Aurora Borealis

"Half the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need."

- Richard E. Byrd

We finally had a clear day so we drove out to Vatnajokull National Park on the south coast to see the Skaftafell glacier.  It took us 4 hours to get there from Reykjavik.  There’s really no rush when you’re driving endlessly on one road with no cars in sight for miles.  When we felt like stopping, we stopped; when we felt like going, we went.  That was our formula.  It seemed to work.

Unlike the Golden Circle, the ring road on Iceland’s south coast is not “touristy”.  Sure, some adventurous tourists find their way out there, but not in the swarms like around Reykjavik.  It pleased me very much.  I appreciated the silence of Iceland’s vast and foreign landscape.  I don’t know the exact number, but I read somewhere that the percentage of Icelanders who believe in elves, gnomes, and trolls was as high as 65%.  Grown adults polled, mind you.  I thought they were nuts until we drove through the lowlands of Iceland.  Everywhere was one outlandish scene of volcanic rock, waterfalls, and tundra after another.  We didn’t have to try hard to imagine a little creepy thing in a pointy hat singing a high pitched  ballad as he jumped from rock to rock just out of view.  I’ve camped in the Grand Tetons among grizzly bears and the Mojave Desert among rattlesnakes but there’s no place I would be more scared to tent camp than in Iceland.  Just one gnome in the middle of the night and I would never recover, I think.

 

Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss are two of the seemingly thousands of waterfalls that contribute to Iceland’s magic.  Just off the ring road you see them falling from the lush green hillsides, spraying mist that occasionally creates small rainbows.  The water collects then runs into braided channels that flow towards the ocean.  One day if I ever come back to Iceland, it will be in the Summer time with my fly rod.  We walked to Seljalandsfoss and spent some time appreciating it up close.  There’s a path that goes beneath the falls but it was iced over and looked dangerous so we didn’t try it.  One woman tried it and kept falling over.  Every time it looked like she had her balance, over again she fell.  She could have used a pair of microspikes I think, like the ones that were sitting in the trunk of our Suzuki 4x4 unused. 

We didn’t drive down a back road to Skogafoss because we needed to cover some distance before nightfall so instead we kept making stops to take pictures, see sites, and relish in the Icelandic countryside.  There’s no other drive I’ve ever done quite like the ring road, and considering we at last had good weather, we were going to take advantage of it.  Skogafoss looked brilliant from the road, and if we’d have seen it up close I’m sure it would have been brilliant all the same.

I’m not sure I’d call the Icelandic horse a horse at all.  When I think of a horse I think of a mustang or

a Clydesdale, something with shining fur and rippling muscles; a statuesque symbol of purity.  The Icelandic horse is more of a furry pony; still technically a horse according to taxonomy, but doesn’t pass the eye test.  Let’s put it this way, I shouldn’t be taller than a horse.  If I am taller than a horse, that horse is not a horse.  Simple.  New rule.

We had that rare sunshine and so we stopped along the side of a pasture where we saw some grazing ponies.  I’d say there were at least 15 of them.  Some were shy but a few came over to us as we took their pictures, I would assume to pose.  They were friendly and docile.  They allowed us to pet them which made me miss my dog back

home.  I couldn’t believe how soft their fur was for a wild animal, and how clean.  It was as if they’d been using conditioner all winter.  Some of them were brown, some white, some white and brown, but they all had that mane of hair that blew in the Icelandic wind like Fabio’s in a perfume commercial.  A few of them had blue eyes.  These ones looked fake, like puppets.  Certainly the Icelandic horse is an odd creature.  We couldn’t stay too long with them, so we said our goodbyes, laughed at how weird they looked, and drove off to the next attraction.

Reynisfjara Beach (aka the black sand beach) is another quick stop just outside the town of Vik on the south coast.  It’s known for a lot of things: the basalt columns which create caves under the cliff faces, the swarms of birds that nest above those cliff faces, the rock formations in the surf said to be two trolls frozen solid by the sun, and of course the massive coastal waves.  This last one I’ll focus on because it gave us an event that was both horrifying and hilarious at the same time.  My guess is it will be more entertaining than hearing about geologic formations or the life cycle of Puffins. 

Before you walk onto the beach there are several signs as clear as day warning tourists about the dangers of the surf.  “Beware of Dangerous Waves”, “Strong Current – Be Aware, “Keep Your Eyes on the Ocean” – signs like that, mostly in cautioning yellows and alarming reds.  They even go as far as blowing up pictures of tourists in the past that have been caught by “sneaker waves” and dragged out toward the unrelenting North Atlantic Ocean.  Tourists being tourists - pleasure seekers by definition, oblivious by nature – pay no mind to those signs and elect to believe the world is one giant backdrop for their pictures.  Praise the Lord for Reynisfjara Beach!  At last Mother Nature sets the record straight. 

On our way back to the car, after exploring the area ourselves, we noticed an aggressive wave breaking just behind us.  It was one of the most violent waves forming out of one of the most violent surfs I had ever seen, and it came out of nowhere.  Luckily we had paid attention to the signs and kept our distance from the ocean.  We were safe.  The same thing can’t be said for a few middle aged Chinese tourists that were on the beach with us.  Not only were they too close to the ocean, they had their backs turned to it while they snapped away at the cliffs with their expensive cameras atop expensive tripods.  I wouldn’t say the wave hit them as much as I would say it absorbed them; camera gear every which way - other tourists laughing, some screaming, no one doing anything.  My initial thought was that if the wave pulled them back into the ocean there wouldn’t be a lifeguard on Earth that could save them.  Michael Phelps would have been rolled around like dirty laundry had he gone in himself.  I debated quickly whether to do something and realized I was no Michael Phelps, so I watched in horror as I imagined the wave brutally drowning them a few hundred feet from where I stood.  Luckily they were able to find footing and get out as the wave receded.  After that it was simple fun.  Once the adrenaline went down I don’t think I’ve ever had to try so hard not to break into uncontrollable laughter.

We didn’t make it all the way to Skaftafell before nightfall.  This meant it was time again to search for the northern lights.  Thus far we hadn’t any luck, but we gave ourselves a 30% chance of seeing them out in the dark wash plains of southern Iceland, parked on some side road that we were barely able to access in our Suzuki 4x4.  Clouds rolled in, clouds rolled out, stars appeared and disappeared, the whole time we had our eyes on the sky.  As each hour passed our hopes waned like the crescent moon that we thought might be responsible for reflecting too much light to see the Aurora.  We kept track of the Kp index.  It was shifting between 2 and a 3, just high enough to see the lights, but still no luck.  Finally, after 3 hours of waiting, reading by red headlamp light in order to keep our night vision, taking turns looking at the sky from inside the car and outside, there they were.  A streak of out-of-place light we’d never seen before.  It grew brighter and brighter until we were sure it was them.  The northern lights!  They stayed a constant streak across the sky until finally they broke into S-shape curves.  The arctic display lasted on and off for a half hour or so, and though we were on a windy plain of ice in the middle of the dark, we were happy.

The next day we drove to the Skaftafell Glacier but didn’t stay long.  We heard the weather would take a turn for the worse, so we turned around and made our way back to Reykjavik as soon as we saw the glacier’s nose.  No doubt it was a spectacular phenomenon that would have been even more spectacular if we’d stuck around and explored it up close, but we favored staying safe and limiting our chances of being caught on the ring road during an ice storm.  It was the right choice.  The next couple of days we leisurely walked around Reykjavik to museums, shops, restaurants, and art galleries while the grey weather continued to blanket Iceland. 

On our last night in Iceland we drove out to the Blue Lagoon.  It was $60.00 per ticket to enter.  After we came out of the lockers rooms dressed in our bathing suits we melted into the smooth silica rich waters like walruses into the sea.  The air was cold and so we tried to stay submerged with just our heads exposed.  Every now and then we’d stand up and instantly freeze.  The water is super-heated sea water that’s guided into what amounts to an adult size lazy river.  Here there’s a waterfall to shower in, there a bridge to swim under.  A spa where visitors lather their faces in silica mud to exfoliate their pores lies in the middle, and a sauna for those who aren’t hot enough in the water just outside that.  There’s even a bar serving drinks, albeit priced as if they were being sold on the moon.  Steam rising off the surface of the water and into the dark Icelandic night lends the lagoon a mysterious aura as if you were on the set of Blade Runner.  Dim lights glow on the surrounding walls and in the various tunnels.  As we lounged about we noticed people from all over the world doing the same.  Europeans, Asians, Americans, Australians, all enjoying the relaxing lagoon a short drive from the Keflavik International Airport.  Every now and then I like being a tourist, I thought.