Day: October 13, 2017

Today is a travel day and we leave Reykjavik and fly to the northern city of Akureyri in search of the Northern Lights.  We have been told that it is much easier to see the natural phenomena the further north you go and away from the lights of the city.  Unfortunately the weather forecast calls for rain and cloud cover which would make seeing the natural wonder an impossibility.   That is no surprise since as I previously mentioned we were unsuccessful in our attempt to see Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro and the total eclipse of the sun in Nashville due to fog and cloud cover.  Our friend, Mary, a reader of this blog, reminded me that we also missed out on a very special volcano in Costa Rica due to weather conditions.  We are getting use to hearing from tour guides, “If you had only been here yesterday”.  If we hear that again this trip I might be detained by Icelandic police.

We are currently sitting in the Reykjavik domestic airport (as opposed to KEF International Airport from which we arrived).  This place makes Santa Monica Airport look spacious.  For a 33 second tour (that would be a complete tour) see this video: https://youtu.be/tXyaModCIeQ

One interesting aspect of the airport is that it seems like everyone is speaking Icelandic.  Everywhere else we have been we have heard predominantly English spoken with occasional sprinkles of Icelandic.  Here I have heard zero English thus far.  It is a bit unnerving because the airport announcements that are in English are very hard to understand.  I hope I don’t have a similar situation as I did years ago when I was traveling alone in Spain.  I spoke to a ticket agent and grabbed my ticket then darted out of the station thinking I only had minutes to catch my train.  As I got to the train I saw it was empty.  I turned and saw the ticket agent running after me to explain that I was at the wrong train and I needed to wait about another hour for my train to leave.  My Icelandic is not nearly as good as my Spanish so who knows what will happen today.   I know what the reader is saying right now, “That is why he travels with Patrice”.

Signing off for now.  The next time you will hear from me we will be in Akureyri (I hope).

Back with you again.  We arrived in Akureyri after an uneventful flight.  Unfortunately upon arrival we were greeted with a thick cloud cover.  Prospects look dim for seeing the Northern Lights.  This morning we met some Canadians who were leaving for home today without accomplishing their goal of seeing the Northern Lights.  Misery might love company but it didn’t make me feel any better.

Akureyri is a lovely little town and I do mean little.  We decided to spend an hour or two  strolling around the town.  After about 20 minutes we were done.  We saw a number a restaurants and gift shops.  There wasn’t much activity at any of the stores except for one.  We saw what we thought must be a grocery store because there was a tremendous amount of foot traffic.  We decided to take a closer look and it turned out to be a liquor store.  We were told that Icelanders like to drink on weekends.  From the look of the activity in this store the people of Akureyri like to get an early start on the weekend.

Tomorrow night we are supposed to go on our Northern Lights tour.  If the chance of seeing the Northern Lights is slim, the trip will be canceled.  If that is the case Patrice and I will go to a local tavern and watch the locals partake in the Icelandic Saturday night drinking custom.  Possibly, we might even join in.

Please pray for clear skies for tomorrow night.  If the skies are not clear, you will have one sad correspondent writing home to you.

So far, except for hotel personnel, the only people we have met here are from Canada or the States.  That is not totally true, we also met a couple from Dubai.  So I started to wonder if we really were in Iceland.  Today’s adventure answered that question for sure and the answer is YES!   Fantastic sights proving that what we had heard about Iceland’s natural beauty is indeed true.

After breakfast we were met by our tour guide, Jon (pronounced “Yawn”).  We have had two tour guides thus far and both have been named Jon.  We were given some local history on our way to our first stop, Thingvellir National Park.  Don’t ask me to try to pronounce it.  Let me just say that National Park in Icelandic is “þjóðgarðurinn”.  Need I say more?  The park was wonderful and looked like a miniature version of Zion National Park in Utah.  In addition to beautiful cliffs that have been formed by the separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates we saw huge trout in the streams.  We were told they weighed 20 lbs and I think that might have been understated.

After the park we headed to the Gullfoss Waterfalls.  On our way, Jon #2 said that they were more spectacular than the Niagara Falls.  They were special but sorry, Niagara has them beat.  See this 17 second video for a glimpse of the falls at this link: https://youtu.be/MEOy5JcyPsA

Next we were on to Geysir Geyser.  Geysir is Icelandic for Geyser so a bit of redundancy in the name.  Apparently it is spectacular but it only erupts about twice a year so you will have to settle for this video of its neighbor, Strokkur (“Churn”) Geyser that erupts every 8-10 minutes.  Sorry about the red line (not sure what caused that) and I have no idea what is being said (in what I assume is Icelandic) in the background.  The link to the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsj2SH1Imow

Next the most important stop on the tour …………. you guessed it, lunch.  We ate at a local green house, sorry but I don’t recall the name.  They grow all their tomatoes indoors (correct, minus 2 degrees Celsius is not ideal for tomato growth) and according to our server produce 18% of the tomatoes eaten in Iceland (30% according to Jon #2).  The food was spectacular.  We both had the tomato soup and it was delicious.  At the table your centerpiece is a fresh basil plant from which you can use a specially formed scissors to harvest and slice the basil into strips.  For dessert they offer Tomato ice cream, Tomato Cheese Cake, or Tomato Apple Pie.  NO I AM NOT KIDDING!  And here is a picture to prove it.

Upon leaving the restaurant we got to see some Icelandic horses.  This is the only breed of horse in the country.  No other horses are allowed to be brought into the country and if any of the horses ever leave the island they are not allowed to return.  This is in order to preserve the breed’s purity.  Check out this 7 second video of them licking what we were told was a salt cube: https://youtu.be/JyiiS-tEs_Q

Our last stop on the tour was at the Kerid Crater Lake.  The crater was formed an estimated 6500 years ago as the result of collapse of the land over an emptied volcano unlike a volcanic explosion which experts (not me) say is the cause of most volcanic craters (I am a parrot repeating what I was told, I have no idea what I am saying).  This was my favorite spot because of its beauty.   This 19 second video doesn’t do it justice but you do get a peek at our guide (Jon #2) and Patrice.  I think you can tell how cold it was by looking at Patrice.  The link is: https://youtu.be/tfoUHMGLCY0

Tomorrow we leave for Akureyri.