Iceland Reflections

We had a great time in Iceland, but then I think I say that about every trip. I just thought I would end this trip with a few reflections.

I just picked out a few interesting photos to end my trip. 

We saw over 100 waterfalls in Iceland. This reminds me that water is a key ingredient in Iceland. It also reminds me that we had some fantastic weather in Iceland. We were told that nice weather is not common, so we had more than our share.

The message from this harbor seal is that the Arctic Ocean is really cold. The seal appears to be trying to get as much of its body out of the water as is possible.

One conclusion about Iceland is that their long cold winters helped make them great soup makers, bread makers, and inventors of great troll and elf stories. I think this bit of elves wisdom reflects on Icelanders as a whole.

Our guide told us that a nice soak in the Blue Lagoon would make us look 10 years younger. For that reason, I thought that I had better include this photo - so you can recognize us since our soak in the blue lagoon.    (Note: he later said the effect only lasts for fifteen minutes) 

I took this photo from our hotel room in Reykjavik on the last night of our trip to Iceland...as the sun set on this trip.

Iceland QUIZ

I have to say that an Iceland Quiz didn’t just pop out at me, like on some of my other trips.

But I know that many people like them, so I put one together.

This should be a really hard quiz, so good luck. 

This is the indoor horse arena that we visited. The head trainer told us about this facility. One key point that she made was about the footing in the arena. The footing had numerous good characteristics and one in particular. Question: what material composes the footing?

We visited this waterfall in a remote corner of our Golden Circle tour. You might notice someone fishing down in the bottom right. There were several fisherman on this stream. On the left side of the falls, you can see a fish ladder which helps fish move up stream past the waterfalls.             Question: what were the circumstances that Iceland officials decided to add a fish ladder to this stream? (note: it was NOT just so that fish could move upstream - that's obvious. What was the before and after circumstances that led to it?)

This is a self-pay facility. You might notice the credit card readers on the top of each sides turnstyle. They also took cash.            Question: what is this facility?

This facility is a holding pen in a farming area. You might notice all the sub-divisions in the holding pen itself.         Question: why does this holding pen have so many divisions?

This was on Heimaey in the Westman Islands. This happened on our coastal walk to see all of the puffins along the coast. Question: what was I doing in this photo? (that Vicky found so funny that she had to take this photo) 

SEE THE ANSWERS TO MY QUIZ BELOW IN THE COMMENTS SECTION

Blue Lagoon

The blue lagoon is a geothermal spa in lava fields in Grindavik in southwest Iceland. The temperature of the water is 99 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit. The water is rich in silica and sulfur and the silicate minerals give the water its blue color.

The lagoon is man-made and the water comes from the Svartsengi geothermal plant. The water is a byproduct of the geothermal plant. The lagoon has some 20-21 million gallons of water and it is renewed every 40 hours. 

The lagoon has a full bar, seen here. It also has a restaurant, cafe, sauna, steam bath, a massaging waterfall, and shops.

The blue lagoon is really an oasis set in the middle of a geothermal lava field. It was 39 degrees when we left our hotel this morning, but it was a perfect day at the lagoon.

The mud bar in the lagoon gives you all the silica mud that you want to put on your face and body. The mud is the same silica that is floating in the water so you can just wash it off right in the water. It's a very exotic setting as you can see Vicky enjoying her soak and facial below.

The silicate minerals give the water a heavy feel, sort of like we were walking about in seafood soup.

The woman behind me was looking at me before Vicky took this photo. Now she's looking at her drink as if she were thinking that she may need to give up alcohol altogether.

Food Bargains

We had many great meals in Iceland. The most telling gauge with regards to Icelandic food, however, might have been our bargain meals. It’s probably normal to judge a country’s food by its most outstanding dishes. I would submit, however, that a country with good bargain food might be the best of all.

We had quite a few meals on our own this trip. Often times, we were looking for something light, since we were so full from all the great big meals. Our go-to meal turned out to be soup and bread. Icelanders really make great soup and bread, perhaps due to their long, cold, dark winters. We also had other really good bargain meals where my biggest surprise was “where” we had such good food.

Here is some seafood soup and fresh bread. Delicious. We had soup and bread quite often. One of the best and least expected times was at the national park at Geysir. I had the Mulligatawny soup and Vicky had the Malaysian soup. Both were excellent as was the bread - and at a national park cafeteria. I've never had such good food at one of our US national park cafeterias - if we even have park cafeterias. 

We had lunch at our horse farm, a family business. We had pumpkin/coconut soup, fresh bread, salad with dozens of toppings, and horse filet. Horse tasted like tender roast beef. Dessert was rhubarb cake with fresh whipped cream.

On the last night of our Iceland trip, we ended up eating in the Reykjavik Botanic Gardens, at Cafe Flora. We were inside a greenhouse, with grapes growing above us (we ate some), fish swimming near us, kids playing, and a fat red cat checking us out. The staff was friendly and diligent. Vicky had the Teriyaki Chicken salad (below) and a Brio beer.

My dinner at the botanic gardens was pulled pork on some sourdough bread with salad and an Einstok beer. The food and beer were great, the staff friendly, and a great relaxing place to eat. Who would expect such a great meal with such great service in a public botanic garden cafe.

I am including this because so many people asked me, "What crazy thing did you eat this trip?" This is Hakarl, which is putrefied Greenland shark. These sharks can live 400 years and have anti-freeze in them. A person would die eating it directly. But they bury it for months, then dig it up and hang it for four more months, and then its edible. There are no additives, it is just cured. It tasted a bit fishy to me with a mild ammonia chaser or aftertaste. I've eaten worse foods.

Arctic Rafting

We went arctic rafting on the Hvita River. Water from the Langjokull Glacier flows through lava canyons which is where we rafted. They told us that the water was probably between 38 and 41 degrees Fahrenheit. It felt colder than that to me.

Our whole rafting excursion took four hours. That included lots of time donning wetsuits and getting safety instructions plus some brief practice time before heading downstream.

These photos are from Karen Gries and Kathy Vitale, two of our fellow travel companions. We thank them for sending us these photos. 

The start of our raft trip was more out in the open like you see below. We hit two strong sets of rapids right away and then things calmed down after that. I'm sitting in the front on the near side and Vicky is right behind me in the boat.

I don't know why Vicky is so excited in the photo below. Either she was glad we made it through the last rapids or she was excited about the ones ahead of us. We are on the right.

You can see the lava canyons in these last three photos. It was interesting to see the different formations and types of rock as we floated through the lava. 

Despite the cold water, it was a really nice day and we were bundled up pretty tightly in our wetsuits, vests, and helmets.

Flower Farming

Despite the cool climate and the short growing season, flower farming is done in Iceland in greenhouses in large part due to cheap geothermal energy. Low energy costs also help by using artificial lighting to extend their growing season. About 25% of Iceland’s greenhouses are used to grow cut flowers.

We got a personal tour on a Sunday morning from the flower grower/owner’s son. He said that there are only eight big flower growers in Iceland and two of them are his father and his uncle.

Geothermal hot water is used to heat the greenhouses and to water the plants. You can also see the lighting hanging above which extends the growing season. The greenhouses were huge and there were lots of them. These are Gerber Daisies growing in this greenhouse.

They buy seedlings from Holland and use beneficial insects and many environmentally friendly methods to grow flowers. They grow eight kinds of flowers on their farm.

These are roses which our guide said were his least favorite because they were a lot of work. He said he liked roses that are fragrant but the ones they grow are not that fragrant because they are grown "to keep" in flower arrangements.

Lest anyone were to think that this was a simple and easy operation, it wasn't. The piping of water for heat, the use of water to distribute nutrients and fertilizer, the lighting to extend the growing season, and so on makes this quite a complicated business with a lot of technology involved. 

Our guide also taught us a bit about the worldwide flower market. All their flowers are grown for cut flowers or for bouquets with bouquets being the bigger money product.

Myrdalsjokull Glacier

The Myrdalsjokull Glacier is an ice cap that is 30 miles long and 20 miles wide covering an area of 270 square miles. The southern part of this glacier covers the Katla Volcano. We walked from the last photo of the prior post to here. 

The ash/lava ground area led right up to the deep glacier. As we walked across this area, we smelled sulfur. We asked our guide about it and he said that he smelled it too - and that was a bad sign. Remember, this volcano is about fifty years overdue for an eruption. But we forged ahead. Within about 30 hours of us leaving here, this area had two earthquakes that were each about 4.4 to 4.6 on the Richter scale.

As we got closer to the glacier, we encountered quite a few small creeks that we had to find our way across. We usually found some rocks to hop across or a narrow place to cross. It started raining rather hard, so that added to our excitement.

This is not a black and white photo. That's why I came well prepared with my tie-dye shirt in place. It's very easy to understand that Iceland has plenty of water.

Our local guide is putting his ice pick and crampons to work. You can see him in the center of the photo about two-thirds of the way up. He was getting us some 700 year old ice to add to our cocktails.

When the going got tough, we drank cocktails.  

Katla Volcano

The Katla Volcano is a large active volcano in southern Iceland that erupted some twenty times between 930 and 1918. The fact that it hasn’t erupted since 1918 means that it’s about fifty years overdue for an eruption. Katla is just north of the town of Vik which is on the southern coast of Iceland.

The Katla caldera has a diameter of 6.2 miles and is covered by up to 2300 feet of glacial ice. The flood discharge when Katla erupted in 1755 was estimated to be 9 to 14 million cubic feet per second. 

The 1918 Katla eruption extended the coast of Iceland by over three miles. The flow from that Katla eruption was estimated to be equal to the flows of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers combined.

The landscape is, to say the least, peculiar. It was raining as I stood here but it was a joy to be there. This side of that mountain you can see but the other side was very green. Micro-climates abounded in this area of Iceland.

This is looking left from the prior photo. The volcano did not flow in this direction very far and they were farming not too far away. The ocean is to the right of this photo.

Recent filming in this location includes Noah, Game of Thrones, Transformers, and the upcoming (Dec 2016) new Star Wars movie. The Force is strong with Vicky.

Our local guide lived a few miles away and grew up here. He said we needed to watch where we walked because there is quicksand in this area. What sort of vehicle do you drive when you are in a quicksand area...

This is looking farther up the Katla Volcano. You can see the lower section of the glacier which is covered with ash, so it may not be clear that it's all ice. Further up, you can see a waterfall. I'm taking this photo from the black ash area in the prior photos. With the green hill, just a great landscape.

Dyrholaey Nature Reserve

Dyrholaey Nature Reserve is the southernmost part of Iceland. It’s a small peninsula on the south coast near the village of Vik. The name Vik in Norway means small fjord or small bay.

We visited multiple places in Iceland that were not primary tourist destinations that I found both fascinating and fun. This coast was one of those places.

There are not too many places in the world where I expect to see a pirate ship come around the end of the peninsula. This was just such a place. 

The Vik area was formerly a volcanic island. I suspect that volcanic eruption flows connected it to the mainland. 

I stood here waiting for Johnny Depp and the Black Pearl to sail through this opening, but it never happened.

The nature reserve also had lots of birds including puffins, skua, fulmars, and seagulls. We managed to get quite close to many of the birds including this puffin.

Eyjafjallajokull

Eyjafjallajokull volcano is the one that erupted in April 2010, stopping all air traffic to Europe. We had a trip planned to Iceland in 2010 and it cancelled our trip too.

There is a long history of problems from Icelandic volcanic eruptions. Our guide said it is thought that the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland in 1783 led to the failure of the cereal crops which caused the famine in Europe and the French Revolution. According to our guide, Thomas Jefferson was in Paris at the time representing the colonies and he made the connection between the Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland and the famine in Europe.  

The Eyjafjalla Glacier sits atop the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano. This might seem odd but when a volcano cools down and the snow pours down, it builds up on top of the volcanos in Iceland. If the volcano is quiet for long enough, the glacier can accumulate hundreds of feet of ice.

Then when a volcano erupts with a glacier on top of it, the ice melts instantly sending torrents of water and lava streaming down hill. Hundreds of millions of cubic feet of material hits the glacier and it all flows away. Farms, roads, bridges, and people below must be prepared in advance.

These are photos of photos in the Eyjafjallajokull Visitor's Center. It's right across the highway from the volcano. The visitor's center is run by the farm family that lives right below the volcano. They lived through the 2010 eruption and still live there today. They like living under a volcano.

This is a photo of the caldera during the eruptions. The family made a 20 minute film of the eruptions, rescue work, and some family reactions, both at the time and afterwards.

This is a view of their farm today, only six years later. The center of the volcano is just up above their farm on the left side. They managed to save their farm and their animals. We met the current family patriarch. He's a simple and humble farmer who likes his life and likes where he lives.

Their farm is on the right side with the center of the volcano in the back center of this photo (but clouded over). You can see that the volcanic river had no where else to go. I think the farm's recovery in six years is remarkable.

Geysir

Geysir is the geyser from which all others take their name.  Geysir is from the old Norse verb “to gush”.  Geysir was the first geyser to be described in writing and the first geyser known to Europeans.  There are many geysers or spouting hot springs at this location.

We just couldn't help ourselves...we had to take a selfie in front of Geysir. The name is right above Vicky's head etched in a rock and you can see Geysir steaming in the background.

I was surprised that we could walk almost right up to Geysir. I thought the fences would be farther away. It has been active for about 10,000 years. Geysir can hurl water 230 feet in the air and in 1845, it sent water 558 feet in the air. But changes due to earthquake activity have quieted Geysir in recent years, though it's not completely dormant.

This is Strokkur and it is right next to Geysir. It was erupting every three or four minutes when we were here. If you look in the center of the water, you might be able to notice the activity as it was getting ready to spout.

Strokkur shoots water 100 feet in the air. With only three or four minutes to wait, we got some decent pictures of it.

The whole area right around Geysir is geologically active. 

Pingvellir National Park

Pingvellir National Park has historical, cultural, and geological significance.  I most like the geological aspects. This park is in southwest Iceland about 25 miles northeast of Reykjavik. It's part of the Golden Circle tourist loop.`

Pingvallavatn Lake is the largest natural lake in Iceland. I found it curious that this lake was so close to this geological area where the earth seemed to open up at every glance.

Pingvellir is a fissure zone situated on the tectonic plate boundaries of the Mid-Atlantic ridge between the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates. Here, you see Vicky standing on the edge of North America. Now we will walk down into the abyss and into Europe.

We are now in Europe looking back up at North America. This is a classic rift valley. This is also a filming location for Game of Thrones.

Pingvellir is also a famous historical site and the name means "Parliament Plains". The Alping General Assembly or national parliament was established here in about 930 AD. It continued to meet here until 1798. Our guide described these early parliamentary meetings as Woodstock for the 10th century. 

Water for the lake comes from a large glacier. Our guide said from snowfall to the foot of the glacier could take 700 years. Then it takes another 30 years to filter through the lava until it surfaces in fissures like this one - producing some of the cleanest water on earth. It then flows into the lake.

Horseback Riding

There was no horseback riding on our trip’s itinerary, so Vicky, my wife, organized a ride on her own.  Then she recruited ten others and we made it an event.

We had a nice long ride through pastures, along a fjord, through gorse and across two rivers or creeks.

I'm riding Falki (Falcon) and he loved to go. I was constantly slowing him down. I went from way back in the pack to next to the lead in short order. As I started to pass the lead horse, the lead wrangler told me that Falki liked to lead but that he wasn't allowed. Oh well, I had a great ride on this horse.

Vicky is riding Akkiles (Achilles). She had a good ride too and was happy that we got to trot and tolt as much as we did. A tolt is a special gait that only Icelandic horses have.

By now I was riding second. We started into a 40 foot wide river. I assumed it was probably quite shallow. About 15 feet in, the lead wrangler turned, saw me, and yelled, "You must pick up your feet". I did and right before my feet would have gone for a swim. Icelandic horses are a bit on the short side.

Vicky is riding along a fjord, though it was low tide.

I just included this photo of me and Falcon to give an idea of their size. They might be on the short side, but these horses were very strong and tough. 

Whale Watching

We went out whale watching from the small fishing village of Dalvik.  Our trip was spent in a fjord which was a really large body of water. We were out on the water for three hours.

We saw one Minke whale, and many harbor porpoises, white-beaked dolphins, and lots of humpback whales.

We also got to do some fishing while we were out and Vicky and I both caught fish. 

We didn't get to see any whale breaches but we got close to many humpback whales such as the one below.

We saw lots of tail displays as the whales dove. You can see the edge of the fjord in the background.

Sometimes the whales were coming right at us and they might have dived underneath our boat.

Here I'm displaying my catch of an Icelandic Redfish. It stood out well against the blue of our lined overalls. If it looks cold, it wasn't. Our coveralls mostly protected us from the wind.

Vicky caught a cod here. It was swinging its tail up but it's actually quite a bit bigger. Vicky's fish was bigger than my fish but I was mostly going for color. We also got to cook and eat the fish afterwards and they were delicious. 

Icelandic Main Dishes

The food in Iceland was all good. We never had a bad meal. I’ll just give a sampling of some main dishes from different meals.

Fresh fish was our most frequently served main course. Below is fresh cod with a carmelized onion sauce. We also had salmon and arctic charr multiple times as well. This cod was served with mash potatoes with olives, and coleslaw. Our pre-meal snack was homemade Nan with tsiviki and salsa sauces. Dessert was lava cake with cherry sauce.

This was roast beef over mashed potatoes, mushrooms and other vegetables. Dinner started with broccoli soup. We had a green dinner salad along with caramel mousse for dessert. 

This was beef tenderloin with baked potato, carrots, and celery root. Arctic Charr was our first course. Dessert was Icelandic cake with rhubarb, cinnamon, etc.

This was lamb with potatoes, mushrooms, and other vegetables. Lobster soup was our starter. Cheesecake was for dessert.

This was at lunch after our coastal walk on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. We had creamy seafood soup (lobster, fish, shrimp, etc) and homemade bread with fresh butter. Our dessert was fresh berries over skyrr (somewhat like yogurt).

I thought I would show you that we did indeed have some very nice weather in Iceland. It was nice enough to eat outside several times during our trip.

Lake Myvatn

Lake Myvatn is part of the Namaskard geothermal area. The lake is 14.3 sq miles but is very shallow (like eight feet). This area is also a major wetlands and a nature preserve. We saw lots of birds, especially ducks.  

The area is also known as a pseudocrater area. Pseudo craters are not magma producing volcanic vents but rather are formed by gas explosions when boiling lava flowed over the cool wet surface some 2500 years ago.

In this photo, you can see the lake, plumes of hot steam in the background, and geese on the water in the foreground. The lake has lots of lake char in it which are caught using nets. Streams have trout and salmon.

This pseudocrater is an island in the lake. If you look very closely, you can notice the lower dirt near side of the crater and the greener and higher far side of the crater. 

This view is looking directly down into a pseudocrater from standing on its rim. They look like grass bunkers.

You can see a different pseudocrater island in the lake and a higher mountain across the lake.

This shows quite a few ducks in the lake, a farm right by the lake and a flat-topped mountain in the back left which was typical of many mountains in this area.

Namaskard Geothermal Area

The Namaskard geothermal area is an area of steaming fumaroles, boiling mud pots, hot springs, gasses and the smell of sulfur. It is in northeast Iceland and near a mountain called Namafjall which is close to the Krafla volcano. This volcano has had eruptions as recently as 1984, so this is a very active area.

It is very evident when entering an active geothermal area in Iceland and this is a good example of it.

This is a good size boiling mud pot. If you look just left of the center, you might be able to notice that a large blob of mud is boiling up into the air.

There was nothing to keep us from cozying right up to a steaming fumarole. They had the crevice in the earth covered up with rocks but that was it. 

There were many areas like this. You can imagine the sulfur smell by looking at the ground.

You might notice that Vicky has on shoe covers which they gave us to protect our shoes from the sulfur and other chemicals on the ground as we walked about. At least they matched her vest.

Akureyri

Akureyri is a small city in northern Iceland that locals call the Capital of Northern Iceland. Akureyri was first settled in the 9th century and has had a permanent settlement since 1778. One of three Allied air bases during World War II was located here. It was used by the British and the Danes.

This area is also the second largest urban area in all of Iceland. It's an important fishing area with an ice-free harbor, despite its location in far northern Iceland. This is due to geographic factors such as the Gulf Stream from Mexico. 

Akureyri had an interesting main street. We walked it back and forth several times. They have a university here and I think that lends itself to a more interesting culture and town. 

One interesting sidelight in Iceland was all the stories and legends about trolls and the like. I believe it can be directly attributed to the long cold dark winters with no other form of entertainment except to invent just such stories.

The architecture of these buildings was such that we didn't notice it in any other Icelandic town that we visited.

We got to enjoy another home-hosted dinner in Akureyri. This is our hostess serving us the dinner that she cooked for us. We started off with Rum and Ginger cocktails with fruit and smoked lamb on flatbread. The main meal was fresh cod in a tomato cream sauce with new potatoes and green salad fresh from their garden. She also made fresh sourdough bread with raisins. I could have gladly made an entire meal of the bread. Dessert was rhubarb, ginger, dates and fresh cream. Everything was very good!

No special event was going on in Akureyri when we were there but I think this is a town that just likes a little pizzazz.

Skagafjordur

Skagafjordur is a municipality on a deep bay in northern Iceland.  The area is a prosperous agricultural region, as you have seen in recent posts.

This region is heavy in Dairies, sheep, and horses.  In fact, there are more horses than people in this county.

Our main stop at this location was an old church. Next to the church was the rather ancient house built and used by the minister of the church. The minister changed many times over the years but the house endured and is another good example of early Icelandic housing.

This first view of the house is the back side of the house. The main sections are to Vicky's left and directly behind her. The separate smaller buildings farther back are separate open-ended barns or rooms used for different specific purposes.

This is a closer view of the back side of a building. They brought wood to Iceland from Norway or Denmark for the building's structure but they used the local rocks and sod. This is sod that was cut and stacked to form walls.

The bedrooms looked to be rather comfortable but they were like dorm rooms with lots of beds. The entire space also had other uses during the day time.

I'm always partial to kitchen space. This house had something like eighteen people living in it, so they needed a large kitchen to prepare food for all those people.

This was the bedroom and office of the minister. It was by far the nicest space in the house with the most room and the best furnishings.

Icelandic Horses

Our family has a horse farm which is where we live. For that reason, we are always up for visiting horse farms. Iceland only has Icelandic horses. No other horses are allowed in the country and if any Icelandic horse leaves Iceland, it is not allowed to return. We were also clearly told that there are only Icelandic horses; there are no Icelandic ponies.

We started off with lunch at the farm, which included, among other things, some Horse Filet. It tasted just like roast beef. They eat horse meat in Iceland and also export it, along with live horses. Horse meat is another Icelandic tradition.

Our hosts gave us a riding demonstration. Three riders showed us the different gaits with particular emphasis on which gaits were key at riding competitions. After the riding exhibition, we got to go into the horse barns.

The three riders rode around, sometimes together but more often separate. They showed us the different gaits as one of the owners explained everything to us.

They were right in front of us on the inside of the track.

After the riding demonstration, we got to see inside all their barns and outbuildings. The horses were the main attraction and they had lots of horses.

This is their head trainer. When she announced that she would answer all questions, she didn't know who she was dealing with. Vicky kept her busy for over 20 minutes. 

And no, I wasn't bitter that a bunch of their horses got more kisses from my wife than I did this day...