we’d been driving for 7 hours already (not including the dinner break in the middle) and I was ready to stop. Eventually Machiel convinced me it was madness to set up a tent in the current weather (my argument that it might be a good relationship building experience to battle the elements together wasn’t quite convincing enough) and we set on towards Reykjavik. However, when we rounded the bend to head north after Eyjafjallajokull (the glacier now turned black from the recent volcano eruption), the storm was suddenly gone.

Machiel graciously agreed to a change of plan and we found a terrific campsite just down the road from Seljalandsfoss. We set up our tent in the glow of a beautiful sunset at 11:30pm.

At 1am (it was light again) the wind part of the storm arrived and our tent began to be blown violently about. I graciously admitted Machiel was right about trying to sleep in the tent in such winds and we quickly took it down , threw it in the car, reclined the front seats as far as they’d go and slept the remainder of the night in the car.

Waking early we drove back to Skogafoss to eat breakfast and walk up above the falls. Unfortunately heavy cloud cover limited the view. We then returned to Reykjavik in time for a brief chat with Kristin’s mom (I was sorry we didn’t get to spend more time with Kristin and her family!) and the repacking of our bags before heading back to the airport for our flight to Boston. It turned out to be the same Sadcar representative who took us back to the airport after we dropped off the car and he was much chattier this time. It turns out that he had been working for 48 hours straight when we saw him last which explained a lot. He told us it’s a new company and they’re having trouble competing with the many other car rentals. I’d recommend them though and I highly recommend a trip to Iceland! The two day lay over as part of a transatlantic flight like we did works well for getting a taste but it isn’t nearly enough time for a real visit.

Thanks Kristin, Agnar and Ingunn for your flexible hospitality!!!

The beginning of our airport signs collection.