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Iceland

Land of Fire and Ice

By localfocus

Carpe Diem

My first visit to Iceland was born of pure opportunism. Deciding to meet someone who was flying back from Scotland to the US and stopping over in Reykjavik, I booked a flight in the opposite direction and flew out four days prior to our scheduled rendezvous to do a little advance exploring of my own. Now, a couple of weeks later, and armed with a clutch of memories as well as the sights and sounds of this staggeringly beautiful country, I am ready to begin actually planning my next visit.

Sitting atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the fault line that runs between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, Iceland is home to some 320,000 people, with two thirds of them living in and around the capital, Reykjavik. Roughly the same size as England but nowhere near as densely-populated, there are approximately three Icelanders per every square kilometer of this rugged country, notwithstanding the fact that almost 50 percent of the land is uninhabitable.

As the two tectonic plates continue to drift slowly apart, Iceland is getting wider at roughly 1.5 cm each year with considerable volcanic and earthquake activity occurring continually to the northeast and southwest of the ridge that it sits upon. In fact, Iceland’s youngest rock formations are only 18 months old, formed when a lava field about the size of Manhattan was created between August 2014 and February 2015. The oldest rock formations - created some 60 million years ago - are found along the East and West Fjords.

rise in popularity

Iceland has undergone an exponential surge in popularity over the last few years and it’s easy to see why. For a country used to dealing with the ignominy of being omitted from numerous maps of Europe due to its isolated location on the edge of the Arctic Circle, it more than makes up for its small footprint with a hugely-impressive variety of natural features and attractions. A strikingly primordial landscape, Iceland is a stunning blend of primeval fire and ice. Bleak, barren lava fields and acres of black ash and sand form the valleys and bases of rugged mountain peaks and fjords while vast glaciers, steaming hotpots, mud pools, geysers, and cascading waterfalls are dotted throughout the countryside.

Glacial rivers, with their distinctive grey-green hue, weave their way through the landscape, interspersed with criss-cross farmland drainage systems. Only 10 percent of farmable land is actually cultivated in Iceland due to the low temperatures which make it difficult to grow food products successfully. In fact, for every 100 meter gain in height, the temperature drops by 1℃. Many of the smooth, flat fields which stretch out along the South Coast are cultivated mostly for grass and are also used for grazing horses and cows.

In contrast to cows which are among Iceland’s most delicate domestic animals and only remain outside from May to September, the sturdy, small horses which roam Iceland’s often desolate pastures, represent the country’s most ubiquitous and recognizable national symbol. Brought to Iceland in the late-ninth century by Viking settlers, there is now a population of some 80,000 horses or one horse for every four Icelanders! A tenth-century law banning their import and curtailing their numbers has ensured a line of pure, uniquely Scandinavian stock.

Originally used for hauling logs and driftwood swept ashore from Siberia and Canada, Icelandic horses have thick fur to protect them in sub-zero winter temperatures. Characterized by their highly-distinctive fifth gait or ‘tölt’, they are now bred mostly for riding and pleasure.

big changes

The country’s banking crisis in 2008 was a significant catalyst in speeding up the rate of tourism to the island. In fact, more than 1.5 million visitors came to Iceland in 2015, outnumbering native Icelanders by a ratio of 3:1. Attracted by favorable exchange rates created by the collapse of the króna, tourists have been taking advantage of less prohibitively-expensive prices on everything from accommodation to eating out.

Though still relatively expensive by general European standards, Iceland now represents much better value for money than it did before the financial collapse. Restaurants, in particular, have veered away from pricey, imported ingredients and have focussed instead on locally-sourced, artisanal products.

The move has created an exciting culinary shift and together with easy flying access from the US and the rest of Europe, Iceland has become a more affordable, appealing destination for thousands of visitors. Along with fishing, geothermal energy supply and aluminum smelting, tourism has now become one of the country’s leading industries.

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first impressions

Most visitors to Iceland arrive at Keflavik International Airport which is situated on the Reykjanes Peninsula in the southwestern corner of the country and about 40 km from the capital city, Reykjavik. Perched on elevated ground overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, its isolated position is, however, offset by easy, efficient bus access to the city centre. Car hire, while expensive, is still an affordable option for getting around, especially with two or more travelers.

Leaving the airport and traveling along Route 41, a multi-lane expressway heading directly east to Reykjavik, gives most people their first, and often surreal, glimpse of this unique country. On the day that I arrived, a light dusting of snow had coated the enormous lava fields just enough to give the black-rubble landscape an otherworldly, monochromatic appearance but also hinting at the early moss and lichen below.

With no trees to break this stark, uninterrupted view, the randomly-spaced larger rocks, cairns and sculptures that do punctuate the scenery almost appear as exclamation points along the way. Following the arrival of Norse settlers around 874 AD, much of the land was denuded of vast tracts of trees to provide timber for construction and heat as well as being cleared for pasture.

Ironically, Ingólfur Arnason, the first settler to arrive on Iceland’s shores, threw his wooden high-seat pillars overboard - symbols of tribal chieftainship - and determined to land wherever they washed up. He named the place Reykjavik or ‘smoky bay’ after mistakenly thinking that the rising white columns of vapor he saw came from wood fires rather than from the surrounding hot springs.

Iceland still retains a largely treeless appearance - just one percent of the countryside is covered by trees - but many small initiatives to re-introduce trees are underway. In fact, since 1994, some four million trees have been planted in a effort to repopulate the landscape with non-native pine, conifers and Alaskan Aspens being planted in increasing numbers.

lighthouses and hotsprings

Pulling off the main road and heading southwest through the rock-strewn expanse brings you to the dramatic Hafnaberg Cliffs. The sound of wheeling kittiwakes and fulmars fill the air as they take off and land in the crevices of the cliff face.

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A further 10 km along Route 425 brings you to Reykjanestá on the peninsula’s most extreme southwesterly point. Sitting a little way inland is a tall white lighthouse keeping guard over the roiling Atlantic and with a view to Eldey island in the distance. Home to Europe’s largest gannet population, the island at one time was also famous for its nesting great auks.

In 1844 however, the last pair of great auks, along with their egg, were destroyed and as a nod to this event, a single bronze auk now looks westwards towards the island from its land-based lookout.

The area around the lighthouse also includes the Gunnuhver thermal springs, Europe’s largest muddy hot-spring site with boiling salt water up to 300°C erupting from multiple exit holes along the ground. Legend has it that Guðrún, an eighteenth-century witch, met her demise here after being tricked into falling into the hot spring and her ghost is said to still wander through the area.

ringroad

As I continue to travel around Iceland, I feel a growing sense of anticipation that every bend in the road holds the promise of another spectacular feature waiting to reveal itself. And it is in this frame of mind that I set off early one morning to explore the South Coast.

Leaving Reykjavik, and with it the early morning traffic heading into the city in the opposite direction, I wind my way past the harbor and head towards the coast on Route 1, otherwise known as the Ringroad. This road actually circumnavigates the whole island and can be completed in about a week. Clinging to the fringes of steep, volcanic foothills on one side, the road weaves through the lush farmland abutting the ocean on the other and often detours around obstacles. According to anecdotal evidence, construction crews, spooked by their equipment repeatedly breaking down and getting damaged, built the road around the hiding places and dwellings of the ‘hidden people’ or trolls in the area in order to avoid reprisals.

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iceland makes its mark

As the road pushes its way southeast towards Vík, a tiny town of only 300 inhabitants in the shadow of the towering Reynisfjall ridge, the twin visions of the now-infamous Eyjafjallajökull icecap and its much-larger sister, Mýrdalsjökull, loom into view.

Although responsible for major eruptions in the 17th and 18th centuries, Eyjafjallajökull, however, put itself and Iceland firmly on the map with a relatively-small eruption in April 2010. The eruption from the previously-dormant volcano nevertheless pushed dense amounts of black, volcanic ash through its thick icecap and some 10 km vertically into the air. Clear weather and a prevailing, steady southeasterly wind would push the ash clouds deep into European airspace over the course of the next four weeks causing chaos and disruption to thousands of flights and passengers.

Sitting directly beneath Eyjafjallajökull is the Þorvaldseyri dairy farm which survived remarkably unscathed during the eruption. Although the fields were subsequently covered in layers of volcanic ash, adding valuable nutrients and fertilizers to the soil, the cattle survived unharmed in their sheds due to the violent upward thrust of the ash clouds which were carried away from the farm by favorably-strong winds.

frozen water

Just a short distance off the Ringroad on Route 221, is an easily-accessible ice tongue of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, Sólheimajökull. A 15-minute walk along the rocky track skirting the adjoining glacial lagoon, offers the opportunity to see this glacial offshoot up-close.

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Ice-melt and glacial run-off have pitted the surface and crevasses with black grit but elsewhere on the glacier, the ice is startlingly blue and opaque.

Tumbling water

Moving on from Sólheimajökull and back on the Ringroad with Mount Hekla to the west, Iceland’s second-most active volcano and considerably more unstable than Eyjafjallajökull, I come to the first of several waterfalls along this route - Skógarfoss - and am immediately struck by the almost-vertical fall of the tumbling water. Plunging down the rock face from a height of over 60 m, the torrent comes to an abrupt stop in a deep, circular plunge pool, sending out waves of mist and cool blasts of air.

Rainbows dance along the surface causing an almost ethereal effect and I realize over the next few days that really, this island is full of quickly- emerging and disappearing rainbows in the constant interplay between light and water.

A short diversion off the main road, along Route 415, brings you to the black-sand beach of Reynisfjara.

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Anchored at its east end by twisted, spiraling basalt columns - similar to the Giant’s Causeway in Co. Antrim, Ireland - and by beautiful views of Dyrhólaey, an extended basalt outcrop of sea arches, to the west, the beach looks directly offshore to the towering sea stacks of Reynisdrangur.

The brooding stacks, said to be petrified trolls, make an appearance in Bon Iver’s 2011 music video, Holocene.

Heading back westwards towards Reykjavik, I arrive at the junction with Route 35 and strike north towards the Geysir-Gullfoss area. Quite dramatically, the landscape has changed again and is laced with stretches of pine and conifer plantations, interspersed with numerous cabins and retreats. The Gullfoss waterfall - or Golden Falls - represents yet another dramatic shift in scenery. Actually a double cascade, the water first falls through a broad gorge before plunging down a second steep ravine, kicking up clouds of mist and spray along its 32 m descent.

Moving on, I visit Geysir, discovered in the Haukadalur geothermal region, and which literally means the ‘Gusher’. Despite its reputation as the original hot-water spout and from which all others derive their meaning - Old Faithful in Yellowstone, USA, for example - it has not, however, erupted since 1916. Fortunately, its lesser-known sibling, Strokkur, does the honors and erupts consistently every eight minutes or so, sending a plume of boiling water some 30 m into the air.

a nation celebrates

One of the most spectacular locations to witness the physical rupture of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates is at Þinvellir or the ‘Assembly Plains’. Situated in an enormous, unstable, rift valley, the area was once the gathering place for Iceland’s chieftains or goðar who assembled there to discuss and ratify laws as well as to settle disputes.

The Alþing or General Assembly met once a year since it initially convened in 930 AD and would remain Iceland’s seat of government for the next 800 years until it moved to Reykjavik. In fact today, the Icelandic Parliament is considered to be the world’s oldest, continuous parliament in existence.

Þinvellir remains a powerful symbol of national identity and was the gathering point for celebrations in 1944 when Iceland declared independence from Denmark and raised its own national flag for the first time in its history. It owes its more recent rise to international prominence as the spectacular backdrop to Game of Thrones.

lure of iceland

A final noteworthy stop on the way back to Reykjavik is the beautiful and often-overlooked Faxi waterfall or Vatnsleysufoss as it is sometimes called. Located on the Tungufljót river, this waterfall resembles a smaller version of Gullfoss and seemed to me the very embodiment of quintessential Iceland. Small, off-the-radar but definitely worth the detour. I am already looking at flights.