Iceland (Part 1 of 4)

[Kyle]Our flight from Canada to Iceland was to be our first time flying as regular passengers since my retirement. My career airline subsequently went bankrupt, taking my retirement flight benefits with them. Flying planes is fun, but riding in the cabin really has become such an ordeal that it is not to be recommended. At least we were spared the non-revenue stress of constantly wondering if we were going to make it on.

I don't know if it was just the off-season, but our flight on Play Airlines was barely half-full. Play is one of those super-low-cost carriers that charges extra for every bloody thing. I will give them credit for what must be the world's most comfortable flight-attendant uniforms: red jeans and a white t-shirt emblazoned with the red Play logo. If they want to class it up a bit, they throw a red blazer over it all. The downside is of course that it's all a bit light for greeting boarding passengers with in a swirly, wintery wind.

After taking off and following the general route of the St. Lawrence Seaway, we had a sleepless flight where we were seated right behind two loud guys who loved the sounds of their own voices so much that neither would shut up for the entire duration.

The flight included our first introduction to Icelandic candy - they really like salty liquorice (but no aurora sightings)

Our flight landed in Keflavik International Airport in the well-before-dawn darkness of 4:40am. By the time we cleared Customs, collected our rental car and scraped the windows clear of ice (the first time I have had to do THAT in decades!), it was rapidly approaching six o'clock.

Now we had a problem. I had booked our first hotel night in Vik, about a three-and-a-half hour drive from the airport. The problem was that since the southern coast of Iceland is less than 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and since it was only thirteen days until the Winter Solstice, we still had another three-and-a-half hours of nighttime left to go before it would even start getting light out. We knew there would be lots of great scenery along the way, so we didn't want to leave early and drive in the dark.

All of the nearby museums were closed as a way of eating up some time. Maryanne came up with the idea of picking up any provisions we would need for the week at a nearby grocery store and then head for Vik by taking a less direct route through the Krysuvik geothermal area.

Once we cleared the car of ice, our first tourist spot was to the coastal church (Strandarkirkja) originally built by sailors in the 12th century. Over the Christmas period, all the graveyards in Iceland have the stones decorated and lit, so we didn't mind reaching it in the dark

We started along route 42. It cuts across the Reykjanes Peninsula and intercepts the south coast just to the east of Grindavik, the town that had been evacuated out of fear that the Sundhnúkagígar volcanic eruption will intensify.

The Icelandic Government's excellent traffic website said the road was open, if a bit slippery. Google thought it was closed, which made our SatNav apoplectic with commands to "Make a u-turn" and, "Proceed to the route."

Based on the winding of the road as well as a few tantalizing glimpses that flashed by the beams of our headlights, this area seems like it must be very interesting to see in daylight.

Other roadside attactions became apparent as the light arrived

We arrived at the coast at the T-junction with Suðurstrandarvegur, southern coast route 427. To our right were lots of flashing warning signs and barriers, explaining that there was an evacuation order and that the road is closed. To our left was a single police vehicle, which was presumably there to keep us from trying to turn right. Behind the police was a dark and empty road.

It wasn't until we approached the small port of Þorláksköfn that the first hint of twilight started showing on the southeast horizon. We briefly exited the car at a couple of viewpoints. Technically, it was not that cold (just below freezing), but the windchill really made it feel so much worse. Man, Iceland is cold! Who knew?

As the day brightened, our jaws dropped at the beautiful scenery and we found ourselves stopping more frequently for viewpoints and short hikes to other viewpoints, taking in the crisp air and snapping away with our cameras as we went.

Google attactions directed us to these friendly traffic lights at a pedestrian crossing in Selfoss

Frozen waterfalls on route - at Urriðafoss

A stop at one of the many traditional turf houses (and its associated church)

Eyjafjallajökull

Of particular interest to me, personally, was a rather mundane stop to look across a snowy foreground to a mountain and glacier in the distance. It didn't look much different from most of the other scenery today, but in 2010, Eyjafjallajökull was front-page news all over the world as it spewed 250 million cubic meters of ash into the upper atmosphere, which then blew to Europe, covering 20 countries and disrupting air travel over the Atlantic for days. I was commuting between the U.S. and Scotland then and the last time I saw it was from the cockpit of a 757 that had to divert north of it to avoid the ash cloud that stretched over the southeast horizon.

Aside from the man-made roadside attractions, we spotted plenty of tiny local icelandic horses

The waterfalls at Seljalandsfoss were especially dramatic

But it wasn't all ice covered

Many of the lagoons along the road had ice covered beaches, fun and beautiful

We had enjoyed ourselves so much along the way that by the time we actually made it to Vik at 4pm, it was so far past sunset that it was completely dark again. We had a delicious and surprisingly reasonably priced dinner at Black Crust Pizzeria (they put activated charcoal in the dough. It's a thing they do around here to make the bread look the same color as the local volcanic rocks.) Then, even though we were both exhausted from a long day, Maryanne booked us for a Lava Show in town.

I must admit that at the time, my vote was to go straight to the hotel and start sleeping. Maryanne had that look, though, so we compromised and did what she wanted.

The show started with a short video segment. it was warm and cozy in the room and Maryanne had to kick me a few times to keep me from nodding off.

Then the lava came in. A guillotine door opened and a stream of white-hot lava entered the room. Within the first few seconds, the radiated heat brought the temperature in the room up by at least ten degrees Celsius, maybe even twenty. If you have ever been in a room that is on fire, you know the feeling. That woke me up instantly.

Lava, at least in iceland, is chemically very similar to glass, so the show had some similarity to a glass blowing demonstration, except that glass blowing demonstrations don't bring seventy kilos of material out of the furnace and put it into the middle of the room. The presenter explained that they tried to do it with 120 kilos once, but everyone including the presenter fled the room from the intense heat.

Volcanic glass is more brittle and cools less evenly than art glass varieties do, so there is no blowing globes or delicate shaping going on. Instead, our enthusiastic Norwegian presenter used a thick steel rod to explore the properties of the lava, demonstrationg the various beautiful formations it can take.

It was a fascinating education to be able to extrapolate the behavior of the lava into what happens during volcanic eruptions and lava flows.

Even though the lava was still yellow-hot, the part along the bottom of the trough had already cooled enough for the stream to be solid enough to be lifted clear of its little gully. Also, even though the pool at the bottom was liquid, it was still so dense that jabbing a steel pole into it barely caused it to submerge, but instead opened up fissures that turned black as the inner lava was exposed to cool air.

Also interesting was that when a big disc of ice was placed on the surface, it didn't immediately boil off or explode into steam. Instead, the extreme heat sublimated the bottom surface of the ice into a cushion of steam, which insulated the bulk of it from the worst of the heat, and left behind a black skin of cooled lava. As water droplets dripped off the top or sides of the ice, they too would sizzle their way across the surface of the lava, creating their own little veins of cooled rock along the way.

Once the lava pool had cooled enough, our presenter was then able to chip at it with the end of the pole, shattering it into smaller chunks. He explained that, once the show was done, they would then shovel the deep red-hot pieces into a wheelbarrow to be returned to the oven, where they would be turned into liquid for the next show. Well, that was well worth staying up for!

Food and an amazing Lava Show finished our first day in Iceland

We recorded a small part of the show so you too can enjoy the presentation by "Mr Lava Lava"

Back at the hotel, we had our first experience of Iceland's abundant geothermal heat. Since there is so much of it, the floor-heated interior was so warm that we quickly had to revert to a tropical mode of dress. We then cracked a window (as the locals seem to all do) to make it cool enough to sleep.

Based on our experience driving to Vik, I insisted that we leave from Vik for the drive to Höfn in the pre-dawn (11:03am) darkness of 9am, in order to allow us enough time for sightseeing stops. Also, the weather was getting more wintery, so we would not be able to drive as fast as the speed limit of 90kph.

The initial darkness helped curtail our sightseeing stops a bit, but we soon realized it wasn't anything long-exposure photography couldn't make up for. It got properly light out just as we reached the vast lava fields to the southwest of Vatnajökull.

Reynisfjara beach is a popular spot, and, er, obviously... but watch out for those waves that come rolling in

And the beach alongside Hjörleifshöfði mountain has a great cave:Gígjagjá (affectionaly called the Yoda Cave for obvious reasons)

We took a detour to see a basalt column pavement - not on the scale of on Giant's causeway, but still pretty cool, this one tiny patch is known as Kirkjugólfið (the church floor)

And to see the larger columns at Dverghamrar where local legends tell us the dwarfs live

And more beauty all along...

We've seen comments from others characterizing the drive between Vik and Höfn as relatively dull. We didn't think so at all. While it's true that the steep mountain backdrop receded from the road toward the horizon, the stark lava fields that replaced them made us feel like we had landed on another world. This is Iceland's largest lava field, composed of over fourteen cubic kilometers of basalt from the Grímsvötn eruption of 1783/1784. At the mountains in the distance, the terminal ends of the great Vatnajökull glacier spilled onto the plain, broke into melting chunks of ice, and melted into silty, sinewy rivers that shape theplains below.

A few hours later, right around sunset, Maryanne suggested a short detour down a dirt side road to the viewpoint at Haoldukvisl Glacier.

The road turned out to be a much slower and rougher 4WD track than we had expected, so it took a while before we finally crested the final berm and caught view of the glacier.

Then, of course, it was all far too interesting to look at quickly and then leave. With darkness falling, we exited the vehicle and speed-hiked our way from the top of one hillock to another. The views were incredible and it was humbling to think of how this whole area must have looked when all of this lava was flowing over it and cooling into the plains we were seeing today.

And another side trip, this time to the Haoldukvisl Glacier

And we snatched a quick glimpse of Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon as darkness fell (we hope to spend more time on the way back west), and it was time find food and our hotel for the night

As the light was fading fast, we zipped right past our hotel and into Höfn for dinner. What had initially appeared as a good selection of restaurants quickly dwindled to just Kaffi Hornið, the only place left open during the off-season.

Because Iceland has so much drama to deal with, what with the earthquakes, the volcanoes, and all of the severe weather, Icelanders have lots and lots of emergency procedures for if things start to go wrong. I did not know this at the time, but apparently, "May I have the Club Sandwich, please" is code for "Quick, bring this guy an emergency shelter he can use to hide behind in 100mph winds!"

There is no way anyone would consider the thing they brought to our table to be an actual sandwich. It was as if the chef didn't understand scale and built it to exactly match a photo of one he'd seen on a billboard once. No one could get their mouths open that far. Even after I disassembled it, the pile of food that remained would barely fit on my plate. And here's the other thing, the Club Sandwich was the least expensive thing on the menu. Had we known, Maryanne and I would have shared it and taken the leftovers for dinner the next day.

When we arrived at our hotel, it initially looked like it might have been abandoned. Oh, that's how they get you! You pay online and then when you show up, there's no one there! I should've…oh, wait. It looks like there's a light on at that building over there. Never mind.

We were indeed the only guests. Our key card was waiting with a welcome note on the otherwise unattended Front Desk. Our room was toasty warm and sparking clean.