eg tala ekki islensku - Part 3

Þingvellir

I am only on the first day of my one week Kichadi fast and, already, I am regretting my public commitment to this endeavor. I am kind of hungry but the Kichadi is so tasteless that I shudder at the thought of eating it. Maybe if I think of Iceland, I can stave off insanity...

The ultimate guided tour

I have never been a fan of bus tours so when the opportunity to explore Iceland in a jeep presented itself, we took it - hefty price tag be damned. Our party of four was picked up at 9:00 in the morning by Lully, our guide, and fellow passenger, David, an elderly man. When David mistook us for Americans, we tried to return the favour by guessing that he was Welsh, but we got it right so we all laughed for the wrong reason.

Our first stop was Þingvellir, the site of Iceland's first parliament in 930 AD, and where the European and American plates meet. It was beautiful, to be sure, with the crystal clear water and a range of mountains in the background, but I found myself disappointed by the many tour buses that accompanied us.

Our next stop were the hot springs. We had all brought our swimsuits, David included, but were informed by Lully that the water bubbled out of the ground at 100C. Sure enough, steam filled the area like a heavy fog. The hot springs were followed by a visit to some volcanic waterfalls, where water poured, seemingly, out of the ground. Both sites were interesting to see, and less heavily visited than Þingvellir, but they did feel like accessible tourist sites.

I must admit that the prospect of visiting Langjökull glacier, our next stop, did not excite me. My previous experience with glaciers was in Alberta, and they were comparable to a dirty snow parking lot for mega-wheel tour buses. However, as we approached the glaciers, Lully told us that Neil Armstrong had used the surrounding landscape to simulate a walk on the moon and it was easy to see why. The volcanic rock created an alien environment and the remoteness of the region was otherworldly.

Lully's jeep climbed 1000m above sea level before it became mired in the snow that covered the glacier, and we were forced to stop. Surrounded by nothing but snow, there was no visual cue to indicate how far the summit was. We made a go at it, running up the mountain through the snow, but could only chart our feeble progress by looking back at the parked jeep. Lully seemed concerned by our behaviour as we continued giddily on; Joe decided to roll down the mountain then I attempted to do some yoga moves. Photos fail to do the glacier justice but believe me when I say that we were inspired by beauty, and not oxygen deprivation.

Climbing down into a volcanic cave did not quite measure up to the glacier but was still off the beaten path and wonderfully unsafe. Lully provided us with helmets and headlights but, otherwise, trusted us to climb over jagged, icy rock in low light conditions unassisted. 100m into the cave, we turned off our lights and found ourselves in complete darkness. It was unnerving to think of what would have happened if technology failed us and panic did its work.

Like spent children, we passed out during the return to Reykjavik. Lully was still peppy, perhaps fueled by his numerous snacks. His sweet nature was definitely the cherry on top of the best tour that I have ever been on. Well worth the credit card bill that met us on our return to reality.