Delights and Surprises

Reykjavik

One travels for the surprises as much as anything and Iceland offers a feast of them.

For one thing, I can't think of another landscape that has put me in mind of crusty brownies just out of the oven and dusted with powdered sugar. It has set a craving in me that, it occurs to me, I still haven't gotten around to feeding.

Our actual meals varied over a wide range. We had tasty, trendy menus complete with kale and Brussels sprouts in lively restaurants in Reykjavik, and big, steaming bowls of Asian noodles in a jam-packed little shop, nearly standing room only, with condensation running down the insides of the windows despite the door tied slightly open with a rope for ventilation.

Outside the city, the routine--often the only--option seems to be a fast-food counter at a gas station, where you can get a lamb sandwich if you don't want a burger, and select from a crazy array of candy, licorice, and chocolates.

The name of this ice cream made us giggle.

Hot dogs are very, very popular at the gas stations or from their own dedicated outlets.

Some options can be more uncomfortable: fermented shark is a traditional dish, and we saw puffin on a menu, and minke whale. By chance we came across the brewery making "whale testicle beer" and met the brewmaster, who staked a claim, a bit mildly, to the benefit of using the entire whale.

Even knowing how important fish are to the Icelanders, I had to pause over the cod liver oil, with handy shot glasses, on some of the hotel breakfast buffets. I did not try it out, no.

A great unexpected find, for gawking as much as for art, was a vast fish drying rack off the main road west of Reykjavik.

There's plenty of delight in Icelandic itself. One of my favorites is the word for the WC:

Another complete surprise was a scale model of the solar system, which I stumbled into at the geothermal plant that was such a great stage for a sunrise. When I came across a sort of monument to Mercury, I realized suddenly that I'd already walked by the sun, a mysterious orange hemisphere about 10 feet across, that I'd wondered vaguely about as I went by. In this photo, it's in the background, halfway up the left margin, with Mercury as a tiny sphere on the stake on the pedestal in the right foreground:

That put me on the scent of Venus, which turned out to be within easy walking distance, and as we then headed down the road we passed Earth, and found Mars, represented in the proportionally appropriate size of a ball bearing. Just as much by chance I discovered a map on the back of a sign at a nearby steam vent that showed Pluto located about 25 kilometers away.

Given the renown of Icelandic sheep, to knitters anyway, you can plan to find lots of glorious wool, but the taxidermied sample watching over it might seem a bit unusual; a couple lambs keep an eye on things from an opposite wall.

Even the convenience stores have handmade hats and gloves for sale, alongside the made-in-China stuff. Wool hats for tourists come in an array of styles including several versions of a Viking helmet. Fellow traveler Paul Rose picked up one of the best of these.

One could perhaps get used to coming across starkly beautiful churches in fabulous settings.

But strings of little lights picking out the crosses on the graves were novel to me, and evocative.

So there are plenty of good reasons to go to Iceland and plenty of unexpected rewards. If we need to justify going back yet again, we might point to the roads. The conditions are daunting, the weather and wind so variable and wild, but we can't resist daydreaming about these enticing sweeps through this beautiful country. And who knows what lies just over that horizon?

Layers

It's cold in Iceland, though not nearly as harsh as Boston or Minneapolis this year. Cold for us Californians, anyway, with temperatures between 25 and 35. That's cold enough for ice to form alongside the waterfalls that are such a feature of the Icelandic landscape.

I feel almost sheepish making claims for cold while Niagara Falls is freezing over, but still, Gullfoss, a tremendous waterfall in its own right, is dramatic under ice and snow.

HHC photo

The facade of this civic building in Reykjavik draws inspiration from the island's geology, with its lava rock and mossy facing and the water pouring over it into icicles.

When it got warm enough to rain a little bit, things actually got dicier. Our van made very slippery progress only about two thirds of the way up the long icy driveway from our hotel one morning and then could go no farther without threatening to slide right off into the snow. Our leader, Bill, had to creep the van all the way back to our starting point, backwards, and try again--for some reason it was better off without our weight in it--while we walked, or skated, up the driveway on our own.

Even with his experience in northern Michigan, the blizzardy wind had Bill white-knuckled on the steering wheel more than once. This calm image by Harlan is made possible by the snow absolutely whistling across the road:

Roads feature big electronic signs that show not the current expected time to various destinations, as they do here in the Bay Area, but temperatures ahead and wind speed in meters per second. Travel got interesting when it felt like the van might easily be blown right over. Walking, too.

We were well prepared with pretty much all our warm stuff from home, though, and I took special delight in layering up, putting old and handmade favorites to good use.

Wool socks by Kitty Metcalfe, Harlan's wool ranger pants from the 1970s, Breton wool sailing sweater and cap from 1975.

Wool gloves by Kitty Metcalfe, my sister Ellen's down jacket from about 1978, scarf by Deb Jensen, headband by Tammy Krueger

When things got really chilly I added Harlan's powder pants from his high school skiing days.

Iceland has plenty of sheep, and some cows, but they are just about all inside this time of year. Most of the Icelandic horses stay out through the winter, growing their own thick, warm layers.

HHC photo

HHC photo

When you approach the fence, they all come over like a friendly pack of labrador retrievers looking to see what treats you've brought.

They are very compact, a comfortable pony size, and hungry, I guess. I had crackers for them; they seemed nonplussed by carrots.

HHC photo

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And did I mention photogenic?

HHC photo

HHC photo

Steam Vents

Another good reason to go to Iceland is to hang with Bill Schwab, our fearless leader and prime mover of North Light Photographic Workshops. For splendid pictures by the eight proper artists in our group, check out the group website.

Yet another reason to go is the geothermal steam vents or hot springs nursed by the molten innards of the island. The original Geysir is here, giving us the word geyser.

Near the power plant where we reveled in sunrise there's an otherworldly field.

Did I mention the sun doesn't get very high in the sky this time of year?

It does seem strange that snow can come right up to the edge of boiling water, as at a hot springs area that's billed as the biggest in Europe (I'm not sure of the metric for this claim):

Boiling water is close enough to splash on these icicles:

Someone said that at some vents the water is very acidic, at others very basic. In any case, it can be hard on the what humans put in place to corral it.

There's enough hot water or power from it to keep streets in central Reykjavik clear of snow.

In some hotels the water has a sulfury smell. I'm not sure, but maybe that's what's also behind the name of this gas.

Mind-blowing, eh?

Light

Why Iceland in early February, when the sky only barely begins to brighten about 9:15, a deep, deep blue? About 9:30 there's still only predawn twilight, lingering until the sun finally rises about 10:30. Well, for this light, for one thing. 

We waited a long time for the sun to come over the horizon at a lake called Kleifarvatn our first day.

The sunrise was especially spectacular at a geothermal plant we came across on the coast south of Reykjavik.

So this place is photographer heaven, the light adding natural drama to the landscapes. Even I with my point-and-shoot could make a meal of it.

And of course the Northern Lights. We were still in Reykjavik when they were predicted to be at a peak, so city lights interfered with our view and the full moon interfered when we were farther north. After that, cloud cover moved in the rest of our stay, but I did capture this glimpse from our hotel in the city--there are better photos of the aurora borealis, but this is mine: