Iceland II: hitchhiking is cool

Trip Start Jun 03, 2008
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Trip End Oct 14, 2008


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Flag of Iceland  ,
Friday, July 25, 2008

Isafjördur is one of those places that are hard to get to, and once there, hard to get out, or get around for that matter. It is located in West Fjord, a remote and isolated part of the country even by iceland standard that is only sparsely inhabited by fishmen and sheep farmers. Now with the fishing industry collapsing as all the 'blood fish' are gone as a local put it, you really don't see a lot of people around at all. The land is old, scooped by ice age glaciers into bowls and gullies that are now draped with snow patches and shrubby greens. It is wild, and it is beautiful. Sea birds are everywhere. The arctin terns, which migrate through half of the globe each year, set up their nests here and ferociously protect their young. These elegant birds with snowwhite feather and a sharp red beak will float above their territory, and readily dive down to sink their beak on your head should you invade. I had one painful peck and that was enough to convince me to carry a wook stick and have it rise above my head - the bird attack the highest point of you. On a half day boat trip intothe tiny Vigur island, we also saw some amazing puffin action. Puffins are these funny little birds that have the black and white feather of a penguin, but then has a bright red beak with orange strip, and wings that actually carry them to the air. To witness their flight, you'd think that you are watching a giant bumble bee- with box shaped body and short wings, their flight seems to defy the law of physics. Since it is the season when birds are raising their young, loads after loads of birds came ashore with a full beak of seafood, and it really comes upon you that these sea birds are experts underwater as well. Of course you also see the eggs and the chicks. Ugly, clumsy tern chicks that are gray and fuzzy and almost the size of their parents but still to be turned into the pretty super flying machines they are destined for. Ducklings too. The farmer family on the island gather and raise orphaned Dider ducks, so when they reach adulthood, mate and use their neck dawn to build nests, he could collect some of that dawn to make the finest dawn pillow ever.

Having visited Vigur, I was so impressed with the birds that a visit to the famous bird cliff at Tranchenberg, a sheer 300meter drop to the sea where millions of seabirds are said to nest, seemed the thing to do. Small problem: buses to Tranchenberg only run on odd days and I had only one, even day left in Isafjördur. Well guess what, the suggestion on my guidebook that iceland is hitchhikable was confirmed by the local tourist information office. And off I go, standing at the first fork of the highway trying to hitch the first car of my life time. It took a couple tries, some cars do not stop of course , and some are going to a different direction. But within an hour, my luck rose and I was happily on the first of the 10 lifts I was to get during the day heading towards my bird cliff. The really neat thing about getting a ride is that you really get to meet people. And these are the locals who are making a living on tough land with great spirits and enterpreneurship. There was the pottery maker/grade school teacher, the student/coffee house owner, the fisherman with 4 kids, the former fisherman taking his 60 year old mom to her gallery exhibit opening, the colorful weather station maintainance guy who knew pretty much everything about iceland from the number of universities (3) to the age of West Fjords (40 million years), and is a member of the two-man task force that keep the weather stations running in the whole country. Then there is the couple who are land owners/farmers/hoteliers. The profession of farmer in iceland really refer to the raising of sheep on vast, but poorly vegetated patches of private lands. And it was just intriguing to hear my farmer hosts talk about the trade: for the entire summer, the sheep hang out in the wild on their own, when fall comes some would volunteer back to the farm pen for warmth and food, the rest are rounded back by sheep dogs. Luckily for my hosts, the one sheep dog they own was enough for the job of keeping an eye on their 600 sheep. But they are training two more dogs, I was told, for the specific task of catching breakaway minks who have escaped becoming fur decoration and are now wrecking havoc on the local vegetation- clearly a task more demanding than the 600 sheep. We discussed their modest hotel, which is yielding more income than the whole sheep farming work. We talked about the famous icelandic horses, extremely sweet looking, but would kick your ass if not properly trained. And puffin meat. The adorably looking little birds also turns out to be a local delicacy, caught in thousands in Vigur island alone each year and smoked for the consumption of fans. If you love the taste of sea birds you'd really like it, I was told. Well I have never tried a seagull to begin with, and just envisioning the taste of oily, sea-salty meat was quite enough to satieate my puffin hunger. Altogether, making the trip took 10 lifts, 12 hours, and some fretting minutes spent on high pass not being able to get a lift as evening approaches. Seeing the congregation of seabirds on a cliff was cool, but on its own not worthy. In this case, it is as they say, that the journey is more important than the destiny. And all is well that ends well, as I grinned silly dragging my tired body into hotel at 10pm, with the lingering northen sun still on horizon.
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