Reykjavik is a hopping tourist destination these days. How could you resist this church? With Leifr Eriksson in front? Maybe I'm exposing my old Six Sigma ways.
Cris and I arrived a couple of days before our
Backroads Iceland circumnavigation departed. That gave us a chance to soak in the
Blue Lagoon. I loved it! It's a big tourist destination for a good reason. They spoil you with conditioner in the showers, lotion in the change room, a silica mud mask, and a drink. And that's the basic package.
Our Backroads adventure started off right away on Sunday morning with a trail overlooking Glymur Falls at the end of Whale Fjord, and lunch at a sheep farm, Bjarteyjasandur. It was local mussels and a wonderful lamb soup with thyme, mint, pasley, and tarragon. Then we boarded our ship, the National Geographic Explorer, with our 22-person group and 2 leaders. The ship is small, only 150 or so guests, and our cabin was large with a great window and lots of drawers. There are naturalist talks every evening after gourmet meals. We get to ride Zodiacs to shore at off-the-beaten-path destinations! We have to wear Wellingtons, knee-high rubber boots, for splashing ashore. The ship has an open bridge, so you can use binoculars to see all the birds and whales, while seeing what the crew is doing. The ship was bought from the Norwegian Hurtigruten by Lindblad Expeditions, who has a close relationship with National Geographic.
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| Brynjolfur, our Viking driver, followed by Cris |
The weather the whole 10 days was cool, with rain to keep us fresh and young. We had 2 or 3 days of sun, but several days that required wool underwear. Our first Zodiac landing was to Flatey island, and we visited Hrönn, one of the 5 people who live there year-round. We learned all about eider ducks and how to process eiderdown. It is like holding smoke, it's so light!
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| Eiderdown, ready to sell |
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| Hrönn invited us into her home and explained about different eggs |
Today we saw our first puffins! We also had our first Hitchcock 'The Birds' hike, with Arctic terns dive-bombing us constantly. They are protecting their nests right now. We had to hold our walking sticks over our heads to keep them from pecking our heads. "Angry Birds"!
The wind picked up so much after lunch that almost everyone got seasick, but I enjoyed being rocked to sleep in my lovely bed. I'm lucky that I'm such an 'insensitive' person!
Next adventure was biking from a lovely horse farm to the base of Dynjandur Falls, then hiking up the falls.
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| The National Geographic Explorer awaits our bicycles |
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| Dyjandur Falls with our cruise folks at its base |
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| All about old-time fishing, told in Icelandic and translated by Bryn |
Day 4: We're up in the Northwest fjords, biking from Bolungarvik to
Ísafjörður. The road is abandoned and being washed away, since it was replaced by a tunnel.
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| Biking along an abandoned road, with lupine everywhere |
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| This is why we needed Wellingtons - wet landings |
Our ship got us to shore in Zodiacs, whether there was a dock or not. They also could take us around small islands to look at all the birds. Absolutely amazing how MANY birds are all around Iceland! Besides Arctic terns and puffins, there were 3 kinds of guillemots, gannets, birds with beaks that were clearly for getting food out of shallow water, and so many more. On board, we had evening talks by naturalists every day, with one of them the bird specialist, who tried to teach us the sounds of the birds.
While I'm praising the Explorer, let me just rave about the wonderful food! I made
a video of the breakfast buffet. One evening, they made a Filipino buffet, and everyone wore very fine clothes that you might wear to a wedding.
In
Ísafjörður, Laufey gave us a tour. She loves her country so much, especially the welcoming people. She's involved with the Fablab there, and has brought it into the classroom. She is a teacher. The one person I know in Iceland is involved with that Fablab, but he was out of town. No time to go see it...
After lunch, the ship searched for whales in that fjord - and found them! Humpback whales feeding.
I took a zillion pictures, using techniques taught by our photography expert, Andrew Peacock. He also taught us to back up our pictures. Valuable lesson! My SD card got bent while inserting it in the slot on the second to last night. I think I only lost one day's pics. Unfortunately, they were of the Orcas. You'll have to take my word for it that we saw maybe 50 beauties!
Day 5: More biking! Glacier Valley loop from Dalvik toward a glacier past horses and golfers, with beer at the halfway point! Then back past colorful hay bales (troll marshmallows).
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| Golf, glacier, Backroads biker |
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| Hay bales - blue supports prostate cancer research, pink breast cancer, others are just fun |
We shuttled to Hauganes, to Baccalo Restaurant. Elvar Reykjalin owns it, the last surviving fish processing business around. I ordered fermented shark with Icelandic schnapps, totally grossing out my lunch-mates. It smells like piss, tastes bad and is only edible because of the schnapps chaser. Now I am a member of the Rotten Shark Club of Hauganes!
Our speaker that evening was Bryn's cousin Silja, who told us about genealogy. Icelanders are obsessed with it! She knows her lineage back to the 800's. They have an app to show them if they are too closely related to have children. "Bump your phones before bumping in bed!"
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| I had to put in a puffin picture. This is an Iceland blog, after all! |
Day 6: Hike, eat, choose to sit in a hot spring (or horseback ride for Cris), eat some more, then evening hike to the Arctic Circle. What a marathon day!
First, we shuttled to the infamous Goðafoss. Here's a story that shows how Icelanders behave. In 1000 AD, the two religions, Christianity and the worship of the Æsir, the Norse gods, were splitting the country. The matter was submitted to the parliament, the Althing, and after just a couple of days,
Thorgeir Thorkelsson said, "Okay, you're right. We will be Christian." On his way home, he threw the statues of Odin, Thor, and so on over Goðafoss. I hear Thor was not pleased, and you can still hear him roaring about it. There were midges there, and our mosquito nets were wonderful.
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| Goðafoss |
Still before lunch, we hiked up Hverfjall, a crater formed by lava coming up under water. Big Boom! It reminded me of a small Mt. St. Helens.
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| Hverfjall |
The hike to lunch was through an Icelandic forest. Extremely short birches! What do you do when you're lost in the forest in Iceland? Stand up!
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| Cris strolling in the birch forest |
Iceland is being ripped asunder by the North American and Eurasian plates. We straddled a fissure to show it to everyone back home!
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| Cris and Guillermo at the edge of North America |
After lunch, we split into 3 groups. Cris went horseback riding, while I opted for sitting in M
ývatn Nature Springs. Not as heavenly as the Blue Lagoon, but really nice. No picture. Today was my day for faking it. I left my SD card in my laptop. Then, my van driver had to leave, so moved my backpack into another van, which went to the horseback riding. Luckily for me, I still had my swim suit and towel! All good.
At 9:15 pm, we hopped into the Zodiacs to go to Grimsey Island, the northernmost point in Iceland, which crosses the Arctic Circle. Backroads had a guide for us, who explained that the imaginary line is actually moving! So while the rest of the ship took pictures at the signpost, we kept hiking. Through the fog and rain. To where we decided we couldn't see anything anyway, so we stuck our walking sticks in the ground and said, "Here is the Arctic Circle!" We were actually right, within a few feet. How cool is that?
If you are still with me, I apologize for how long this has become! I will post this part and continue with a new post.
The wind picked up so much after lunch that almost everyone got seasick, but I enjoyed being rocked to sleep in my lovely bed. I'm lucky that I'm such an 'insensitive' person!
At 9:15 pm, we hopped into the Zodiacs to go to Grimsey Island, the northernmost point in Iceland, which crosses the Arctic Circle. Backroads had a guide for us, who explained that the imaginary line is actually moving! So while the rest of the ship took pictures at the signpost, we kept hiking. Through the fog and rain. To where we decided we couldn't see anything anyway, so we stuck our walking sticks in the ground and said, "Here is the Arctic Circle!" We were actually right, within a few feet. How cool is that?
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