Today is Mother’s Day, at least here in the U.S. And since the theme of this blog is from swamp to summit, a brief shout out to all mothers may be appropriate.
Of course, there’s my own personal experience of motherhood – both as mother to my two daughters and as a daughter and granddaughter myself. I was fortunate enough to know both my grandmothers – one from South Yorkshire in England, and the other from a small town in Alabama. Yes, I know it’s an unusual combination, but that’s a story for another day. Both of them worked, one as a career teacher and the other as a registrar at a college. They were both determined and fiercely independent women. I still wish I had seen them together when the Alabama grandmother and the Yorkshire grandmother went sight seeing together in London. I can only imagine.
My own mother shares all those characteristics. She took up running in her late 40s, after discovering she had a natural talent for it, and ran for many years – including winning her age category in quite a few 5Ks. To this day she still walks a good two miles daily. I sometimes wonder if her sudden shift to become a runner helped inspire my decision to take up mountaineering and trekking at age 49.
Being a mother certainly encompasses both swamps and summits. And since the younger daughter – known as S – graduates next weekend from Tulane University in New Orleans, I’m looking forward to experiencing a summit in the swamp.
And just one more musing on the topic of mountains and mothers – the earth itself is described as Mother Earth, Gaia…maybe we’re all looking to return to the mother of all of us, to reach back to something primal and life giving, and that’s what leads us to the swamp, along the trail, up the mountain. Countdown is seven weeks to Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.
When an opportunity presents, take it – and that is how I found myself on a five day excursion to New York City and Somerville, Mass. this past week. Although my fare consisted of having to attend a two day legal seminar, I got to catch up with old friends and visit daughter A and the boyfriend N and enjoy perfect spring weather in Boston.
Before I return to the theme of “all roads lead to” (see All Roads Lead to Fludir – adventures in Iceland), I must spend a few minutes mentioning the mountains of Manhattan. They aren’t products of geology – the City is remarkably flat – but they certainly are metaphorical. Everywhere you turn people are striving toward their own personal summits, whether professional or artistic or simply individualistic. And against a backdrop of skyscrapers looming over city canyons like sharp mountain peaks over a valley. It can all be a bit exhausting.
I last lived in NYC from 1986 to 1989 and each time I visit I still experience the disconnect between the city then and the city now. This time it was men wearing suits with open collared shirts. People scurrying down the sidewalk, cigarettes in hand – probably a side effect of the fact smoking is permitted practically nowhere. The Freedom Tower, gleaming over the city in the spot I still expect to see the Twin Towers. And some remarkably ugly multi story apartment buildings poking up out of midtown – that my college roommate, a long term resident of the area near the United Nations, described as a giant middle finger to the City. And I am convinced there were not as many Duane Reades back then – there now seems to be one on every corner – and they sell food and beer.
View from the Acela Express – on the way to Boston
On Friday I caught the Acela Express, having arrived at Penn Station way earlier than necessary, and spent a very comfortable 3 hours traveling to Boston’s South Station. It was a great way to travel – free wifi and had the woman next to me not been so determined to close the curtain, a beautiful view for much of the way.
Boston was spectacular. I managed to run 4 miles Saturday morning, The trees were in full blossom, white and pink bridal bouquets cascading to the ground, silhouetted by the very pale green of new leaves of other trees playing attendants to their more glamorous sisters. I got to stay on the very comfortable futon of the 20 somethings’ level of a Somerville triple decker. One of our projects was buying planters and flowers and herbs to turn their back porch into something worthy of daughter A’s Florida heritage. And a shout out to the housemates for creating such a nice living space.
Somerville – spring blossoms on steroids
Boston – or Somerville – highlights included multiple trips to the Market Basket – the iconic Somerville family owned and inexpensive grocery store with a very convenient parking lot. Open Studios Somerville was also fun – over 400 artists open their homes and studios to the general public – especially the house of the older couple filled with dioramas (in case you didn’t know what to do with any small scale model of anything that you ever saw), the quilling artist (a way to use every scrap of colored paper you wish you’d never thrown away and clearly to become daughter A’s new hobby), and interesting paintings of the backs of industrial buildings in Somerville. The day was topped off by a vegetarian Indian meal at Dosa ‘n Curry (dosa the size of the table) and listening to Mike Stern, former guitarist for the unlikely combination of Miles Davis and Blood, Sweat and Tears, at the Regatta Bar.
Plus, I got upgraded on the flight back to Florida. Some summits are hard – but some are pretty easy. Have a good week.
Mt. Elbrus – an avalanche seen from across the valley
As we near two months out from what I expect to be our hardest climb ever, up Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, it’s the power of fear that’s keeping me training. By now I’ve hit the point when I’m terrified that taking even one day off from some sort of exercise will cause the last months of training to be flushed down the toilet. Irrational, I know, but that’s what fear’s all about.
By now I have probably watched every YouTube video and read every blog out there related to these two peaks. They range from tales of cheery climbers who apparently think not twice about the journeys up and down to poor souls who are wheezing, pale, and throwing up even before they reach 18,000 feet. And, of course, everyone posts the photos that make both mountains appear the most insurmountable – veritable jungles of crevasses and steep walls.
Things haven’t been helped by the news of this week. An earthquake in Nepal that causes an avalanche at Everest Base Camp – filled with many trekkers who had no higher ambition than base camp itself – only to find themselves in the path of runaway snow, rock and ice. A volcano in Chile – good for underscoring the fact that Cotopaxi is still active and erupted only 70 or so years ago. And celebrating my 54th birthday this past week can’t help but remind me that I am not exactly going to be the youngest or fittest climber out there. A point that one of my fellow climbers brought home to me last year on Mt. Elbrus when he pointed out most of those on the mountain were half our age. And that was a year ago.
Now it’s not as though I’m a stranger to fear. You can’t be a litigator and appear in court without having experienced dry mouth or pounding heart before you embark on an impassioned plea in defense of your client. But there’s something that’s a little bit different when it’s you up there against the forces of Mother Earth.
I just keep saying to myself that fear is good. It keeps you going. And it keeps you grounded.
Husband J and I have been walking different chunks of the West Orange Trail for about the last year, as memorialized in “A Walk on the West Orange Trail” and “The West Orange Trail – Starting from the Other End.” But we also had an overarching desire to see if we could walk the whole thing in one fell swoop – well, at least 20 of its 22 miles. (The very last couple of miles – mostly along the side of a busy street in Apopka and culminating in the middle of a sidewalk in front of a strip mall – are simply not worth including.) After all, we reasoned, if the Romans could march miles like that in one day while laden with armor and the spoils of war, surely we could manage it with hiking boots and backpacks.
So, early on Saturday we set out with a couple of friends who had agreed to participate in the initial stages – M, of Iceland fame (see the prior weeks’ Iceland saga), one of my law partners who is affectionately known as King A, his daughter A, and her large, brown brindled part Weimaraner who shall be known by her full name, Daphne.
It was a beautiful, if humid, day and the first five miles to Winter Garden were like a walk in a shaded park along oak lined paths. The park theme was particularly evident as we passed a meadow inhabited by ostriches and long horned cattle (or maybe buffalo?) – not what we were expecting amid the Spanish moss.
The amount of rapid development along the trail is incredible. In the months since we were last there houses have sprung up like proverbial mushrooms. While many developments are promoting their ecofriendly characteristics, the fact remains that each of them is occupying what used to be open Florida land.
Just before mile 5, M abandoned us to return to a more normal day of activities. King A and his daughter left us in the charming town of Winter Garden – after Daphne lay down in the middle of the sidewalk and clearly announced she had had enough.
Downtown Winter Garden
Miles 5 to 10 wind through multiple housing developments and old citrus groves; they pass warehouses and fields, and the site of the Ocoee high school sustainable agriculture program, where three students were tending a cow. Some of the housing developments share great swaths of green semicircular common areas surrounding retention ponds – the manicured grass for all intents and purposes looking like a giant green unibrow. But where were all the people? It was as sterile as a glossy page from a magazine. When we walked through some much poorer areas later on the outskirts of Apopka there were men outside sitting on lawn chairs, kids playing with hoses, people walking down the trail to actually get somewhere.
Only in Florida – hill warning with no discernible hill in sight!
At just after mile 10, we decided it was time for lunch and eventually located a bench in the shade of a freeway overpass, with a golf course running along one side. I had started off in running shoes, believing their light weight would help with the distance but had packed my boots just in case. By mile 10 it was clear it was time to shift footwear. So after a sandwich break and foot ministrations, we set off for the final 10.
Things, as they are wont to do, got even stranger during the last half of the hike. As we neared the end of the seemingly interminable golf course, lining the other side of the trail was a field dotted with bright flowers – which after a few moments we realized was a memorial garden. We had been thrown off by the office building – a small frame house with a filled in swimming pool. Huh? And I’m not sure what the proximity of the memorial garden to the golf course says about the nature of human existence but it doubtless means something. We also concluded that Apopka must be slightly higher than Oakland, at the beginning of the trail – although there were no real hills, we kept going up a steady slight incline – and never seemed to get to go down.
When we reached mile 15 we had travelled more miles than on any previous hikes, and we were also on a part of the trail we hadn’t seen before. All of a sudden, peering over the edge of the trail was a giant white statue of Buddha gazing down serenely on the cyclists whizzing by him – it turned out we were next to an extremely large and ornate Buddhist temple. The religious juxtapositions were interesting. We had started by the “Mosaic Church” near Oakland, now the Buddhist temple, and shortly after encountered churches ranging from the Seventh Day Adventists (where a very dressed up congregation was just departing church services) to something called St. Elizabeth, a Church of God By Faith, with no other apparent denominational affiliation.
After a wooded section we emerged onto another road which offered a tour of Apopka’s dying foliage industry. Nelson’s Florida Roses (I had never realized it was even in Apopka) still seemed to be flourishing – although we couldn’t help but note that when we saw them switch on the sprinklers the electrical transformer over our heads actually crackled and sparked. But next to Nelson’s are acres of semi-abandoned greenhouses, giving a sort of post apocalyptic feel to the whole place.
Finally we made our way through a wooded area, dotted with small houses, and up to the Apopka bridge. Just beyond that is the Apopka Station, our ending point, but we were just under miIe 20. So we forced ourselves to go on just a little further so that when we turned around back to the Apopka Station we stopped at mile 20 on the nose.
This particular training adventure, unlike most, was a one way trip. Except for the half mile at the end, when our friends A and T retrieved us, we hadn’t covered any of the same ground twice. Sometimes I wish summits were like that – you could get to the top, just stay there, and not have to come down again.
After the adrenalin of our glacier hike and adventures in Vik, and the harrowing drive back to our Farmhotel – so much so that at dinner that night a couple from Sydney, Australia stopped by our table to ask what we had been doing that had engendered such excitement – we decided our last full day needed to be one of stark contrast.
We had seen an advertisement for lunch in a family-owned greenhouse that produced 18% of Iceland’s tomato crop, which seemed bizarre enough to fit well with the overall ethos of our trip. But first we wanted to sample one of Iceland’s famed hot springs, which we thought would be a good balance to the frigid ice of the day before. So we said farewell to the Efstidalur and set back along what was now our favorite snow covered road, heading, of course, in the general director of Fludir.
We had already decided to reject the more famous Blue Lagoon hot springs in favor of the much closer Laugarvatn Fontana geothermal baths. For a very reasonable price, you are given access to a series of pools situated at the edge of a lake, which is surrounded by snowcapped volcanic mountains in the distance. The changing room was possibly the most spotless place I have been – two girls were diligently vacuuming the tops of the lockers themselves. The pools ranged in temperature, rising up to 50 degrees Celsius, and were adorned with rocks for resting your head, jets of varying water pressures, and benches to sit on. After steaming ourselves for a while, we started to resemble good New Orleans shrimp that has just started to turn pink. That was our sign to transfer to the Finnish-style, cedar lined sauna to dry ourselves out. Once our shrimp-like selves had started to take on a slight bacon-like overlay, we felt that was a clue we had had enough. M and I retired to the previously empty women’s changing room only to discover it had been taken over by a bus load of middle aged jovial naked German women for whom this was clearly one of the highlights of their trip. We also realized we had probably violated most of the shower rules (don’t ask) but fortunately no one had been there earlier to observe our general American incompetence.
Keeping the red theme going, we then slipped and slid along more snow covered roads to the tomato greenhouse, Fridheimar. And what a greenhouse it was! Masses of tomato plants, all growing from small boxes at the ends of the aisles, their vines entangled along string structures spanning the entire width of the greenhouse. Electricity is very cheap in Iceland due to the geothermal energy pulsing under everything, and no one would think twice about the energy costs of greenhouse gardening of this magnitude. Automatic on off light switches don’t even exist. Tables were set for lunch, which was, of course, all you could eat tomato soup, or if you were a big spender like S, pasta with tomato sauce. There was also a hollowed out tomato filled with birch schnapps – Iceland was covered by birch forests until the Vikings cut them all down.
Having had our fill of tomatoes, we returned to Reykjavik by way of a quick hike around and into the Kerid crater and a stop at two seaside villages. Very empty in March – the small towns are best summed up by unpronounceable names, giant waves crashing on sand bars out at sea, black sand beaches littered with tiny shards of snail shells, and a solid 50 mph wind that didn’t let up. That wind pursued us the whole way back to Reykjavik, where even on the main road the local drivers had slowed down to a crawl due to the blowing snow. When we finally staggered back into the by then familiar Hotel Natura we were more than ready for a happy hour drink in the bar, together with the car mechanics convention attendees who seemed to have taken over much of the hotel.
Return to Reykjavik
Demonstrating some travel smarts, we enlisted the aid of the front desk clerk who was able to wangle a reservation for us at one of the city’s trendier restaurants – the not particularly creatively named Seafood Grill. All the food was good (although I could have passed on S’s whale and puffin appetizer) but the desserts were outstanding. I had an almond skyr cake infused with thyme….possibly one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.
We headed back to the airport the next day. But adventure still wasn’t letting us go. Just when we thought we had already faced some of the worst driving conditions known to man (at least to Florida man), the road to the airport – exposed, flat open – was simply consumed by blowing snow. J could see absolutely nothing – occasionally the yellow stakes at the side of the road made a brief appearance, but much of the time we were simply in whiteout. We arrived at the car rental return place to the spot where supposedly you could refuel – only to find the pumps were closed and we had to drive yet another 10 km to find gas. We did, eventually, only then to have to turn around and drive along the same terrible road we had barely survived before. And, if anything, it had gotten worse the second time around! To say we were happy to leave the car with the rental people is an understatement. We later learned the road had been closed right after we had driven along it following a six car pileup.
But lest you think our happy travelers simply then boarded their plane for a smooth flight back to the land of sunshine and oranges….no, not indeed. We had been unable to book a direct flight back and were returning via Toronto. But our flight was delayed out of Iceland (I’ll leave it to my brilliant readers to guess why) and the airline would not hold the connecting flight from Toronto to Orlando the necessary 15 minutes – despite the fact there were about twelve of us on the plane who were missing that very connection. But this blog doesn’t exist to complain about the incompetence of airlines – by now that’s just part of the condition of human existence – suffice it to say that we ended up with an unexpected night in Toronto and a very early morning flight back to Florida.
I’m now sitting here listening to one of our first Florida wet season rain storms pelting down, and contemplating the next summits facing us in June in Ecuador. Iceland wasn’t really a summit, per se. But travel takes all forms – and travel with friends is one of the highest.
Apologies to Paul Simon for the title (“never look back, Jack”). I’ve been writing an account of our trip to Iceland in early March – a travelogue of driving adventures, Nordic history, and stunning scenery. But all good sagas need intermissions – a time to break out the mead (or whatever it is the Vikings drank), roast some lamb (or whatever they ate) – and just generally sit around the fire and stare at the sky.
And so it is with my Nordic epic. I started this blog almost a year ago because I thought it would be the simplest way to share our then upcoming trip to Mt. Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains with everyone who had expressed interest. But I rapidly discovered that I was getting something else out of it entirely – a chance to write outside of the tightly constrained boundaries of legal writing (my profession) and an opportunity to speak in what I like to think of as a more authentic voice.
Yet I can’t escape my Type A tendencies. As I faced writing this weekend about our final days in Iceland, I realized, “I really don’t feel like writing about that now.” And you know what? I don’t have to. I have to fight the impulse to turn everything into a homework assignment for myself, making this blog just one more weekly deadline to add to the numerous and all pervasive deadlines I deal with on a daily basis.
I’m a really disciplined person, in most ways. It’s what has enabled me to climb these mountains even though I started at age 50, and I’m soon to be 54. It takes a lot of will to climb up and down the world’s most boring staircase between two and four times a week almost every week since April 2010. No, I’m not kidding.
But it’s one thing to be disciplined and another thing to let it enslave you. The discipline of making myself write at least once a week here is one thing. But it’s another thing to feel I have got to write Part 4 of Iceland when I don’t feel like it, even when there’s no court or client demanding I do so. And it’s also another thing to feel compelled to publish this on a Sunday simply because I’ve arbitrarily imposed that internal deadline on myself.
So today I’m going to go with the flow. I did do my stairs today (in fact I wore my mountaineering boots and I’m sure I looked even more peculiar than usual), but I’m going to press publish tonight. Even though it’s Friday.
And how about you? How do you keep from turning things that are optional into obligations?
Day 3 of our Travel With Friends Trip was to be the Iceland version of a summit. We had peeled off from the more typical tourist sightseeing regime and made our way to Sólheimajökull, an outlet glacier of Mýrdalsjökull, which is Iceland’s fourth-largest glacier. It offered the opportunity to don crampons and climb on ice for a couple of hours. And at least J and I could regard it as some sort of training for our upcoming trip to Cotopaxi and Chimborazo (only three months from now!). Because of our out of the way location at the Efstidalur Farmhotel, we were a considerable distance away, and had to hit the road bright and early for our 10 am rendezvous with the guide.
The theme of “the weather gets worse” continued. After surviving the narrow snowed over road on which the hotel was located, we ended up on a mountain pass. All we could see was a line of yellow tipped stakes outlining the contours of the road, and it was only on the way back we realized how close we were to the ocean. We finally turned off onto what was described on our map as a 3 km road that could take 20 minutes to travel. It was dirt and lava rocks, pocked with huge ruts. Eventually we reached the end, in howling wind and hail – only to find the long promised cafe where we were to meet the guide was closed and there was no other sign of human existence. In our excitement of getting there and maybe finding a bathroom, we had all jumped out of the car without properly fastening ourselves up against the elements, and accordingly were drenched. There was no bathroom either.
Finally, another car pulled up and out with it our erstwhile guide from Icelandic Mountain Guides. From New Zealand, he bounced between Aconcagua, the Alps, the Cascades – all the best climbing. I’m not quite sure how Iceland fit in, but there he was. He assured us that although conditions were not good now (read “you will be blown off the face of the mountain”), he’d been watching the forecast and the weather should clear by 2 pm.
One of the many churches dotting the Icelandic landscape
So with several hours to kill, we drove back along the rutted road to the village of Vik. Supposedly a quaint fishing village, on that cold icy day all we located was a collection of warehouses and small homes with barely any commercial establishments. We did find one hotel with a cafe and a sign stating it opened at 11. We rang the bell and eventually the owner shuffled down. After I inquired if they were open, he went back upstairs to check with the wife, and following an onslaught of Icelandic argument apparently between the two of them, grudgingly returned and opened the cafe. We ate greasy pizza while another few drenched lost souls staggered in, all of whose plans had also been laid waste by the weather.
Eventually we departed Vik to head back to our long gravel road, but on the way we took a detour to Reynisfjara beach. A black sand beach with tremendous cliffs and rock formations – brutally windy and cold but stark and beautiful. It didn’t require much imagination to visualize Vikings landing there in their long boats. There was a cafe there with a huge glass window overlooking the crashing surf – next time we will know where to go.
The glacier hike, although not particularly challenging, lived up to our expectations. As you ascend, the ice has become so compacted that in the winter it is a startling shade of clear blue, varying from periwinkle to deep turquoise. It’s set against black lava, some of which is even banded into the ice itself. There’s an ice tunnel just sturdy enough to crawl through – not dark as the light from the tunnel opening is refracted against the clear glass of the surrounding ice. A delicate tall ice arch had formed in one spot – by the time we were descending, it had fallen. Sadly, the glacier, like all glaciers worldwide it seems, is retreating. Where we were standing on rock near the cafe had been glacier just the year before.
It was finally time to bring our day to an end, and we had several hours of snowy driving to get back to our hotel. We had one more day left, and it was time to make plans.
When last we left our intrepid travelers they had just finished slipping and sliding across a parking lot in Reykjavik, tattered map in hand, hail and wind gusts abounding. But day 2 they woke up bright and early to another Scandinavian/English breakfast to boldly embark on the next part of the great Nordic challenge, also known as the Golden Circle. It has a certain Wagnerian overtone – Ring series and all that.
Speaker of the Law
The Golden Circle has three main stops. First is Pingvellir or Thingvellir (I don’t have Icelandic characters on my keyboard), the seat of Iceland’s Parliament starting in the 900s and, according to the signs, the oldest Parliament in the world. Unbeknownst to the ancients they had picked a valley located on the exact rift between the Euroasian and North American tectonic plates, which are pulling apart at the rate of a tenth of an inch a year – in geologic terms, the equivalent of a Daytona 500. You hike down the valley past such illustrious spots as the Drowning Pool and, my personal favorite, the Speaker of the Law Rock. Now if they would just put one of those in a courtroom….
After exploring the seat of ancient Icelandic government, the next stop was the geyser, Strokkur. Unlike its larger cousin, the Geysir, it erupts every few minutes, so no one leaves disappointed. It wasn’t too crowded in early March, but must be a nightmare in high season. Mind you, through all this, husband J was bringing his Florida driving skills to bear through wind and rain and ice and snow. What friends M and S didn’t know until the last day was that he’d waived the collision damage insurance. Strokkur was dutifully impressive, shooting its 20 meter high spout with the regularity of a factory whistle. I personally found the little steam spouts percolating out of the side gullies and small bubbling puddles just as interesting.
Continuing our tour – along with a few hundred people doing the exact same route – in fact, I started to recognize people from stop to stop – we journeyed onto the famous waterfall of Gulfoss. After encountering some quite bad weather on the way there, we didn’t even realize we’d arrived. You’re on a high plain, seemingly with no topography, and then an elaborate visitors center appears out of the middle of nowhere. We actually sent S out on a reconnaissance mission before we all ventured out to confirm there really was a waterfall in sight. It is an amazing confection of spray and rock and mist. Not quite as massive as Niagara Falls, it has two tiers and at that time of year, one side is frozen into sharp stilettos, contrasted with frozen rolls of ice that cascade down the side of the valley. The falls then flow around a bend and plunge into a narrow ravine that must be enormously deep.
Aside from the falls themselves, Gulfoss has quite a remarkable gift shop. We had to convince S that he truly didn’t need to take a seal skin back to the United States. Ethical issues aside, the guide books are full of warnings of the dire consequences such attempts will result in at U.S. Customs. Of course, it is quite likely said seal skin really was produced in some quaint Icelandic greenhouse specializing in man made fur. More on the greenhouses later.
But by then it was mid afternoon, and we felt it wise to get somewhere within striking distance of the Farmhotel where we were to spend the next two nights. As three of us are lawyers (well, M has relinquished the profession in favor of a more divine calling), we followed the “detailed itinerary” provided to the tee, arriving in the bustling metropolis of Fludir in late afternoon – but only after driving through a pounding snow storm on what became our new best friend of a road, I think numbered 341. Little did we know that Fludir would become our navigational tool for the remainder of our stay in the Iceland countryside.
On the way to Fludir
As a point of interest, Fludir has a population of 394. It is located in the unpronounceable municipality of Hrunamannahreppur in the Southern Region, Iceland. And the way we navigated, we ended up going toward, through and around Fludir for the next couple of days, since all roads seemed to lead to it.
After quickly passing all of its few commercial establishments – including yet another of the ubiquitous Icelandair hotels, S finally broke down and went into the Fludir equivalent of a convenience store to ask where the Efstidalur Farmhotel was located. It was at that precise moment that J and I both had the same realization. We had noticed some weeks before that the hotel we were booked at was not the hotel featured on the self drive tour company’s website, but was actually located in an even more remote spot, further east and away from Reykjavik. Oh. And the itinerary from the tour company, of course, presumed we were staying at the hotel people were normally booked at. Oh.
So, J and I were not overwhelmingly surprised when S tromped out to announce that the hotel was not here but there and we had another half hour of fun driving in the snow before arrival. But the convenience store lady had given him a very detailed map which became our Bible for the next couple of days.
Through more snow and sleet we went, eventually driving up a steep hill to an actual dairy farm. Cows all around, out buildings, and a small low building of ten rooms, five of which overlooked the wide white valley of fields below.
Husband J, friends M and S, and I arrived at Sanford-Orlando International Airport on a Tuesday afternoon still not quite believing that one could board a plane there and step off in Reykjavik, Iceland. Yet that’s exactly what happened. After a fairly smooth flight on budget airline Icelandair we arrived in Reykjavik just after 6 am.
For some reason both sunrise and sunsets are late this time of year in Iceland, so we made our way in near total darkness to the Icelandair Hotel Natura. Icelandair seems to be as much a hotel and tour operator as an airline and Icelandair hotels are scattered throughout the country.
Although the Hotel Natura is one of those blue paneled, five-story 1970s style buildings, the inside is warm and wood and dotted with sculptures of people made out of wooden boards who sit at various points throughout the lobby. We arrived just in time for an incredible buffet breakfast. One side was English (eggs, bacon, baked beans [except they were chickpeas]); the other Scandinavian (two sorts of herring, salmon, fish salads, and dense, grainy breads). We had arrived in Iceland expecting nothing but fermented shark or its ilk. The food we encountered almost everywhere turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was also a pleasant surprise that we could check into our rooms at 9 a.m.
View from Hotel Natura
After we crashed for an hour or so, we decided it was time to explore the city. We took the number 5 bus from right outside the hotel to the Hlemmer bus station, braving sleet and rain. Apparently this has been one of the worst winters in Iceland in recent memory. The bus station was like all bus stations – but I loved the table in the center with books available just to be picked up, read, returned or donated. We started off down the main drag, Laugarvegur. Even touristy souvenir shops were filled with interesting, tasteful items. Marvelous design in Iceland, clean and bold and modern, both jewelry and clothes.
But the weather was getting progressively worse, which turned out to be a theme of the whole trip. We staggered our way to the end of the street toward the harbor in the belief there was a Viking Saga museum that had looked interesting. Eventually, soaked and with a disintegrating wet map we found it – only to discover it was some sort of Disney-esque Viking wax museum. Being from Florida, we felt very little need to pay the equivalent of $15 each to go in. But there was a very nice cafe where I ordered mead – which seemed like a sufficiently Viking thing to do, and the young waiter who looked like a red-haired Viking himself, told us how to get to the National Museum, which was the one we’d really been aiming for.
Mead in Reykjavik
After another half hour of fighting our way through wind gusts and snow, some which were strong enough to lift me off my feet, and with our poor map literally in tatters, we arrived. I have no photos to speak of because the weather was such I didn’t want to take my gloves off nor did I think my phone would survive the elements. I think we walked through a very nice residential area – the houses are sided with corrugated metal, painted as though it were wood, with gingerbread moldings. The museum was worth the snow and sleet – the history of Iceland from its first inhabitants on, and it gave us a good background for what we would see on the rest of the trip. Not only were there Vikings on this previously uninhabited land, but Irish monks paid a visit. I am convinced Irish monks were the international tour guides of their time as they seem to pop up everywhere.
By then we realized we had practically walked back to the hotel, which was just on the other side of the municipal airport – but which was also a long and exposed walk around the tarmac. After debating a bit, we rejected M’s suggestion we walk and brave more pelting snow – and by then hail – and slid our way across a parking lot to get a taxi. That walk across the icy parking lot ranks as one of the more treacherous aspects of the trip.
That evening we had scheduled a boat tour to try to see the Northern Lights from the Reykjavik harbor. Needless to say, the trip was cancelled, but as a substitute we were able to opt for a nine course sharing menu at the Kopar Restaurant on the waterfront. The weather, which truly does change every 15 minutes (but sometimes only to get snowier), cleared just enough to see the moon against deep blue sky.
Moon Over the Reykjavik Harbor
Next up – exploring the Golden Circle and the valley between two worlds: Pingvellir – the meeting place for Iceland’s ancient Parliament, on the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. More summits to come.
Sitting at the airport about to return from solid white out in Iceland to sunshine in Florida – much more to come in succeeding posts when I’m not about to catch a plane. Iceland: Glaciers to windswept sea to white on white against grey skies, and blue ice pitched against black lava. In the meantime, a quick photo:
FromSwamptoSummit 