Iceland 08-15 October 2003
My long delayed travelogue of my trip to Iceland. Now, if I could just find my pictures! CJ
8 Oct 2003. 0920
Here I am in Savannah Airport, jumping-off place for this journey. I was off by 7am, drove up to Carol’s in Pembroke, thenn on to the airport. She will keep my truck and pick me up on the 16th.
It has already proven to be interesting: checkin was automated - put a card in the slot and punch in your flight number or confirmation number and it pulls you up. Checks your seats and offers you an opportunity to change if any are available. So, I got an aisle instead of the window. Since the card I put in was my Skymiles card, it picked up my number. It spit out my boarding passes, and then I asked if I could check my bag all the way to Reykjavik, Iceland. I was half joking, but they did it, so I won’t have to drag the big bag to the shuttle and another terminal at JFK.
I was eating Multi-Bran chex on the way to Carol’s, and now have had a Danish. So, I should be good until JFK. I have 57 minutes in Atlanta, not enough time to eat, even if hungry.
1810, JFK
The flights so far have been easy. The flight from SAV to ATL was not completely full, but there was enough expected turbulence that the attendant could not leave her seat to offer beverage service.
The plane from ATL was late getting in from wherever it started, so we were late leaving. However, we made up the time and were nearly on time getting into JFK.
In SAV, they made me put my waist pack and water bottle inside my carryon - only two items allowed, so camera bag and carryon were them. I have never had that problem before.
I caught the shuttle from terminal 3 to terminal 7 to check in to Icelandair. Apparently it is a codeshare with Finnair. Anyway, they are tucked along by themselves around a corner. I stopped in the lasies room, then went along to the checkin counter. There were already some others there from our group. And the agents were being real stinkers about luggage size and weight. They didn’t say anything about my water bottle, but my less than full carryon was too heavy. So, I took some stuff out and put it in the expansion pocket of my camera bag. It only reduced it by four pounds, but he let it pass. Of course, out of sight and I took the stuff and replaced it back in the carryon.
In ATL, I had a baked potato at Wendy’s, and here I got a sandwich. I figure they won’t feed us dinner until 10pm. I think the weather was cooler in ATL than in NYC!
9Oct 2003. Reykjavik.
We are here! The plane from JFK was full - a 757, seating 313, the smallest trans-oceanic plane I have flown since 1979 (Frankfurt to Chicago). My lack of sleep caught up with me, so it’s a good thing I had that sandwich. I have no idea what the meal was on the flight. I blew up my neck pillow and went to sleep. Of course, I woke up four times, but they were much needed naps.
The flight took less than five hours, and it was just rising dawn when we arrived. This time of year, Iceland has about equal daylight and dark.
It was raining and very windy, near 40F. We gathered at the baggage carousel after having our passports checked. I thknk most of the bags arrived - one person missing one bag, another two. Supposedly checked through from Pensacola, but they never got beyond JFK. They can check that by computer now.
We have nearly a bus full, and it was a 45 minute drive from Keflavik Airport into Reykjavik. Our hotel is the Loftleidir, I believe owned by Icelandic Air. It is right by the runway of the local airport for domestic flights. My room has a tiny bath with shower, soap/shampoo dispensers, and washcloths! And a hairdryer! I have already rearranged my luggage so there is not so much in the carryon, and things I won’t need until later are in the bottom of the big one.
Before I came up to my room, I got money from the ATM. Did it twice, as I was confused as to how much I was getting. Currency is the krona, or crown, and is 75 to the dollar. I got 500 krona, and then realized that was less than $7!
After rearranging my luggage and changing my shirt, I went out to take some pictures of the hotel, then went to the gift shop. I want to use up the film in the big camera, and duplicate the shots with the little one because both have 800 speed film in them and the big one went through xray twice. I also changed my shoes, to air out the ones I had been wearing for 19 hours.
In the gift shop, I bought postcards, two ear warmers, magnet, sew-on patches, and a muffin. Water is drinkable here, and very cold from the tap.
Our bus driver is Magnus, and our guide Katherine. Tour escort for the group is Bob, who I have known since my first trip to Brazil. He was also on my trip to Morocco. Katherine gave us some facts as we were driving from the airport. The pop. Of Iceland is 285,000 and 110,000 of those live in Reykjavik, while another 65,000 live in seven surrounding suburbs. Most of the rest live in coastal towns - noone lives on the central plain.
Iceland was first settle in 864, and has been an independent country since 1786. The land itself, a volcanic island, is only 20 billion years old and still growing. I noted a lot of old lava fields and not much vegetation but long grasses. There are a few trees, but they are planted, not natural.
We could see a cluster of storage tanks surmounted by a dome: this is a storage place for hot water from geothermal sources, which will be sent out to heat buildings in R. Ninety percent of the power comes from geothermal sources.
We could see the tower of a modern church, largest in Iceland, which is Lutheran
Our city tour leaves here at 1pm.
2140 Reykjavik
We have had our welcome cocktail party and supper, where we introduced ourselves to the group. I was first. I am one of four veterans, the only OB nurse although several have had distant OB experience, and one is NICU. Many are retired, several are not nurses.
For drinks, the choice was gingerale or a champagne with red French liquor added. I chose alcohol over sugar. Soup was shrimp bisque, with lots of shrimp. Main course was roast turkey with cranberry stuffing and mixed vegetables. Dessert was crepes with crème filling and fruit.
We had our city tour by bus - we drove around the sirport and up past the University Hospital, Iceland University, the museum that has been under renovation for several years, the library, and the old Catholic hospital and cathedral. We did not stop to see the cathedral, though I would have liked to. We went on through an older section of town with buildings from the 1930’s-1940’s, stopping at the top of the hill to visit the Hollgrimkirkja, Lutheran ‘cathedral’. It is very striking on the outside, with tower soaring in steps, reminding one of the volcanic formations. Inside it is very plain, all white and light wood. It was extremely windy on the hill, forcing us to bend forward to get to the doors. In the plaza in front of the cathedral is a memorial to Leif Erikson, given to Iceland by the US.
Following our cathedral visit, Kathryn took us on a brief walking tour downtown, ending at city hall. She paused to point out traditional houses, built sided with wood placed vertically, later covered with corrugated metal which is then painted. Windows are side by side panes, and often curtains are panels just the width of the panes. Lots of lace.
City Hall is a 1960’s style concrete building with walkway access across a pond filled with ducks, geese and swans. Inside was a coffee shop where found our members who did not take the hike. There was an art exhibition, and a large topographical map of Iceland.
Another stop on the tour was the old harbour, where we saw moored together old whaling vessels. Whaling had been outlawed for years, but it has been started again. The fleet is permitted 29 whales per year.
Several people chose to remain in town, but most returned to the hotel to relax. I visited the shop for a couple more postcards and a snack, and then napped for two hours. After shower and shampoo, I went to supper.
11 Oct 2003
Yesterday was a long day. We started out at 9am (or so) for our hospital visit, first dropping off those not coming at a shopping mall.
We met with a woman who was educated in Alabama and Long Island (NY) before coming home to Iceland. (Why did she chose those locations for graduate school? She didn’t want to shovel snow…). She told us much about the health care system and nursing in Iceland - will not repeat it all here as I’m sure our education leader will send us a report later.
From the hospital we went to visit the Pearl, the tower/dome over the six hot water tanks for the city. It had a museum, restaurant, coffee shop and souvenir shop. Prices were higher than at the hotel, and the restaurant was very expensive: the fixed meal was $75/person not including drinks.
Lunch was next, at a fish restaurant: bread, cream soup, salad, baked cod and couscous. Dessert was mixed berries in yoghurt. We were late leaving there, so our arrival at the hotel was not until nearly 9pm.
Along the way we cruised by a greenhouse complex for vegetables and flowers, stopped at a folk museum, and Skogafoss waterfall. Then at a woolen mill store in Vik. They had some lovely items, but not for me.
Our new hotel in Kirkjubaejarklaustur is another adequate, utilitarian one. Rooms are small, the twin beds are shoved together, TV is 13” without remote (don’t know why I card, I never turn it on…). No washcloth or hairdryer. We brought our luggage to our rooms - no porters in Iceland - and went directly to supper which started with pate, pork with potatoes, and dessert was tiramisu. I left before dessert.
As we drive through the countryside, I can’t help but compare it to the countryside of Mongolia. Rolling land with short green vegetation and no trees. Few roads. What settlements there are seem much more ‘civilized’, in that they are clean, neat, and technically superior. It resembles Germany in the plainness of the houses/buildings. Most are less than 50 years old. There is hardly any litter.
We see many sheep - they are raised for their wool and for food. They are shorn in spring and remain outdoors all year. There are two sheep for every human.
We see many horses, too. The Icelandic horse is little larger than a pony. It is very docile, stays out all year and grows a long coat in the winter. It has five gaits: walk, trot, gallop, pace and running walk. These gaits are inbred and do not have to be taught.
We have lunched at the Shaftel Hotel and the bus has departed taking those who wished to hike up onto the glacier. I declined.
We had a buffet breakfast at our hotel and then set off along Rte. 1, traveling along the south coast, skirting the Vatnajokull glacier, largest ice cap in Europe. There were some awesome views of it - many places where the snows creep down like alluvial fans. Some places you don’t realize you are looking at the glacier because everything is gray. We also passed along the largest lava flow in historic times, from the 1780’s from the Laki eruptions. Even after 200 years, the only thing growing on the lava is a green moss.
We drove through areas that had been affected by glacier burst - where active volcanoes beneath glaciers had erupted, melted some of the glacier ice and caused devastating flooding of coastal areas. The tenuous plants in the path are washed away, and land becomes a black sand and rock desert. This area has the longest bridge in the country, 900 meters, crossing the black sand and several rivers of glacial runoff.
We stopped at Skaftafell Hotel to use the restrooms, and went on to Jokulsarlon - the glacial lagoon filled with icebergs. It is past tourist season, so there were no excursion boats to ferry us around. We had to settle for walking along the shore. We then drove across the road to the beach side where we could walk on the black sand among the blocks of ice. It was a bit too cold for bathing…
Returning to the bus, we drove back to Skaftafell Hotel for our lunch, a delicious buffet of salads, soup, and two hot dishes: a curried chicken and a fish casserole.
The afternoon activity involved a hike up to a waterfall, but several of us elected to stay behind and relax. It was the kind of activity I felt guilty not doing, but I get short of breath climbing up, and my knees complain going down.
They were back by 4:30 and we were on our way back to our hotel for supper.
They have such delicious bread here, and we started with salad, then char (fish) with potatoes and vegetables. I ate the vegetables. I passed on dessert and had mango tea.
I found some postcards of the town - now I can forever remember how to spell it! It costs Kr85 ($1.13 US) to mail a postcard to the USA.
12 Oct 2003
What an amazing day! I awoke in the night to wind and rain, and it rained on and off all day. I don’t even remember what we did first.
We retraced our path on the ring road, Hwy 1, and past Vik we turned off at D onto a secondary road, not paved, to a beach that is supposed to be very beautiful. We could see an arch from volcanic rock and two pillars off the beach. It was raining and windy, and the surf very rough.
Back on the road, we made it to Skogar where we stopped again for coffee and to use the restrooms at the folk museum. There was another bus there and while we were inside, a third came. They never did make any coffee, but they did make wuite a few sales in the gift shop.
Oh yes…our first stop was a marker along the road where we could examine the large lava flow covered in green moss. We had hoped to be able to lie down and -*test*-('") its softness, but it was too wet and cold.
We left the main road and headed off on a side road to a valley between three glaciers, making our way slowly to a park area where we were to eat a box lunch.
Side roads are not paved: they are graded and covered with a volcanic gravel. They are not smooth. We had a rainbow beside us part of the time. It was eerie how much like Mongolia this was. We had to ford two rivers, small ones that change course frequently. In fact, most of the valley was gravel lake bed. Only 4WD vehicles can travel the road - but our bus had a special suspension that Magnus could raise to give us more clearance. He had been this way before, but not this year. I hadn’t noticed before, but our bus had two regular axles of wheels, and a third behind the rear ones that were not touching the ground.
We were supposed to take a nature walk after eating, but with all the rain it was too wet and slippery, so we left early.
Back on the A1, we made our way here to Fludir where we are in a lovely hotel, rather new. My room is large, with the beds pushed together to make a king. The bathroom has a door to the outside to a patio. All of our hotels have been very Scandinavian modern décor, with light woods and very functional and light colors.
Before coming to the hotel, we stopped at a little grocery, but they had just closed and were not interested in a busload of business. We were early for the hotel, not supposed to check in yet, but could take in our luggage…but we were able to get our keys and take our bags to our rooms.
Then it was back on the road for a very short to a greenhouse where they were growing tomatoes. Reminded me of the hygroponic plants at EPCOT. They greeted us with champagne and a bowl of marinated tomato wedges.
They replace their plants every six months and expect to get a kilo of tomatoes per week from each plant. They are tied up nearly to the ceiling. They are fertilized by bunblebees they get from Norway (or Finland or Sweden) that work two hours a day.
After our tour, we returned to the hotel for 7:30 supper of lamb, and a nurses session with our guide.
13 Oct 2003
It rained all night, heavy at times - our rooms are pretty much attached cabins, each with peaked ceiling, so we could hear it well.
After our breakfast, we boarded our buses for Gullfoss. Lonely Planet says this is one of Iceland’s star attractions. It is a waterfall (foss means falls) that falls a a total of 32m in two stages and the canyon below is 70m deep and 2.5km long. The river is the Hvita (white). It was lovely and impressive, certainly not Niagara, Victoria, or Iguassu Falls but quite nice. And as we were the only group there, not crowded.
From there we traveled a short distance to Geysir, where there are a plethora of hot springs, some bubbling, some steaming, and a couple spouting. All of the world’s spouting hot springs were named after the great Geysir here, geysir being an Icelandic word. The Great Geysir used to spout up to 60meters regularly but a century ago it quit when people tried to make it go off by dumping stuff into it. The water level was artificially lowered and it started again, but not regularly.
Nearby Strokkur (the Butter Churn) erupts every 3-7 minutes but not as high. With all the floating steam, it was difficult to get a picture.
The nearby tourist center had a nice museum/education center and gift shop.
Back on the busses, we headed for Thingvellir, the largest lake in Iceland and locale of the Althing, original parliament of Iceland.
This area has a lot of vacation homes, but they were not obvious in the area we saw. We had lunch at the Hotel Valholl, a largish place with character. We were the only guests and had a lunch of cream of mushroom soup, and a buffet of salad, boiled potatoes, and fried fish with a dill sauce.
After the lunch we drove up to the top of the hill above the hotel and walked the trail down the fault line or fissure. There are a lot of fissures visible in the valley - it is here the European and North American plates are pulling apart.
Back on the bus again, we headed for Reykjavik with a last stop at a woolen mill in a suburb. This place had some of the best prices we had seen.
14 Oct 2003
Tuesday was another rainy day. The whale watching tour was cancelled due to wind, and the flights over glaciers and volcanoes also. The only planned events that came off were two people who went horseback riding. I had planned to ride the bus downtown, maybe visit some museums. But I joined up with two others and we walked downtown, through the main shopping area, where they bought jewelry and I bought a gold pendant of a Viking ship. Plus a few magnets and cards.
We went to City Hall and had salad and quiche for lunch, and I got on the internet again. We walked back by a slightly different route, seeing more shops.
Back in my room, I was able to get a short nap and get ready for our Viking Feast. What a hoot that was! It was dark when we arrived, so we couldn’t see the place, but even before we got off the bus we were boarded by Vikings. They were part of the wait/entertainment staff.
Two of them sang and played traditional Norse instruments - guitar and accordian!
WE had a sushi like selection for appetizers, then roast leg of lamb with mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables of green beans, carrots, and turnips. Dessert was sherbert with yoghurt and a berry sauce.
During the meal, the entertainers would come by and stroke Adrian’s hair, long and blond, and say they liked a woman with long hair, easier to carry her off. She replied she liked a man in leather…They circulated, collecting the names of three in our group, and after the meal they called them up to kneel on a bearskin. They all had to chug a horn of the clear liquor, were knighted, and given certificates. Carlton was told he was now in the army, Diane was a queen, and Adrian was married to one of them - for 24 hours. He then carried her off!
We were out of there by 10pm.
15 Oct 2003
We are in the airport waiting for our flight. We had a late wake-up this morning: 8am, bags out by 10am. Magnus arrived at 10:30am and we loaded up to go to the Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon is a man made facility capitalizing on pools that formed when they started pumping the hot water for geothermal energy. The water is blue in sunlight because of minerals in it. Lonely Planet describes it as ‘a pale blue pool of effluent from the Svartsengi power plant (fueled by sea water which has been heated after seeping beneath the lava). Blue green algae (cyan bacteria) thrives in the water that emerges from the pipes but, as the water cools in the air, the algae dies, leaving a sort of organic soup with average temp of 37 degrees cent. And 2.5% salt content.’
The road leads through lava fields about 1000 years old. It is covered with green moss and small plants. From the parking lot, the walk leads through lave 10-12 feet high. It is rather a long walk, so there are stools at intervals for people to rest.
We go in and are given bracelets which function as locker keys. You take off shoes and socks outside the locker room and proceed inside with your bathing suit and the towel they gave you with your bracelet. You have to shower nude before putting on your suit.
You can enter the creamy, cloudy water inside, or walk out onto the deck and down the steps into the wonderful warm water. The air is cold with a breeze (in the 40’s F.) so you don’t linger on the deck.
The pool is quite large, very irregular in shape and you can’t see it all because of the fog rising from the water. Nowhere is the water more than neck deep on me (I am 5’3”). Some places are warmer than others, as few too hot to linger. There is a sauna in a separate building. Outside is a waterfall that pounds head and shoulders with a lot of force. There are chests of white mud to be dipped out and spread over the body. This mud pack should be washed off whey dry and makes you look ten years younger. Since I slathered it on twice, I am certain that I now look 20 years younger! The same mud covers the bottom of the pools.
I stayed in about an hour, then showered again and shampooed well. Kathryn said to shampoo well because the water and mist would leave a crust in your hair. Shampoo and conditioner are provided in the showers.
Dressed again, I hit the souvenir shop for more cards and other items. Others bought snacks, as we were on our own for lunch.
Back in the bus by 1330, we headed for the airport. Check-in went well - no weighing of carryon - and after going through security, where I did not have to take off my shoes, we headed upstairs to the shops and the VAT refund bank. I got back $30 and managed to spend all but $.20 worth of Krona.
We are on the plane, but being delayed because some people didn’t have passports for the US and had to have their luggage off-loaded.