Terra360 Weblog

Iceland - Day 4-5

Day 5 (June 25)

Click here for the Google Map (then zoom out, and click on "Hybrid" in the upper right, Google Maps lacks data for much of Iceland).

Sleep does not come until late in the evening.  Between time zone shifts, and latitude drifts north, there is no darkness, time is an improbable measurement.  So I get what I can, and try to hold on the rest of the time to a schedule.

We head north again, to Stykkishólmur, on the north coast of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula (do ask for pronunciations when I return).  This was where I took my first 360 degree cubic VR of the trip, and was the site of my first disappointment.  I had not realized until this morning, how vast Iceland is in fact.  I wanted to go to the western fjords, but alas this was a trip that would require another week to accomplish.  Stykkishólmur is where one can take a ferry to the fjords and bypass many rough roads, a ferry I will take on another trip.  We checked in early at our new inn, but decided to have dinner nearby early as well since lunch eluded us.  Freed of dinner and accommodation issues, we went east and north to the Vatnsnes peninsula, to circle it before midnight in the great light of the day.  We passed through Osar on a great alluvial plain on the east side of the Vatnsnes peninsula.  The wind was roaring from the north but we managed a few shots of the large bay between Blönduós and the Vatnsnes peninsula.

Good fortune was upon us stumbling into the path horseback riders herding 100 Icelandic horses down a rural road.  We followed slowly for half an hour.  Stopping and starting as they did on the road. Then, after speaking to some of the participants at the rear, we were informed that they were on day five of their trail ride.  We were allowed to pass, so we could photograph then from in front.  It was all about the light, and that was just about perfect at 4 p.m. These are beautiful horses.  Unlike other horses of the world the Icelandic breed have another gait that they can execute and it's as smooth and fluid as the Icelandic tongue.

We stayed the night at the head of Hrútafjörður fjord on the north coast of Iceland.  Returning late, almost to the hotel, I looked across the fjord to see the "earth glow" from the late evening sun off the low clouds.

Day 4 (June 24)

Click here for the Google Map (then zoom out, and click on "Hybrid" in the upper right, Google Maps lacks data for much of Iceland).

I'll get in the swing of things here soon I am sure.  Like the first time I heard  "Icelandic" spoken on the airplane, it was a shock at first, but then it comes to sound  like the flow of a babbling brook, smooth and continuous.  I should speak so well, let  alone write.  I have so many images I am working on simultaneously that it is hard to let  go of the fact that I will not get to finish all of them in the space and time I have, I should just close this box and keep shooting.  Which I will do in a moment... but I had to  show my girlfriend of yesterday (I type this on the beginning of day 5).  She was  somewhat short, but lovely, and had an eye for me, as I did for her.

We headed further west out the Snaefellsnes Peninsula towards the entrance to the center of the earth in the Snaefellsjoekull volcano (see:  Jules Verne, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH). 

We stopped at a black church in Búðir. N64° 49' 18.92", W23° 23' 5.89" exactly, all of these images are "geotagged".  First constructed on this site in 1703, and again in 1850.  This apparently is a modern day replica of the 1850 church.  Few churches on Iceland have such a stunning location.  The photo of Steve (upper left) in the car, is the parking lot of the church.  A group of "birders" were there in the parking lot too, on tour with multiple spotting scopes.  One showed me a Ptarmigan which was nesting on a chunk of lava.

There were several farms/homes that appeared to be built next to other entrances to the underworld as well.  The rumbling earth must give them pause for a whole new appreciation of life in their home!  The one on the right looked like they had built next to the entrance to hell.

The road is long and winding in places, varying from good to very bad. It seems to constantly flow between clouds and the sea.  This was a particularly good stretch of road pavement as well.

Along the way we stopped at Anarstapi for a dramatic walk along the cliffs of extruded volcanic rock now graced with black sand beaches... then on to Hellnar for lunch in a spectacular setting above the sea and below Snæfellsjökull volcano.  The Fjöruhúsið Café on the water (right image) is highly recommended.  I wish that we'd had the time to hike along the coastal trail back to Búðir.

Some of the cliffs seem to form a strange face, frozen in geologic time.  We circled the volcano along a rough dirt & gravel road, passing a bicyclist, who walking with her panier-laden conveyance, had written all over her face, "what have I gotten myself into now."

Iceland - Day 1-3 the space time continuum

Day 3 (June 23)

Click here for the Google Map (then zoom out, and click on "Hybrid" in the upper right, Google Maps lacks data for much of Iceland).

It's fitting that this is the place where the great rift in the mid-Atlantic ridge  surfaces.  A point at which the continents are being driven further apart by dynamic  forces beneath us.  Forces that in our terms, have little consequence, for the most part,  in the span of time that we as living organisms can even comprehend. But I am here.  Out of the big city.  At first we were like space aliens looking trying to figure out the populace.  We did not know what a grocery store would really look like, a good idea, but no names or styles.  Then we saw it, a big pink pig, BIG PINK PIG, with flags flying all about it.  It has what appears to be a slot in the graphic, like a "piggy bank"... and the words BONUS next to it.  Some bananas, raisins, cookies and we were set.

We headed inland for Þingvellir and the Öxarárfoss falls, a place where Mother Earth spreads her wings (left image).  Albeit it at 1-5mm a year.  Given time, it's significant, so best to buy property that spans the divide, it will be good for your 10 great grand children.  Meanwhile, it has a nice waterfall.

My second night on this new land was near the settlement of Borgarnes in the southwest.   A little inn call Ensku husin, simple room, private bath, dinner for two with wine (and one for "inventory") ran up a $145 tab.  This was not Argentina.  However the place had wi-fi and sat on a beautiful river with a waterfall (these I am finding are ubiquitous in Iceland). After dinner we drove the coast for a few hours looking eternally for the right place and the right light.  I know this seems nuts, but if one does it enough, it really does work... you find it when it finds you.  I have pictures to prove it!

Day 2 (June 22)

Click here for the Google Map (then zoom out, and click on "Hybrid" in the upper right, Google Maps lacks data for much of Iceland).

I am in Iceland.  More information will come later this morning.  Or perhaps day four. Is  that today? Between sensory deprivation and subsequent overload on the journey here, to this point in the earth, I am not so sure anymore.

So with our late arrival, by the time we had cleared customs and immigration, and packed up the 4x4 we rented, a Mitsubishi Pajero (sort of like a Montero in the USA)... it was almost noon.  We headed west out the peninsula from Keflavik Airport through the towns of Sandgerdi and Gardur. The act was not so much as we knew where we were going as we wanted to immediately get the feel of the land, and that meant not driving into the city of Reykjavik immediately.  It was cool and dry when we departed overland. The first thing I noticed was the staggering quantity of flowering lupine.  A few plants in Colorado  were always appreciated, but I have never seen vast fields of the beautiful bluish purple flowers.

On the way back into Reykjavik we were both famished with the thought of the long ago, smallish and not so tasty meal of Iceland Air... and no breakfast service whatsoever.  So we did the unthinkable and stopped at Taco Bell for some Gorditas and a diet Pepsi.  It wasn't the rotten shark and "special" dishes I had read about made from all the parts of a lamb, but it was quick and I was fading faster than the memory of the food.  We found our room a few minutes later at the Hotel Loftleidir (and Iceland Air hotel!) next to the old airport in Reykjavik.  For three hours that afternoon, the world stopped, sleep came like a great drug at a hospital.  I embraced it.

Click here for the Google Map (then zoom out, and click on "Hybrid" in the upper right, last half of the day "2.5").

After reviving now it seems on Day 2.5 we headed to downtown Reykjavik to the main drag.  A drag it is... the locals on Friday night are cruising the place looking for interaction.  Dinner was at a nice little trattoria that had a real pizza oven.  Steve and I had garlic bread as a starter (which looked very much like a pizza) and I had Monk fish.  This was also our first real introduction to Icelandic prices. We learned that tipping was NOT the custom as prices were already so high, and that everyone was well compensated.  Here is the bill from the first evening, you can divide by 63 or so to get USD.

Still marveling at the late evening light, it was now 10 p.m., we headed to the port where we stumbled upon the Hamborgarabullan (hamburger joint) that was mentioned in the Washington Post in mid-May.  They even had a sign in the parking lot declaring that the place was now "famous."  It was in fact closed at 10 p.m. on Friday night, but the fellow who came out the door kindly said we could park next to the joint.  There in the port we discovered four old, rotting whaling vessels.  They seemed just a few decades of rot away from the state of the PETREL in Grytviken, South Georgia Island, so many miles to the south. Another round of photos... then off to the tip of the peninsula which protects Reykjavik's harbor.  Sunset was not cooperating with the clouds above us, but we had a thin line at the horizon that kept us intrigued from our dead end road.  Mind you, it was 11:15 p.m. and people were still out jogging, bicycling, walking... not many, but they were there.  The sunset eluded us, but I took photos anyway, after all, it was day 2.5 of our new journey in the far north.

Day 1 (June 21)

My Delta flight from Austin to JFK was only an hour late.  Plenty of time to arrive well before my friend Steve Ginn came in from Beaverton, Oregons (see sginn.com) whom I would be traveling with the next two weeks.  Iceland Air was three hours on the tarmac at JKF International  Airport, 70th in a line of 120.  The pilot informed us that he could not ask how long it  would be before we could take off as the pilot of the last plane to ask was summarily  told that he would be LAST if he asked again.  So we ate dinner and watched a movie,  then, mercifully, we took off just over 3 hours late.  Perhaps I slept an hour, perhaps  two.  Awakening to a glimpse of Greenland below the wing and engine.  I was lucky, as I was in the front exit row with ample leg room, albeit the narrowest seats I can recall.