LH Franz This was our Golden Circle day trip, a bus tour to three major attractions, places with natural formations unique to Iceland.
Reviewing my handwritten journal for this day, I find I wrote the same basic idea for each stop on the tour:
- We traveled through stunning countryside, to get to
- A location with stunning natural phenomena, and
- None of the pictures I took with my Canon PowerShot can do justice to how stunning the place is
There were three stops on this tour, and this narrative got repeated three times in my notes.
I’ll refrain from repeating those descriptions here. With few exceptions, the countryside we saw stretched far and flat, picture-perfect, snow-splattered mountains in the distance, their peaks often in clouds.
Everywhere we went, there was a sense that we, puny humans, were inserting ourselves onto vast and dynamic land. Not an environment where you walk through soothing, verdant, green forests. Or someplace with unending fields of rich soil ready for farming. Human activity has managed to change this land, but not to the extent of controlling it in any meaningful way. People can, and did, for instance, decimate the native tree population. But the mountains, rocks and rock fields, ice fields, waterways and waterfalls, unpredictable earthquakes and volcanic eruptions… All these environmental actors cannot be exploited. Humans are always looking for ways to use the environment around us to our own advantage. In the middle of a huge volcanic field, surrounded by ice and mountains, with only a bit of color from grass and moss… What can you use here? There’s a sense of real power in this land. It is no wonder that there is so much Icelandic folklore about sprites and magical beings inhabiting the country around them, a manifestation of the forces one senses. These imaginary beings can be helpful, but are notoriously unreliable. Their allegiance is to their home, not the people squatting on it. Whatever psychological sense of control they offer is tenuous.
The first part of the trip was an hour long drive to our first stop, the Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park. Our tour guide pointed out interesting things along the way. There were sheep foraging on grasses in the field. Our guide explained that unlike sheep in the US and Western Europe, Icelandic sheep are not farm-fed but are let out to graze for the season, then rounded up. As a result, he said, the lamb meat in Iceland is not like the meat produced from American sheep. As a vegetarian, I had to take his word for it.
We also passed the home of Halldór Laxness, the Icelandic author. The tour guide was surprised I knew about Laxness’s 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature. Tourists generally don’t know this. I guess he’d didn’t have much experience with over-educated old ladies like myself.
Þingvellir National Park is the location of the first Icelandic parliament mentioned in a previous post. It is also geologically interesting because it contains a gorge where the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia meet. The two continents are pulling apart by a couple of millimeters every year. In several billion years, they tell us, Iceland will be split in two. Cool. The fissure itself was not very exciting to look at. It is a nicely maintained path going down to where the parliament met, the “Logberg”, or “Law Rock.” This was something Betsy wanted to see.
As we walked down the tectonic fissure to get there, I noted that the way there was all downhill, which meant the way back would be all uphill. And it would be a long way all uphill. Too strenuous for me. So I turned back while she continued. It was during that walk she was warned about trolls. I returned to the bus along a side trail within the allotted time. Everyone else drifted back. Except Betsy. I told our tour guide she had gone to the Law Rock. “All the way down there!” he exclaimed. We waited. Betsy started sending text messages updating me on her progress (“On my way back.” “Getting there.” “Almost.”) She finally came into view, making her way uphill back to the bus, running, sweaty, breathless, and red in the face. I had bought a bottle of water while she was doing her Law Rock visit and handed it over.
On the way to our next stop, we did a meet and greet with some Icelandic horses. A nearby stable let a few horses out to a paddock by the roadside for tourists to pet and feed.
There was a box next to the fence where you could buy horse “candy,” as the tour guide called it, treats to give the animals. There were four or five of them. At first their perky ears told me they were happy to see everyone. Hmmm! Treats! Soon enough, they’d had as much attention as they wanted, and moved away from the fence. Humans got the hint and climbed back onto to bus.
At the next stop, Gullfoss, we had lunch at the Gullfoss Kaffee. Betsy had lamb stew, and I had some kind of vegetarian soup. Expensive, as you might expect for someplace so close to a major tourist attraction, but all good. We walked around, admired the incredible waterfall, and continued on to the Geysir Hot Spring area, the last stop on the tour.
When you get off the bus, you don’t see the majestic mountains and lava fields of the other places we visited. Indeed, when you first arrive, it looks like a flat, brown, nondescript area. But of course, there is power in this land too. As you get closer you see it in spots where water boils up out of the ground in bubbles and steam pillars.
Signs warn people to stay on the marked paths and stay off the ground where temperatures are 80°-100°C/176°- 212° F.
The high point of this visit is the “Great Geysir” that spews steam loudly and dramatically every few minutes. After duly viewing and recording the loud and dramatic spewing, we headed back. The highways were crowded. Rush hour traffic. Very quiet rush hour traffic, though. No honking horns. It’s something a New Jerseyan notices.
We were quite tired by the time we got back to the apartment. Dinner was at a the Gandhi Indian Bar & Restaurant across the street. Good food.
