The End of a Magical Experience

We went to bed early because we had to wake up at 4 am to go to the airport. We packed everything before going to bed to be as ready as possible in the morning. We drove 54 minutes to the airport and when we got there reality hit me like at no other time in my life.

I am amazed by what four days in Iceland can do to you. You breathe with a different rhythm. You become one with nature. You forget about how crazy real life is. You forget there are people around. Then you arrived at the airport and the moment you set foot in the property you have to start running and figuring things out. You must snap back to reality with no warning. We were dropping off the car and the bus to the terminal arrived. My friend asked the driver to wait for me while I dropped off the keys. The bus comes every ten minutes, but I was very tight on time. Keflavík is not a very big airport. It is rather small, but still you don’t expect to see it completely full of people at 5:30 am. You couldn’t move or walk anywhere without hitting somebody with one of your bags or saying “excuse me.” And of course you have to find your way. You check in yourself and then have to drop off your bags. But they have a line for “odd size” bags, meaning backpacks, and another one for regular suitcases. The lines were ridiculously long. We were in one for about 15 minutes when I decided to ask one of the ladies from the airline if I was in the right place. She told me that I had to go to the “odd bags” line and that I could drop off both of my suitcases there. That was not the case. After I dropped off my backpack, I had to go stand in the other line again. I wasn’t going to make it to my flight. Another lady told us that the “self-drop off” was faster, so we went there, but it wasn’t faster.  Imagine a bunch of tourists trying to figure out how to scan their bags… In desperation, I asked another lady if there was anything I could do, and she was kind enough to take me to the front of the line.

I wouldn’t normally do that, but I have a pretty tight travel schedule for the next few days and couldn’t miss my flight.

I abandoned my friend, but her flight was later. I said goodbye really quickly and headed to security. It was very interesting to see this airport’s operation. You scan your boarding pass yourself to get to the security line at a gate, metro-like. Then a machine distributes trays where you put your things (brilliant idea!). You don’t have to deal with getting four trays with two hands and delaying everybody, thus, there were no big lines in security (everybody was trying to scan their luggage instead). I was able to run to a restaurant and get something to eat (I had a three hour flight ahead), and walked across the entire airport to get to my gate. I made it just in time.

I slept the entire flight. I was exhausted. I arrived in Geneva, got my luggage and headed straight to the train station. I had to run to catch my train (more running!), but I did. I think the speaker of that train didn’t work, because at the first stop a guy started knocking on the window of our car, yelling in French (which most of the passengers didn’t speak) that we needed to get out of that train and go to track six. And of course, I had to run there to. But I made it safe and sound to my destination.

Thank you for reading my blog and following me on my travels. I hope that you have found it entertaining and perhaps educational too. Until the next trip!

Takk Ísland!

Hidden Gems

This is going to be a long post, but I promise you’ll enjoy it. We woke up earlier today to go to Dyrhólaey, one of the rock formations by the beach we had seen a couple of days ago. We wanted to see it more closely before going on our ice hike. I had the day very well planned in my head and I had the times right. Or so I thought. We first stopped to get gas and the now customary free coffee and sandwich for the day. We enjoyed the drive like always. We had decided to stop on the way at one of the waterfalls we hadn’t seen from up close and then we made it to Dyrhólaey.

We got there, took our sandwiches with us and sat down to contemplate the breathtaking view. The day was beautiful! It was even warm; we could have just worn a t-shirt, except for the fact that we were going to be walking on ice after that.  We took pictures and headed to the glacier at a time that I thought was good. I even thought we were going to be getting there earlier than requested. The ticket said to be there 15 minutes before starting the walk, and we were going to be there 30 minutes before.

Except that, at some point my mind decided that the walk started at 2:30pm, and not at 2:00pm, which was actual time. It must have been the magic of the country, the fact that I was very relaxed and happy, or all of that together. I realized my mistake when we were pulling into the parking lot and I saw a group of people starting a walk. My heart stopped. How did I do this? I parked, jumped out of the car while my friend was pulling up the ticket on her phone and we ran to a couple of guides next to hiking company’s van. I was so worried that I don't even know if I made any sense when I tried to explain to the guide what had happened. As calm as he could be, he looked at the ticket and said, “Yes, this is us.” So I quickly asked him if he could wait for us to grab our things and to run to the bathroom (I always have to go at the worst moments). He did wait for us. The group was pretty much ready to leave, so one of the guides started the walk with them and the other one stayed with us to adjust our crampons. I haven’t felt relieved like that in a very long time. Had I missed that hike, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.

When we purchased the tickets, we received an email saying that due to a “change in conditions” there was a 15-minute walk from the parking lot to the glacier. I thought that was interesting, but didn’t think much of it. When we started the walk the guide explained. In the last two years, the glacier melted a great deal. It is probably hard to appreciate that in the picture, but the glacier hikes used to start right where the parking lot is, and now there is a 15-minute walk on dirt to be able to start the hike.

I have worked in conferences where the main topic is climate change. I have learned a lot about what is happening to our beautiful world right from the experts. However, seeing it and understanding it is a very different feeling. I felt sad and worried. I immediately asked the guide if these walks have a negative effect on the glacier, and he said no. One might think that he said that because guiding hikes is what he does for a living, but his answer made sense. He said that the ashes from the volcanoes and the shifting temperatures are what have a negative impact on it.

I absolutely loved every single thing we did in Iceland, but this hike was the best of it all. When we arrived at the actual glacier, we caught up with the rest of the group. The guides explained how to put our crampons on and then one of them checked to see if we had done it right. They told us how to walk with them and gave us safety instructions.

At this time of the year, the glacier is pretty much covered by volcanic ash. One of the guides told us that in the winter, the ice is so clear that you can see pretty deep into the glacier. He gave us a distance, but I can’t remember what it was. He said that there are people who are afraid of heights and don’t really like that. I would have loved to see the ice like that. Maybe on my next trip. The hike lasted about three hours. It was a good workout, but nothing extreme, and it was an amazing learning experience. The guides stopped several times to explain how the ice forms (it takes 10 meters of compact snow to form 1 cm of glacial ice). They showed us the different kinds of ash from the volcanoes: the old kinds and the newer ones. One of old ones (from an explosion back in 1918) is so fine that it forms a paste with the water of the glacier. He said that it is full of minerals and it is a good insulator. The newest one (from an explosion back in 2010) is basically small rock. He even showed us another very old one, which was lighter in color and could be used as a facemask.

We walked down to a place where the ice looked as blue as you can imagine, and they explained why the ice has different colors: oxygen and sunlight, basically. The bluer the ice is, the harder it is. We also drank water from the glacier explorer style. The only problem is that I needed help to get back up both times (between the lack of sleep in general and the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing because I couldn’t get back up, one of the guides had to help me). And I don’t have the words to describe the taste and freshness of that water. We also saw other groups ice climbing and our guides explained how it worked. At some point they let us try on a very small wall in one opening of the glacier that we walked into.

The company that we went on this hike with is Mountain Icelandic Guides. They have all kinds of expeditions that I definitely want to do one day. They are experts on mountains and glaciers. They keep their groups small and they are wonderful. They even do expeditions in Greenland…That left me thinking. I just added Greenland to my list of places I want to visit.

I was absolutely fascinated by the whole experience, taking it all in for the full three hours. We met two guys and a gal from New York who were very nice. They told us about a secret waterfall next to the big waterfall five minutes away from the glacier.

After the hike, we finished our sandwiches and headed to the hidden waterfall. Luckily, my friend found information online on how to find it, and when we parked the car, a couple was coming back from it to confirm that we needed to jump over a fence to get to it. The fact that you have a very popular big waterfall that everybody goes to right next to a hidden one that few people know about didn’t cease to amaze me. This seems to be the case at almost all of the popular waterfalls. A lot of the information I obtained for my trip came from blogs. I don’t have a clue how people find the hidden waterfalls, but they do, and the information gets passed by word of mouth.

Iceland is an island, a pretty big one, but an island nonetheless. It has the most wonderful landscapes I have ever seen. It has it all. Sometimes you even feel like you are walking into a Lord of the Rings set. But more and more people are visiting it, and some places are already being transformed into accessible, comfortable touristic sites. I honestly don’t like that at all. It takes the charm away from it. I hope most of the waterfalls and amazing places we saw stay the way they are. We humans tend to turn beautiful natural wonders into ugly man-built sites to see them. There really is no need for that. I hope we learn to respect nature and leave it alone.

Going with the Flow

The days are so long here that your body can't keep up with your mind. There is no darkness in Iceland at this time of the year. So your mind thinks you can keep going even though your body is tired, and you lose track of what you have done.

In my post from yesterday I forgot to mention that we went to one more place: Thingvellir National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is very big and we got there around 8:30 pm. We were really tired and didn't have as much energy to explore as we would've liked to.

Besides, we were trying to make it to a waterfall that we thought was 40 minutes away and on our way home, when in reality it was 5 and a half hours away northeast. And all because the waterfall and a city have the same name.

Anyways, this park is pretty cool because, as Wikipedia tells us, "the continental drift between the North American and Eurasian Plates can be clearly seen in the cracks or faults which traverse the region" and part of that is in the pictures. It is also very interesting historically speaking.

It was pretty nice. Then we drove to Selfoss thinking we were going to a waterfall, when really we went to the town and  drove back home when we realized that.

The point of a road trip, of course, is driving to get to wonderful places and sometimes that means spending most of the day in the car. The original plan wasn't that, but when I planned the trip my trip times were mistaken. And that is another important thing to keep in mind when road tripping: you have to be flexible and adapt.

We headed to Hvítserkur, which is an amazing rock formation north of Reykjavik. It is quite far, about three hours away. The landscape was very different than what we saw on the south but still quite nice. 

When we got there and it was very windy and cold. The good news is that we were prepared and were able to layer up to be more comfortable. We didn't spend much time there because we had to be back in Reykjavik on time for a whale watching tour.

We enjoyed the scenery, took some pictures and headed back.  When we got about thirty minutes away from Reykjavik we stopped at an overlook to stretch and I checked my email. Bad news.  Our whale watching tour was cancelled because of the rough sea conditions. We were heartbroken. But I have to admit that part of the drive was scary because the wind was so strong that it kept pushing our little car. So I knew they were right in cancelling it.

We went straight to the tour place to get a refund, but since we booked it through an agency we needed to do it with the agency. Reykjavik was really cold and windy. We decided to take the opportunity to sit down at a restaurant and have a proper meal. It was probably for the better. We were almost falling asleep while eating. We also need good rest for tomorrow, which is going to be very exciting!