Íslandsferð (A Trip To Iceland) Part 2

PART TWO: SIGLUFJÖRÐUR - AKUREYRI - MÝVATN - JÖKULSÁRGLJÚFUR - HÚSAVÍK - REYKJAVÍK
"Jewels of the north"... not an empty slogan

Monday, 18 July

Today was spent making feeble attempts to make the most of this absolutely crap weather. It's exactly the same today...cold (7°C), drizzly, alskýjað. Fucking sucks. This is exactly the type of weather I was dreading. 90% of my time spend here in Siglufjörður has been cursed by this miserable weather. My only hope now is that it clears up for my travels out east. At least I got to see the beautiful fjord for a few hours anyway.

We went driving all around town again today. Guðjón was hoping to get some fishing in, so we went to some of his familiar spots. Wouldn't you know, like hoping for clear skies, it was in vain. We drove a little ways up the old mountain road, as far as the bottom of the ski lift. What little I could see was beautiful. I can't even imagine what it would've looked like had the skies been clear. It's a real fucking shame. What's even more frustrating is that I guess the weather was really nice the day before we arrived. Dejected, we eventually went back to the apartment.

Scouting for fish

We take a drive a little ways up Siglufjarðarskarð and see some sheep clinging to the hillside. Clouds obscure a little waterfall further up the mountain.

Even here, in such a far flung place as this, the spirit of thrash metal has permeated

A view of the town from the eastern side of the fjord. Clouds create a low ceiling of unbroken grey.

Rather than just hang around and watch TV, I went out for a walk. After a stroll to the shore I figured I'd try to see this cool spot that Þórunn told me about called Hvanneyrarskál. There's a path leading up the western side of the fjord to an area where the mountain isn't as high. Apparently there's some kind of natural pool there, like a little oasis or something. I had visions of taking a dip in there by the light of the midnight sun. Now the best I could hope for was to get a hazy view of it. After a good 30-40 minutes walking up this path I decided it was useless. The fog was so dense, like I was literally in the middle of a cloud. I long lost sight of the city and I started to feel completely isolated and a bit uneasy. Also, it's surprising how wet your feet can get walking on that grassy/mossy/bushy stuff when it's only just drizzly. My feet were completely soaked. I dropped the empty Heineken can I just finished, fully intending to pick it up as soon as I finished my cigar. Suddenly, the sound of running water just over the next little rise compelled me to run toward it. I found the little babbling river running down the mountainside. After lingering there for awhile, enjoying the moment, I returned to pick up the can and head back. I returned to the area I was sure it was, right next to where this small grassy area gave way to the surrounding expanse of little mounds covered in tufts of low-lying scrub, but for the life of me, I could not find the damn thing!! The thought of leaving it there and defiling that pristine landscape sickened me. I vowed that I would find it. I just couldn't leave it there. After 5-10 minutes of searching I had to admit defeat. My feet and bottoms of my pants were drenched and it was getting late. Man, I feel really bad about that. Sorry Iceland!! I just know Odin is looking down from on high shedding a tear.

After I put my soaking wet articles on the heater to dry, we ate some more take out for dinner. Afterwards, Þórunn asked me if I sensed anything out of the ordinary. I didn't. She said that her and her parents sensed some presence here in the apartment. They weren't freaked out about it or anything, but were rather nonchalant about it. I had read that Icelanders are prone to believe in sprits and elves and other such supernatural beings, but had never before been faced with it. There is even a book called Vættatal which supposedly documents the more than 500 ghouls, trolls, and paranormal beings that haunt the island. Say what you will, but until you see this country's landscape for yourself, and try to imagine growing up here during it's long, dark winters and among it's craggy and imposing lava and rock formations, do not cast aspersions.

My fruitless hike up to Hvanneyrarskál

The view from our bedroom window at the stroke of midnight

Enjoying our last breakfast in Siglufjörður

One last game before we leave

Friday, 22 July

Back in Reykjavík at Guðjón and Emmy's apartment. They are still in Siglufjörður. I think they come back tomorrow or Sunday. Þórunn is out on a "goose", which is like a female version of a bachelor party or something. One of her close friends is getting married to her boyfriend of 10 years so they're going out all afternoon and evening having all sorts of fun. So, I'm here alone at the moment, which is a bit strange for me.

Anyway, Tuesday began with the same shitty-ass weather. The morning was spent visiting various relatives. Þórunn and I set out about midday for Akureyri. We took route 82 which branches east off the road to Siglufjörður and goes through the interior tip of the peninsula. Lucky for me as there was some really awesome scenery, but I felt bad for her car as some sections of the road were really in poor condition. Fortunately, from Ólafsfjörður on, the road resumed a decent condition. There is a tunnel which goes through Ólafsfjarðarmúli (called Múlagöng) which is identical to Strákagöng but much newer and much longer (2 miles). It, like Strákagöng, is a very cool tunnel!

Mist enshrouds the craggy mountain directly above Strákagöng		Þórunn tries getting me and as much of the mountain as possible just outside the tunnel, but once again my lens proves severely wanting
Setting off for Akureyri	Route 82		Múlagöng

The drive along the coast of Eyjafjörður to Akureyri was relatively uneventful. The thing that most occupied our thoughts was the weather. It was defying the forcasts and maintaining it's miserable, cloudy, foggy, drizzly condition. What's worse, Þórunn was on the phone with her mother being told that things were clearing up back in Siglufjörður!! We appeared to be cursed! The reason we were so anxious about the weather was that Wednesday was the only day we had available for our eastern excursion. If the weather remained cloudy and foggy it would completely ruin the whole thing. We could do nothing but keep our fingers crossed. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was being punished for that Heineken can. Damn, I still feel awful about that.

When we got to Akureyri we went to eat at a nice restaurant called Greifinn, picked up some beer, drove around the city a bit and visited this over-the-top cutesy Christmas shop that was like a hundred Santa's Villages packed into this tiny, little building. Inside there was a fire going and subtle aromas of candy and incense filled the air. This place has to be the coziest little shop on the planet. In the winter it must be incredible. We eventually went to the place we were staying in town, her cousin's house. Her husband is a fisherman and she's a cook on board his ship. Apparently they make quite a good living doing this as their house was gorgeous! I felt like an intruder there it was so nice. I'll just say this much about it...their bathroom floor was heated.

Akureyri's most striking landmark: the town church, perched high atop a hill

The Christmas shop

The house we stayed at in Akureyri

OK, so after we got settled in there we went out so I could get some more film (I naively only brought 10 rolls with me, most of which were already used up by this time) and to do some more visiting of relatives. As I was finding out was customary in these situations, they welcomed us in with open arms, sat us down, and offered us beverages. I turned down a beer because I didn't know we'd be staying so long. After awhile our hostess brought out some coffee so I had some. I later really wished I had accepted the beer instead. After much talking, I learned that her brother, who was also there, works on the extremely controversial Kárahnjúkar dam project (a dam being built to power an aluminum plant that will destroy treasured landscapes). I also learned that the forcast was, again, calling for the weather to clear up the following day. I really hoped they were right this time. By the time we left there and got back to the house, it was pretty late and we needed to get up pretty early the next day. In an attempt to counteract the coffee, I had a nice big Thule before going to sleep, but it didn't work and I ended up not being really able to sleep at all. Very unfortunate as the following day's tour was a rather grueling 13 hours long!

Morning eventually came and we made our way to the bus station where the tour was to depart from. The weather was not as promising as I would've liked, but what can you do? The first stop was across the fjord for a nice view of Akureyri. The guide on board talked about various things and explained what we were seeing in both English and German. After that we continued eastward to Goðafoss, one of the many spectacular waterfalls around the country. This particular one has the historical distinction of being the place where, when Iceland abandoned paganism for Christianity in the year 1000, the people threw their carved images of pagan gods. The weather was steadily getting better and it looked like perhaps our curse had been lifted just in time. Then it was further east to Mývatn, the country's fourth largest lake. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see too much of it as it wasn't really part of the particular tour we chose. We did stop at the very cool Skútustaðagígar, though, which is a field of "psuedo-craters" formed by huge bubbles of steam trapped under the lava when it flowed into the lake. The bus continued around the lake and stopped at Reykjahlíð. Here we changed busses and the rest of the tour had no guides. They would just drive you to a spot, say 15 minutes or a half hour or whatever, and you'd go off on your own. Too bad, as many of these areas would've benefitted greatly from some commentary and/or explanation.

Panoramic view of Akureyri from the other side of the fjord	The drive up the eastern coast of Eyjafjörður	Fnjóská River on the way to Goðafoss	Goðafoss
On the approach to Mývatn	Skútustaðagígar	Along the eastern side of Mývatn, near Dimmuborgir	Hverfell, a football stadium-sized crater formed by an eruption 2500 years ago

From here we went east, then north to the Krafla area, a region of much volcanic activity. There is a power plant there which taps some of the vast geothermal energy of the region. Also, a colorful 1000-ft-wide explosion crater called Víti. Heading back east on the ring road we soon take a left to head north towards Þjóðgarður Jökulsárgljúfur via an astoundingly primitive road. Actually, calling it a road is not really appropriate. It's more of a track leading through some of the most barren terrain I've seen. At times it looked like an enormous construction site as far as the eye could see. The fact that we were in a full-sized bus on this rudimentary pathway, forced to crawl at a ridiculously slow pace due to how rocky and narrow and winding it was, never ceased to amaze me. I would never have the balls to take a bus down that infernal stretch. It took us about 2 hours to cover the 20-or-so kilometers to Dettifoss, Europe's largest waterfall. I would've driven like that for 10 hours to see this place. It was simply unbelievable. I'm not going to exhaust the English language's supply of superlatives trying to describe the things I saw on this trip because it's just a waste of time. Words cannot begin to do them justice. The pictures can't possibly capture what it's like seeing these things in real life either, but I hope they can at least give some idea. I just want to comment here that people are always saying, myself included, that many places in Iceland seem like they're on Mars or the moon or whatever, but nowhere I've been to so far feels more like an extraterrestrial landscape than the enormous field of rectangular blocks of grey lava leading to Dettifoss. It is truly other-worldly.

The landscape begins to change on the road east from Mývatn in the Bjarnarflag region	Krafla	Víti
The ride (crawl) to Dettifoss	The approach to Dettifoss	Dettifoss

Here we changed busses again. This time for the last time. This vehicle was smaller, probably half the size of the others, and this driver was like the Icelandic Indiana Jones. He didn't carefully pick his way along these winding, narrow, hardscrabble roads like the other driver. He sped down them without regard. I was expecting the windows to shatter and bolts to pop out and the whole damn thing to just shake apart. It was almost like a fucking amusement ride with this guy! Anyway, next he took us to Hólmatungur, which was just plain confusing. He parks and says "tíu mínútur" (10 minutes). Þórunn says something to him and he says "fimmtán mínútur" (15 minutes). So we start walking down the only pathway, and we're walking, and we're walking, and there really isn't anything. Suddenly we come upon a sign that says there is something another half-kilometer onward, but unfortunately it took us so long to get there we didn't have time to press on. We got the impression that the previous driver put us behind schedule and this driver was trying to make up for lost time. So, I don't know what we missed there. By this time the weather was fully cleared up. The sun was shining beautifully strong in a securely clear sky. I thanked Odin from the bottom of my heart. Seriously, I was very happy and relieved.

Here I tried to capture the experience of trying to pass another vehicle on this "road". Calling it a tight squeeze is a bit of an understatement.

Hólmatungur

Next was Hljóðaklettar, quite possibly the coolest place I've ever seen anywhere, period. Again, I'm speechless so I'll have to let the pictures do whatever talking they can. Next was the last of the Jökulsárgljúfur stops, Ásbyrgi, which is a huge, horseshoe-shaped canyon. This was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing the most. I had seen pictures of this before and it looked amazing. I thought we would visit it from the top head of the canyon so we could see it all, but we instead came in on one of the ends, in the canyon itself, so we could only see a portion of it. A slight disappointment, but it was still awesome. I was surprised to see many people camping and how there were facilities for washing clothes and whatnot. I didn't know it was some kind of organized camping area (or at least some of it anyway). We had a lot of time here, like an hour-and-a-half (I guess he had made up the time by this point), so we took a much-needed rest on the cool grass and basked in the sterling sunshine. I told Þórunn this place is like Xanadu, and it was.

All good things must come to an end and we eventually had to leave this serene and heavenly place. By this time I was on sensory overload. I had seen so much dizzyingly beautiful things that my head was spinning. We had one more stop before heading back to Akureyri: Húsavík. We headed north around Tjörnes peninsula and down the coast to Húsavík. After snapping a picture of the infamous penis museum (Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn, or Thee Icelandic Phallological Museum) we all headed down to the harbour. It was gorgeous, of course, and I whiled away the time with a beer and a cigar in a lovely outdoor harborside restaurant. It was a very pleasant end to a long day. I barely remember the ride back to Akureyri. Again, I was just so overwhelmed by everything. When we got back we picked up some burgers and fries and went back to the house, ate, and went to sleep.

The Penis Museum

Our intrepid driver hanging out on the dock

The lovely seaside restaurant where I had a nice drink and smoke

The view from the house in Akureyri. This was around 11:30 at night looking north out the mouth of Eyjafjörður.

The next morning we visited some more relatives before heading setting out for Reykjavík. Going back we took the ring road all the way. We missed the Öxnadalur stretch on the way here because of our detour to Siglufjörður, but we got to go through it on the way back. Very awesome indeed. From Varmahlíð on to Hvalfjörður we just retraced our path up. Aside from a little lunch break in Blönduós there's not much to tell. On the way back Þórunn was nice enough to take me the long way around Hvalfjörður instead of going through the tunnel again. I had no idea how amazing it would be. I knew it would be nice, but after all I had just seen, I didn't think it would blow me away like it did. Man. Just plain fucking awesome. I can't believe no one took me/us there before considering how close it is to Reykjavík. Upon returning to Reykjavík, Þórunn took a quick drive through Öskjuhlíð, the city's little forest full of walking trails, and showed me the city's little beach area at Nauthólsvík, which I find hard to believe can actually accomodate all the people here.

OK, thank god I can stop writing. My hand is killing me and the weather outside is still gorgeous. Gotta go prowl the city...

A very unique-looking house across the street from where we stayed in Akureyri	One last shot of Akureyri, this from outside the house	Öxnadalur	Varmahlíð to Blönduós	A church (presumably) in Blönduós
Blönduós to Hvalfjörður	Hvalfjörður, the northern leg	We stopped at the inside tip and hung out for a bit	Hvalfjörður, the southern leg	Reykjavík city limits