Hi everyone
By now you all know I have been to Iceland, but probably not why. Well, it's very easy - when I told my cousin Claude I would visit him in London he said let's go to Iceland. As you know by now I'm easily suggestible :) so I said, why not. I mentioned it in a blog entry back in Feb or March and I received an email from Barbara, a Melbourne friend who I met at tango, and who's been living in London since last year, saying that she had been wanting to go to Iceland for some time and would I like some company.
So here we are several months later catching the Stansted Express to the airport. I really hardly know Barbara, as although we've danced together in Melbourne quite a few times, we haven't really spoken much. Tango is funny like that - normally you meet a woman and talk to her and find out about her background, likes/dislikes, etc then become more friendly and embrace each other, etc, but with tango everything is turned around - you dance for the first time (with a woman you don't know) in an intimate embrace, then later you may talk to her, etc, although generally you don't get to speak much because you're dancing most of the time.
Anyhow, here we are, both excited to go to Iceland, and wondering what it will be like. We touch down and take the airport bus to Reykjavik - much of the way we cross a vast lava plain and you can see volcanic cones in the distance.
We spend the first 3 days in Reykjavik - going to museums, walking along the seafront and through the city, going to a swimming pool - we spend an afternoon at the largest pool complex in Reykjavik - there's a large outdoor pool, an indoor pool, and a few other smaller pools for lolling around in the warm water, and a series of small pools of various temperatures (38, 40, 42, 44 degrees), which we work our way through. Around 6-7pm it becomes busy from people coming here after work, hopping into a warm pool and having a chat about the day's events. The whole complex is very organised - you take off your shoes, then enter huge changing rooms with lockers, undress and have a shower, then put on your bathers and go to the pool complex. After, you return, have another shower, get dressed and out you go. There are hundreds of men wandering around naked, except for 3 North Americans, who shower with their bathers on. As Australia is so dry and we are conscious of the length of showers (none of my Melbourne friends will believe this as I have a reputation for long showers) it feels fantastic to have a long luxurious shower as there is no shortage of water in Iceland.
Reykjavik is a city of around 200,000 people and at first sight is not terribly beautiful or photogenic. It is mainly made up of modern houses and buildings, although there are some lovely old houses in some areas. Many of these houses have exterior walls of corrugated iron, painted in different colours. I guess this material was cheap to buy and transport, easy to put up, and durable. The first impression wasn't helped by 3 days of low, grey cloud and cool temperatures, generally 10 to 15 degrees (we came across a brochure that says occasionally the temperature soars to 20 degrees).
In my previous post about London, I complained how expensive food and drink was - well, compared to Iceland it's cheap. We spent hours looking at menus in restaurant windows, trying to see what we could afford. At most normal middle-of-the-road restaurants the prices for a main course of fish or meat ranged from around $50-80 Australian, a glass of wine about $14-18, etc. Even just buying a coffee or tea was expensive, so we did without.
Accomodation was also very expensive - we stayed in the cheapest place we could find (6 bed dorm at the Aurora Hostel) and that was nearly $60 per night each. The owner, Siggy was a big Icelandic man and quite a character. The hot water at the hostel was very unusual - it had a sulphur smell and felt slightly oily and left your skin feeling soft. I think it was water from thermal springs. Staying in the dorm was interesting - there's people coming and going all the time, from around 4.30 in the morning, and as there's so much light around it's hard to know when to go to bed, and to sleep.
With the price of food being so high we just ate hamburgers, skipped the tea and coffee, although I did have a glass of wine. There were some interesting places we went to - the Icelandic Organic Fish and Chip restaurant, where you chose from a list of fish (eg cod, catfish cheeks, pollock), then chose a Skyronnaise (Icelandic type of thick yoghourt/cheese flavoured with coriander and lime, or dried tomatoes, or rosemary and green apple, etc), and a side dish of potatoes, fried onion rings, salad. Another time we ate at a colourful little place by the waterfront that specialised in lobster soup, which was served in cardboard cups and eaten at narrow long trestle tables either inside or outside. You could also buy fresh fish there and we bought a marinated minke whale steak and took it back to our hostel and cooked it. It's a deep red meat and the only cooking utensil was a small frypan so I panfried it, while Barbara made instant mashed potato and a green salad. The whale steak had a good strong meaty taste and was delicious.
I am expecting that some of you are going to be appalled - 'how could you eat an endangered species, Everard' etc. Well, whale is a traditional Icelandic food (like rotten shark) and my understanding is that Iceland abides by international conventions and only catches what the quota permits.
After 3 days in Reykjavik Barbara and I were bursting to get out into the country so we hire a car and set off. It's a tiny car called a Matiz and it's the cheapest we could find. We head south-east in the direction of a tiny town called Vik and drive through a varied landscape of lava fields, lush countryside, waterfalls, with mountains topped with an icecap in the background, and occasional plumes of steam from thermal activity. Miraculously the sun comes out as soon as we leave Rekjavik and our spirits lift. We drive to a long beach made up of pebbles and volcanic sand, with sea caves, interesting rock formations ... and a cliff with puffins. Barbara is so happy to see these little birds - they have black backs, white stomachs, and orange webbed feet and an orange odd-shaped beak and they tirelessly fly off the cliff, out to sea, and back again. They go so fast we can't take proper pictures of them, which is very frustrating.
We head back and stay the night at a farmhouse accomodation. It's like having our own house - a fully equipped kitchen and a big lounge, and I sit down and have a look at the music collection - panpipe versions of the Beatles and Elvis Presley (well, you've got to experience everything once), together with Icelandic versions of the Pointer Sisters and sort of folkloric/C&W. We have dinner (hamburger and chips) at a roadside cafe, and when we return there's a hot tub outside so we sit there and look out over the vast green plain.
Next day we head off to the Gulfoss waterfall and Geysir, a geothermal area (see the pictures) then drive over dirt roads to find our next night's accomodation. The landscape changes all the time (it goes from lush green, to dry mountain areas with dust storms, etc and it feels really off the beaten track, even though we're less than 100kms from Reykjavik).
At one stage I am tearing along the rough dirt road when I see a big truck reversing off the road. I slow just a little as I near him, and then he drives forward on to the road right in front of me. I hit the brakes but the little wheels scrabble and lose grip and there's no way I can stop in time, so I drive off the road, narrowly missing a road post, over a steeply inclined embankment made up of medium size rocks, and eventually come to a standstill against a big rock that is lodged against the right front wheel.
The truck driver runs over and asks if we are ok, which we both are, then we push the rock away, I reverse, and then the truck driver and Barbara push the car as I try and drive it up the embankment, the wheels scrabbling and slipping over the rocks. Miraculously, nothing has happened to the car either and we proceed cheerfully on. I have to give it to Barbara for being calm - she said that she thought we were going to roll over but she didn't scream or panic.
We drive on to Thingvellir (that's how it's pronounced but in Icelandic the first letter is written as a cross between p and b, but pronounced th). It's the site of the first Icelandic parliaments and was used from around 900-1,200AD. The site is beautiful - on one side it's bounded by a long black lava wall (with a couple of waterfalls plunging over), which is actually a visible part of the American tectonic plate, and below is a broad area of meadows with a river flowing through to a large lake. The European tectonic plate is about 7kms away (the tectonic plates are moving away at 1-2 cm a year, although there have been earthquakes which have accelerated the movement eg 1-2 metres in one hit) and the area has subsided substantially.
The parliaments were held in the open air for periods of around 2 weeks, and merchants, traders, entertainers, etc also came and set up makeshift booths. It is estimated there could have been between 2000-5000 people here at the time of the parliament (I love sitting at this type of place and trying to imagine the scene).
Our guide tells us that duels were fought on the islands in the river. According to one of the Icelandic sagas they were banned after 2 young men fought over a woman - apparently the duel went on for hours and neither could finish the other off and it was decided it was stupid to lose either or both of the strong young men so it was banned from that time (possibly also because Iceland had become Christian by that time). The story continues on that apparently the 2 men continued the duel elsewhere - one of them had his leg cut off, but hung on the branch of a tree and when the other said 'do you give up now' taunted him somewhat along the lines of 'come on keep fighting, are you scared of me' and when the other man took a break and bent over to adjust his shoes, chopped off his head (I guess this story is possibly where Monty Python got the idea for the Black Knight in the Holy Grail film).
We stay that night at a farm in Brennistadir. We are miles from anywhere and have to drive 15kms to find food - we eat at a roadside cafe - the interior is amazing (see pictures) and the owner is this big muscley lady who makes us a hearty serving of deep fried fish balls 'like her mother used to make'.
The next day we head for Snaefellnes peninsula. It is said to be holy and mysterious and the French writer Jules Verne chose the Snaefellsjokul glacier here as his doorway into inner space in his fantastical book, Journey to the Center of the Earth.
The drive is beautiful on the way there, mainly through undulating countryside with mountains to one side and sandy beaches with surf on the other. We have lunch of smoked salmon rolls by cliffs overlooking the sea, then I go for a walk by myself to the promontory and am attacked repeatedly by this huge gull (about 3-4 times the size of the ones we have in Melbourne). I manage to get a good picture of it, which is very hard to do - I have to track it with the camera as it dive bombs me, quickly take the picture, then wave my arms in the air to drive it off.
After lunch we drive up a rough dirt road to the glacier - it's classified as a 4WD road but we're told that it's passable in a normal car in this weather, and the views are beautiful. We continue on around the peninsula through a lava field which goes all the way to the sea, then around the north coast, stopping at the shark museum at Bjarnarhof. They catch these huge sharks that have big blunt noses and rows of small sharp teeth. For some reason the sharks have extremely high concentrations of ammonia in the flesh, making it poisonous if eaten fresh. The shark is cut into large chunks, then hung in a shed for 6 months, after which it's further processed to get rid of the ammonia, and then ready to eat. So you could call it cured rotted shark meat. They have a bowl of it for tasting so we try some - it has a very unpleasant powerful ammonia taste - I can't even begin to think what it must taste like raw or cooked. You wonder why they put so much effort in when this is the result. Apparently it's traditional to have it with Icelandic Schnapps - my guess is you would have to get drunk on the Schnapps before you could eat it.
Another interesting place we go to is the Holy Mountain, Helgafell. It's actually a small hill and we follow the instructions we have read - if we climb the mountain without looking back or speaking we can make three wishes at the top. The wishes cannot be harmful. We reach the top, where a cold strong wind is blowing and hunker down in a small stone shelter for respite while we make our wishes. The view is fantastic.
That night we have hamburgers and chips again - it's the cheapest item at the fancy restaurant we go to in Stykkishohur. I have the Icelandic special and it comes with sweet chilli sauce and Dijon mustard (interesting combination) and a glass of the house French wine which cost more than the hamburger (about $16 Aus - ouch).
We drive back towards Reykjavik and stay at a farmhouse in Kidafel, and I stay up in the beautiful little lounge and watch the sun set behind the mountains around midnight.
Next day we return to Reykjavik to pick up my cousin Claude, who's arriving from London in the afternoon - we will spend a few days together and Barbara will return to London in a couple of days.
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