March 3, 2008 Day 5 Dipping More than a Toe in the Blue Lagoon
A last breakfast of pickled herring. Before they plunder the shops of Reykjavik, D&G decide to get closer to God by taking the elevator up to the top of Hallgrimskirkja. No other place gives one a better perspective of Reykjavik’s layout than this one. From the top of the church, Reykjavik looks like a Lego city. Buildings covered in sheets of bright blue, yellow, and red, metal dapple the view. The interior of the church is in peaceful hues of seafoam green. The wooden pews resemble columnar basalt, a ubiquitous geological feature in Iceland.
Reykjavik’s shopping district offers trendy boutiques and handcraft stores, along with cafes, art galleries and plenty of bars and bistros.
Icelanders do like their booze – though it is frighteningly expensive! Reykjavik is renowned for its rowdy nightlife known as The Runter. (Icelandair’s travel site notes: “When staying at hotels in the Old Town area, please keep in mind that Friday and Saturday nights in the area can be noisy.”)
Power shopping is the order of the morning – as D and G snap up some Tupilak carvings from the Greenland store, and a few Icelandic woolens. We pass on silvery wolf pelts, and handbags made from horsehair dyed hot pink and orange.
Then it’s off to the airport with a stop at the Blue Lagoon, an experience that is otherworldly. An enormous column of steam emanating from a geothermal power plant marks the road to the spa, indeed the hot water runoff creates the milky turquoise waters of the lagoon and its healing pure white silica mud. We rent two towels, and then take the required shower and shampoo before stepping outside into 25 degree air, beneath a bright blue sky, in our wet bathing suits. As D picks her way through the snow in bare feet she begins to wonder if there are other reasons G is known as the bat lady, besides her expertise on the flying creatures. Shivering, we step into the lagoon carved out of lava and dip down into the milky waters, which are as hot as a Jacuzzi, and then the feeling sets in: a sense of tranquility as other bathers appear and disappear in and out of the mist rising from the warm water. D and G are surrounded by mounds of lava piled 20 or 30 feet into the sky, each capped in pristine snow. The sun is shining brilliantly for the first time on our trip, and the steam rising from the pool reflects and refracts the sunshine into little rainbows dancing on the mist. Wooden troughs of white mud are offered and we ladle it onto our faces for an exfoliating mask. Making the scene even more dreamlike, most of the other bathers are also smeared in mud. Lifeguards, bundled in parkas, snow pants and boots pass overhead on catwalks bridging the lava. A waitress carries to the pool a tray of bright blue cocktails. The spa promises “you will soak away the stresses of modern life” , but the real effect is to make one feel that the modern world doesn’t exist, that nothing exists outside the cold air, the hot water, the white snow, and the black lava.
Too soon though – it’s back to reality and on to Keflavik airport for the flight to Boston. As Icelandair FI631 taxis down the runway, D&G crack open mini bottles of Black Death and raise a toast to Iceland and to the rugged quirky people who for a thousand years, have embraced its fire and ice. Takk Fyrir, Bless Bless.
March 3, 2008 Day 4 Another Kind of Horsepower
Our day began breakfasting with Stuart and Teresa, our ab fab British friends. D&G are in a quandary over how to spend their last day in Magical Myvatn. Will they experience the Ice Tolt for themselves by booking a ride on Icelandic Horses? Or will it be a casual day of outdoor swimming in 29 degree weather and moderate winds at the Myvatn Nature Baths? Stuart and Teresa, who reveal that when in Turkey they dove off cliffs to go hang gliding, are keen to go snowmobiling on the frozen lake. Although D and G have spent the morning rationalizing why snowmobiling is NOT for them (the main reason is that the nearest hospital is at least an hour’s flight away) when Teresa says “oh come on, have a go!” Gerri immediately says, “Snowmobiling it is!
But first, a visit to the local trout smokehouse. D&G gingerly step into a small room with concrete floors running with smoky fish oil. Sides of impossibly pink trout hang on racks. Gerri buys enough to last a year. Did we tell you how it is smoked since there are no trees in Iceland? (see photo of Diane beside a pile of sheep dung)
Myvatn is where the Apollo astronauts trained for their lunar landing, and D&G, Stuart and Teresa look ready to join them when suited up head to toe in snowmobile suits, balaclavas and helmets. When we get to the lake our guide Reggi guns the engines and away we go for a different perspective of the lava flows and pseudo craters of this astonishingly beautiful landscape. We make a pit stop in the middle of the lake, cut the engines, and are bathed in overwhelming silence.
We survive the adventure, sauntering back to the hotel for congratulatory shots of Black Death. While Gerri wistfully reflects on the mare she didn’t purchase at The Open the day before, Diane seriously considers acquiring a skidoo.
It’s time to leave the Magic Kingdom. On the way back to Akureyri for the flight to Reykjavik, we stop at Godafoss or Falls of the Gods, so named for the Viking chieftain who tossed his pagan icons into the falls after embracing Christianity.
The Fokker 50 sweeps off the runway and over the fjord. The twinkling lights of Akureyri fade as evening settles in.
Back in Reykjavik Teresa, Stuart, D&G stuff themselves and their luggage into a cab and then to dinner at one of the city’s most charming restaurants, Lakjabrekka. During the meal of reindeer carpaccio with duck confit, creamy seafood soup, mountain lamb and piles of delicious seafood with lobster risotto washed down with Chilean wine, Teresa reveals that seeing Gerri fall into the frozen lake two days before is one of the highlights of her life; a moment so hilarious she will carry it with her to her grave. Gerri, having been described as looking like a flying squirrel while falling, is less amused.
March 2, 2008: Day 3: Hot to Trot in Myvatn
Day dawns, clear, cold, and very windy. D&G emerge
from the shower smelling like rotten eggs, one of the
charms of naturally produced hot water. A bus full of
men's Christian choir members elbows D&G out of the
way in a feeding frenzy over two types of pickled
herring, a tasteless fish pate, shrimp salad, fish
salad, geysir bread, hard boiled eggs and shots of cod
liver oil. Salut!
At 11AM, KC and the Sunshine Band is blaring as Myvatn
Open 2008 begins. Gerri takes a spectacular dive head
first into the show ring. Did we mention it's a frozen
lake? The horses are wearing studded snowshoes.
Needless to say, we are not.
Tolt B begins the day, Amateurs!! Fourteen horses take
to the track, two at a time displaying what only the
Icelandic Horse possesses, a fluid gait called the
Tolt.
The tallest men in Iceland are riding the shortest
horses while wearing snowmobiling suits, while the
real men ie: the women are attired in English hunting
jackets, britches and hunting boots. While Diane finds
the only handful of Icelanders who do not speak
English to explain the rules of the competition, Gerri
is seeing a man about a horse.
Tolt A, for professional riders, begins at 1PM. Gerri
invites Diane to climb 2 volcanic pseudo craters in
knee deep snow to get a birds eye view of the event.
Diane declines, opting for the heated Ford Expedition
with her new British friends and Jimmy for a tour of
another power plant...this time hydroelectric. Next
top is a visit to Jimmy's old school which he reveals
is for delinquents and where he excelled in track and
field and tourism studies.
Back at the Open, Gerri picks her way through foot
deep snow, lava ditches, and clumped ice to reach her
destination, the top of a crater and a panoramic view
of the event . She falls two more times clogging snow
into the viewfinder of her husband's precious digital
movie camera and gives a quick thought of what single
life will be like.
The Jimmy tour continues as Diane and crew follow the
path of the glaciers off roading. Spectacular sights
mingle with the peculiar including the world's
shortest lava flow; about 25 feet. Diane thinks about
penning a children's book; "The Little Crater That
Could". Soon the expedition arrives at Husavik, the
second largest town in the north; a teeming metropolis
of 2,300.
The tour includes the garbage recycling plant, the cod
drying plant, and the harbor crowded with whale
watching boats and fishing boats and a sign that reads
"If God meant us to have fiberglass boats, he'd have
created fiberglass trees".
Icelanders sure are innovative, as Diane discovers
upon entering The Whale Museum, where Diane and her
two British companions are the only visitors save for
the ten, thirty something slackers playing 18 holes of
putt putt golf through the museum's display area.
(adult beverages appear to have been consumed) Now on
a roll of visiting oddball museums Diane is
disappointed to learn that the world's only
phallalogical museum is closed for the winter.
Adult beverages are consumed at a harbor side bar to
commemorate this day, the 19th anniversary of beer in
Iceland. Next stop "The Moby Dick Ballroom" at the
Husavik Hotel for a concert by The Bloody Idiots, a
local band of ten men wearing pork pie hats playing
music that is one part Blues Brothers one part
Klezmer, one part Celtic, and one part Raffi. Did we
mention that 75% of the audience was five and under?
Special prices on drinks served in sippy cups. By the
way, the putt putt golfers are at the show. On the way
back, they stop to examine a turf house and observe a
geothermal swimming pool while the soundtrack, Jimmy's
favorite compilation of Icelandic folk songs and Jimmy
favorite singer, a cross between Bjork and Enya
provides the soundtrack of the day. They return to
Myvatn in medium heavy snow.
The third and last segment of The Myvatn Open is the
pace competition. The pace class consists of merely a
half dozen horses. It is difficult to find an
Icelandic horse capable of an award winning pace.
These are some of the best in the nation. While riders
and their charges race full throttle down the track,
the spectators whoop their approval. The last horse is
put through it's paces and the audience bolts off the
frozen lake as though Krafla has just erupted.
Once again reunited, D&G and The Brits are the only
interlopers in the dining room this evening at The
Horseman's Ball a banquet celebrating the conclusion
of another successful Myvatn Open. During the meal, a
movie of the days events is played over and over and
over again giving new meaning to "The thrill of
victory and the agony of defeat". D&G with Stewart and
Theresa make a fashion statement in their tee shirts,
jeans, and fleece while the horse people are decked
out in sequins and you should see what the women were
wearing.
The big evening concludes with the arrival of the
troubador and rounds of singing Icelandic folk tunes
with the occasional introduction of crowd pleasers
like "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and "She'll be
Comin' Round the Mountain". The weary travelers escape
the revelry to the tune of "Nowhere Man".
Amazing what passes for entertainment fifty miles from
The Arctic Circle.
March 1, 2008 : Day 2...Even though it feels like Day 7: Magical Myvatn
A multitude of un-nameable luncheon meats, pickled
herring, and mushroom and bacon pastes began our day.
Ahhhh breakfast at the Hotel Loftedir. Pretty girls
like D&G need a fortifying breakfast to tackle the
saga which lies ahead.
At the domestic airport we awaited our plane...a
flying Fokker 50 prop carrying D&G and 50, 10 year
old soccer players across Iceland's frozen interior to
the country's second largest city , Akureyri.
(population 17, 000).
Upon our arrival we were met by our guide,
@#$^87!2()_= (aka Jimmy) who whisked us away along
Highway 1. The Ring Road hugs magnificent
Eyafjordur, hang a sharp right and head for Myvatn.
Clear roads and overcast but pleasant conditions were
present throughout the hour long trip (Joe Furey had
nothing to do with this).
During the trip Jimmy indulged us with fascinating
facts about the area from the impact that glaciers
have made on local geology and Iceland's attempts at
reforestation. The island was left nearly treeless due
to clear cutting from the Vikings. High winds and
erosian make it difficult for trees to take root.
As we approached Myvatn, we were greeted by the most
extraordinary unadvertised special, a rare encounter
with a Gyrfalcon flying over our vehicle as we watched
a Barrow's Golden Eye, (a North American diving duck)
swimming along the Laxa River. The Laxa is one of the
world's greatest brown trout fishing rivers and was
fished in the 1960's by Bing Crosby and today by Eric
Clapton.
At the hotel D&G were given 45 minutes to unpack,
lunch and prepare for a 4 hour tour of the area with
Jimmy. First, Jimmy took us off roading, formula one
style on the lake. Myvatn is a very shallow body of
water at the most, seven feet deep and frozen to the
bottom (which is a good thing when driving a 3 ton
vehicle on ice). Next.. a trip to the village
Reynjahlid which was established by Jimmy's family.
The church in Reynahlid was spared in the 18th century
when lava from the eruption of Krafla Volcano flowed
around it.
A stop at the local visitor's center enlightened us to
the natural wonders of Myvatn, including the algae
balls which live in the Lake and are found only in
Myvatn, Japan, and Estonia (ask us privately what the
locals call them) Interestingly enough, our hotels
keeps an aquarium filled with algae balls. Like a pet
!
Not only is Myvatn known for it's delicious trout
smoked in sheep dung, but for a moist, rich brown
bread, called geysir bread which is baked in the earth
for 24 hours in milk cartons heated by steam. Jimmy
took us to "the kitchen" where the bread is baked,
small ovens installed in the ground.
Next...an impromptu tour of the Krafla Power Station
which Gerri insisted upon doing even though Diane and
the English Couple were seeing red. After a
fascinating movie about the Krafla fires in the
1970's, it was sixty steps up to a viewing platform
overlooking a vast wasteland of two hunks of metal
housing Mitsubishi turbines. Because super heated
magma is so close to the earth's surface, Icelanders
make most of their electricity by harnessing the power
of geothermal steam. the steam rises under pressure
from the bore holes and drives the turbines. The
cooled steam returns to water and is released into
lagoons and small rivers near the plant.
Winds whistling at about 25 mph and gusting to 50 mph,
and snow up to our thighs were among the highlights of
The Viti (meaning hell) Explosion Crater. gerri
explains that normally there is a pool of turquoise
blue water at the bottom of the crater but all we see
is the fact that Hell has frozen over.
The Namafjell geothermal field is one of the most
fascinating areas of Iceland. the Apollo astronauts
were sent here for training prior to the moon
missions. The field is a wasteland of bubbling mud
pots, boiling water, steaming fumaroles, and frozen
clumps of clay crystals resembling coral. Paths are
clearly marked...one false move and you could be
poached.
Off roading again, Jimmy leads us to a series of small
caves discovered by Japanese graduate students. In the
caves are warm water used for bathing. While Jimmy
explained, some locals pulled up for a dip to prove
the point.
Dimmuborgir, is a virtual black city of lava castles
and weird shapes and is often said to be the petrified
Yules Lads. Treacherous hiking conditions prevented us
from exploring further.
Christmas time in Iceland is celebrated with the
arrival of the thirteen Yule lads. For the 13 nights
before christmas, one Yule Lad descends from
Dimmuborgir and leaves a gift in the shoe that a child
leaves on a window sill. Jimmy plays the lad known as
Meat Hook. Just like visiting Santa, families in
Myvatn take their children to Dimmuborgir to visit
each lad.
Darkness finally won over the adventurers. After a
long day the warmth of a shot of Black Death working
its way through to the soul is just what D&G needed to
relax before dinner. In the hotel lounge, Diane poses
with a stuffed puffin which Gerri has forced upon her
(see photo). Gerri insists the picture is so good that
Diane should use it as the cover photo for her next
book (that's the Black Death talking).
February 29, 2008 : Rampage in Reykjavik
Snow cleared and the sun came out. Diane and gerri decided to head to The Perlan for expansive views of the city and beyond. Diane and gerri arrive. Winds gust to 50mph blowing snow. Small children on the observatory deck scream and are forced to run for cover. Gerri pretends it's just another day. Diane secretly whimpers inside her parka.
The two Icelandic princesses tuck inside for a breakfast of praline mousse and skyr. Sun comes out.
D&G make a run for it, posing for self portraits in the glass igloo and a couple of great shots of Mt Esja (see photos here).
Wind picks up and as advertised "light snow showers" give Diane the bright idea of visiting The national Museum of Iceland with antiquities dating back to 900AD.Highlight are the carved ceremonial drinking horns. Gerri dedicates herself to Viking life (see photo here.)
D&G storm into the heart of Reykjavik and shopping along Laugavegur ensues. Gerri adds to her collection of Inuit carving known as Tipulak which in English means "small creepy gremlinlike dust catchers carved from deer horn".
The best hotdog in Iceland (ask Bill Clinton who had open heart surgery one week after eating his) is served with remoulade and crispy onions.
Later that evening the two weary warriors partake in dinner at Prir Frakker, home to the power brokers of the Japanese and Icelandic whale cartel. Shots of Black Death accompany trout smoked in sheep dung and minke whale sushi (When in Iceland....) Plokk Fiskur, the Icelanders idea of comfort food is whitefish and mashed potatoes, whipped with bechamel and topped with melted cheese, like a tuna melt on steroids.
D&G
February 28, 2008 : Furey´s forecast -- light snow in Reykjavik
The flight from Boston was uneventful, a good thing when you are flying.
Diane and Gerri were totally dissed by the flight attendants for drinkies and dinner, more than likely because they are too pretty.
Upon landing one hour early we headed to pick up our rental car which wasnt ready and Joe >Furey promised us great weather, but staying true to form, it was snowing heavily with winds gusting to 25 mph. Nice going Joe!
The very kind rental car lady forked over , only at Diane´s insistence, 2 pretty hot pink coasters to clear away the 6 inches of snow on our car, and it was dark, and the lot wasnt plowed, much like the streets. But we saw some great accidents on the way into Reykjavik which got Gerri´s juices flowing.
We are trying to send pictures but having an internet problem.
d and G
