Modernoddyseus's travel blogs:
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MOUNTAINS SUCK
Entry 4 of 16 | show all | print this entry |
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At midnight, I started biking for the mountains.
Reykjavik is on this inlet, and on the opposite side
of the inlet is a long, flat, snow-topped mountain. I
knew another kid who´d biked there. "It´s a lot
farther than it looks," he said. What a dope, I
remember thinking, how could something look closer
than it is?
I figured it´d take me four hours total to bike
to the mountain, climb it, and come back. I borrowed
bike from some spare room in my building. It was
way too small for me, and it squeaked when I rode it
as if it might fall apart. It looked like Dorothy´s
bike from the Wizard of Oz, without the basket (and
judging by the shape this thing was in, it might´ve
actually BEEN that bike!).
After ten minutes, the chain fell off and I
banged my knee hard on the handlebars. Many people
might´ve given up at this time, but I said, "Press
On!" and continued.
Ten minutes later, the chain fell off again.
There seemed little promise of it staying on for long.
Most people would´ve gone home at this point, but I
said, "Press On!" and continued.
The problem was I had no directions on how to get
to this mountain. When I´d left my building, I´d done
so with blind faith that I would find my way to the
mountain easily. But after forty minutes, the
mountain was the same size as it looked from my
window - just in a different direction. After an hour,
it seemed to have actually gotten smaller!
Finally, I came to Reykjavik´s edge and a bridge
across the inlet. The road ended, so I decided the
mountain was close enough to walk to. I left the bike
and set off through these "moguls" of grass where lots
of birds live. Some birds flew high and sung like
reverberations, and the black-headed, orange-beaked
birds circled around me like sharks. To pass the
walk, I invented a game called grass-mogul-jump-race
(of which I´m the sole competitor and proud champion).
My record is 17 grass-mogul-jumps without falling.
Then came another major setback. The mountain
was apparently further away then it looked, because
the inlet sprung up in front of me again - meaning the
only way off the grass-moguls, on land, was to turn
around. At this point, I didn´t care what most people
would´ve done - I was going to reach that mountain if
I had to wade through the inlet to get there!
Actually, I considered that option until my
(brief) geology knowledge told me that if there was a
mountain on the other side of the water, the 2000 feet
of 40-degree water wouldn´t be a wadeable depth.
So, I went back to my bike, having wasted one
hour, and returned to the main road.
I quickly abandoned that for a side road that
winded by the inlet. I started to enjoy the biking
here for a second, until my chain fell off for a fifth
time. Instead of immediately fixing it, though, I
danced for five minutes to the Guns N´Roses song on my
headphones. (Out in the Icelandic countryside at 2:30
in the morning - definitely the weirdest place I´ve
ever danced at)
That was fun, but I soon discovered more of the
inlet in front of me. It seems my side road was a
dead end, and I now had to cut across three wide
Icelandic farms to get back on-track. My bike and I
went over one fence, under another, and through one
more - and I twice had to throw the bike over
creeks.
At last, I was off the "farms" (I don´t even know
why they were fenced off, there was nothing there -
not animals, not crops, not even grass moguls to race
on), having wasted another hour.
My next mistake was an inadvertant sightseeing
trip through the town of Mosfellsbær. There´s nothing
to see in Mosfellsbær, though, except many destination-
less roads that lure you with their siren-call
promising quick routes to the mountain.
Duped again by the mountain´s false-closeness,
I´d wasted another hour. I got back on the main road
and followed (with a few more bad turns, many
fallen-off chains, and a badly-aching knee) until I
reached the foot of the mountain - at about four or
five in the morning.
In hindsight, my route to the mountain was bad
navigational error upon bad navigational error. Every
turn I made, in fact, was the wrong one. If I simply
would´ve stayed on the same road the whole way, the
very road within a quarter-mile of my house, I
would´ve gotten to the mountain in an hour.
I started up the mountain´s grassy/hilly bottom.
I wasn´t sure what I´d do at the top (build a snowman,
yodel?), until I came across an abandoned...something.
But it was made out of wood, so I spent twenty
minutes throwing rocks on it and jumping on it until
I´d made myself a snowboard.
I continued on. You don´t know how many times I
told myself, "Just another half-hour ´til the top!"
But half-hour after half-hour passed without the top
seeming to get any closer. My knee began to
excruciate with every painful step I took, and the
heavy snowboard I was carrying didn´t help.
Whenever I reached a stream, I got down on my
hands-and-knees like a dog and drank from it. After
seven straight hours of exercise, that water tasted
like it flowed straight from heaven.
I came to a small bit of snow. The perfect
chance to try out my snowboard! I stood on it proudly
and waited to zoom off for the ride of a
lifetime...but it didn´t go anywhere.
Ohhh, I was pissed! I took the stupid thing and
threw it as far as I could, from out of my disgusted
sight. I took some running slides down the snow on
foot. I build up a pretty good speed and slipped
around, trying to keep my balance. Eight hours of
work for 30 seconds of fun. Weeeeee!
I got about 90-95% up the mountain before I
finally realized that no matter how many hours of work
I had to go, the top was always going to "appear" to
be just a short distance off. Stupid deceitful
mountains! - that kid was right.
So, I yodelled and headed down.
During the descent, all I could think about was
how I hoped some nice country person would invite me
into their home on the way back for breakfast.
When I got on my bike, my knee hurt way too much
to ride. I pulled to the side of the road and stuck
out my thumb. 3 of the first 6 cars stopped for me,
but only the third had room in it for my bike.
The driver, Ása, took me right to the door of my
building.
But not without first inviting me to her dad´s
house...where she made me a traditional Icelandic
breakfast (two kinds of yogurt, four kinds of bread,
and two bacon, ham, and cheese spreads)! Woohoo for
Ása!
- Modern Oddyseus
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