Whale Watching

Whale Watching Centre's main office
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On the afternoon of the 9th of June, I got the chance to ship out into the North Atlantic Ocean to spot some whales. We saw one minke whale, a number of white-beaked dolphins and a host of really cool birds. One of these birds in particular was the Puffin.

Unfortunately, I don't have the greatest photos of the wildlife, because, they're wild. The birds were flying all over the place and our sea mammal friends would pop-up for just a moment anywhere about the boat. It was also pretty cold out on the boat and there were many people on the boat that sometimes blocked some pretty sweet views. Not to mention, my camera case flew away into the ocean (it can be pretty windy out on the ocean), so I was somewhat apprehensive to take my camera out of my pocket too much.

I did catch a pretty good photo of a whale leaping out of the water:

I think the camera did some funny stuff with the appearance of the whale, the water and the horizon.

Watch out for volcanic mud pools

My left leg has vanished into the mud
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During our tour of the Hengill central volcano area on 10 June, I was told to stay on the trails, but I reached an area where there wasn't a trail. I saw some people walking on the other side of this field, so I thought I'd walk over towards them.

It was a very muddy field. I tried to step carefully, but ended up sinking knee-deep into a volcanic mud pool. In my defense, there aren't really "official" trails in these valleys. There are paths that seem to have been tread on before, but they tend to disappear unpredictably... I don't know, maybe you shouldn't be going that way, but it's where the coolest stuff is.

At first, I was very, very scared as once my left foot sunk, I couldn't pull it out and I thought I would continue to sink if I moved around at all. There was no one nearby that could help me get out.

After minutes of easing back and forth, nothing happened and I was sinking a little bit deeper. I was able to get my right foot out, because it wasn't as deeply in the mud. My left foot, however, was really stuck. I wasn't really getting anywhere with slow movements, so I just lunged forward and grabbed some grass (which also began to slowly sink as I put my hands on it) and tried to move my left leg forward and pull up at the same time very quickly. This seemed to do the trick as I was moving fast enough to suck air into the space around my leg faster than the mud could fill in that space.

I was very lucky that the mud was not boiling hot.

Quite an adventure.

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The Icelandic Horse

Icelandic horse
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The Icelandic horse is a real gentle and intelligent animal. I was able to go on a couple of tours by horse, riding for hours at a time, and all the horses seemed to be having a great time. You really connect with the horse you're riding. They have a very personable demeanor that you can feel right away.

The Icelandic horse is small in comparison to most horses, but is very strong for its size. They have been carrying people and luggage over very long distances for a very long time. They have been pure bred in Iceland for over a thousand years, starting with the horses the first Viking settlers brought from Norway. Non-Icelandic horses have not been allowed in Iceland for a long time now.

With the horses, we were able to see things we would otherwise not be able to see. We crossed rivers and rode for miles across lava fields into volcanic valleys peppered with hot springs.

A valley in the Hengill central volcano area
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Panoramic view of a valley area in the Hengill central volcano

There are two main stables in the Reykjavík area that do horse riding tours: Ishestar (Iceland horse) and Eldhestar (volcano horse). I did one tour with Ishestar and another with Eldhestar. Ishestar seemed better for beginners - a little more professional and not as rugged as Eldhestar. Eldhestar offers much longer tours and, although they claim you need little to no experience, they do not do as good a job training you for the things you need to do on longer trips.

On the bus

On the way out to the Geysir and Gullfoss area, we drove through some of the most interesting landscape I've seen. In particular, there was lava everywhere.

miles and miles of lava fields cover various parts of Iceland
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The lava fields seem to go on forever and look like some sort of alien planet surface. Lava rock formations covered in moss and lichen. According to the Rough Guide to Iceland, Apollo astronauts came to "the Interior" of Iceland to train for their lunar landing.

On our way, we came across the Kerið crater.

Kerið crater
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Björk has held concerts at the bottom of this crater on a floating wood platform.

In the distance, we could see Mount Hekla, the most active volcano in Iceland.

Mount Hekla
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Geysir and Gullfoss

My second day in Iceland, 8 June, I took a bus out to the Haukadalur valley area to see Geysir and Gullfoss.

Strokkur just after erupting
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Geysir is the oldest known geyser in the world and from where the word, "geyser," originates. Unfortunately, Geysir no longer erupts regularly (it stopped doing so back in the 60s). The area surrounding Geysir, however, has a number of other hot springs and another geyser called, "Strokkur," that does erupt regularly, every 3 to 7 minutes. Strokkur is not as impressive as Geysir, but it is quite a site to see...

short video featuring Strokkur's characteristic swell before erupting

Gullfoss
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Gullfoss, Icelandic for, "golden falls," is a waterfall in the south of Iceland. The waterfall is part of a river originating from the Langjökull glacier. Gullfoss is not nearly as massive as the Niagara Falls, but very impressive nonetheless. One cool thing about the area around Gullfoss and the river, is that you can walk right up to the edge of the land and see the water falling up close. The Icelandic government was interested in building a hydroelectric dam nearby Gullfoss, but this effort never came to fruition.

Casino Royale Loves Google

They showed Casino Royale, the latest Bond film, on the plane from Iceland to Amsterdam. There is this one part near the beginning of the film where the bad guys try to blow up a new super jet that is being unveiled at the Miami airport. Bond, James Bond, calls home to let them know that he thinks there's a bomb about go off at the airport. Then, there's this scene where the intelligence fellow back at MI6 is at his computer (with two monitors, no doubt) and he goes to Google. I'm not sure what he looks up, there's just a flash of Google results, some clicking, he arrives at a web page advertising the unveiling of the new super jet in Miami and has immediately uncovered the terrorist plot. Google: the world's new intelligence agency. Maybe in the next Bond film, they'll discover how to dismantle a bomb at Wikipedia.

Iceland is pretty expensive

Things are expensive in Iceland – food and clothing especially. At the time of this writing, $1 = 60 Iceland Kronur. In general, things are priced, in kronur, about 100 times what you might expect to pay in the states. Since you're dividing prices by 60 instead of 100, you're getting screwed (by a factor of 1.6666666667).

Icelandic wool sweaters. Most of these were anywhere from ISK 16,000 – 24,000 ($267 - $400). Even rather low-end woolen mittens were ISK 2490 ($41.50).

There are two Icelandic companies that make excellent outdoor clothing – 66 degrees North and Cintamani - jackets here are also around ISK 16,000 – 24,000 or more.

The new Bjork album was ISK 1799 ($30).

Fish from a market/grocery store is cheaper than you might find in the states. It is pretty tough, however, to take fish overseas. Restaurants in general are pretty expensive. I had a salmon dish with a beer and it was ISK 3000 ($50). But, restaurants in Iceland are usually for special occasions and seem pretty high-end in nature.

For most of my stay, I got small sandwiches from cafes and a little “salatbox” from the local 7-11 type store, called, “10-11.” They have this plastic box, around the size of a medium plastic tupperware container, that you can fill with anything from their salad bar for ISK 412 ($6.87).

Shuttle from the airport to Reykjavic was ISK 1200 ($20).

Laundry at the hostel (wash and dry) was ISK 700 ($11.67). I slipped into a volcanic mud pool, so I had to do laundry. If you go to Iceland, stay away from volcanic mud pools so you can stay away from spending $12 on laundry.

$9? This is a replica of a figure excavated from an Icelandic settlement site. It's claimed to be Thor with his hammer. Also, it's a key chain ornament.

The tours. For a bus out to Geysir and Gullfoss, it's ISK 5,700 ($95). This may seem kind of high, but I found it to be well worth it. The buses are timely, they'll pick you up from where you stay and they'll try hard to not leave you behind if you're running late. The bus driver/tour guide was amazing. You're provided with vouchers for discounts on food and for free entry into museums on your way. The tours including horse riding or whale watching (that are usually the whole day rather than half a day) are closer to ISK 9,000 ($150). Again, I found these to be worth it.

Reykjavík City Hostel

The hostel's back porch. You can rent bikes.
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I stayed at the Hostelling International Reykjavik city hostel and it was really great. I'd recommend it. Very clean, friendly staff, not too far from downtown (~25 minute walk), free wireless Internet, a nice lounge/common area, all lodging services you can think of are here (kitchen, fridge, cooking range, laundry, ping-pong, storage, foosball, DVD player, books, cable television, etc.).

If you're a Hostelling International member, you can get a room for ISK 1700 ($28) per night, and an extra ISK 400 ($7) if you're not a member. If you have camping gear, you can camp for ISK 800 ($13) per person, per night.

I met people here from all over the world: a group of guys originally from Australia that had just finished a year of studying in Sweden; a girl that grew up in Paris, went to part of high school and college in the states and just finished a year studying in Italy; some hardcore rockers from Denmark; more hardcore rockers from Boston, MA.

Reykjavík

View of downtown Reykjavík from Hallgrímskirkja
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My first day in Iceland, 7 June, I visited the downtown Reykjavík area. For ISK 1200 ($20), you can get a 24-hour pass to visit many of the city's museums, galleries and thermal pools and ride all buses for free.

The downtown area looks and feels pretty small, but there are many shops, cafes, restaurants, bars and other places to see and visit.

The Iceland National Museum was one of the most interesting places I visited in Reykjavíc. Iceland has a very rich and interesting history and it's been very well preserved with artifacts and literature available from around 800 – 1000 AD when Iceland was first settled. Since Iceland has been (and relatively still is) rather isolated from the rest of Europe and the rest of the world, it has been able to preserve its rich Viking roots. There are a number of examples of this. A few notable ones are:

• the language - pretty much straight Viking. There are no dialects. There is a national organization that creates new Icelandic vocabulary for new things that are invented/discovered. For example, in Norway or Sweden, a computer will be called, “computer”, maybe with a special accent. In Iceland, however, the national language board will create a new word in Icelandic for computer that fits in better with the Icelandic language. When Icelanders first started to read and write around 1000 AD, they were taught Latin, but wrote in Icelandic instead. Iceland has had its own literature for far longer than any other nation in Europe.

• elves - eight out of ten Icelanders believe in elves. Elves and other, “hidden people,” are believed to live all over Iceland, primarily in large rocks. I read about this before arriving to Iceland and was looking forward to meeting some elves. As we were driving out to Geysir and Gullfoss, our tour guide remarked about an area to the north of the highway where there was a large hill from which large rocks often fell. It was not wise to build anything in the area between the hill and the highway as it would be destroyed by the falling boulders. There is, however, one house in this area and it has been there for many years, unscathed by any a boulder. The tour guide also remarked on the curvy nature of the road, when it could have definitely been made straight. As we drove through the curve, nearby the house, he told us that the farmer who built the house made a deal with the elves that live in the rocks next to the hill. The elves were very fond of a particular patch of grass that was slated to be turned into road. If the farmer could convince the construction team to build the road around the patch of grass, the elves would allow him to build a house at the foot of the hill and protect it from falling rocks. The farmer had no trouble convincing the construction team to route the road around the patch of grass as they did not want to upset the elves (upsetting the elves results in extremely bad luck – accidents, disorientation, sickness, memory loss). This road and the house are not very old at all... maybe ten years at most. The tour guide assured us that he was not kidding and that the elves are among us.

Iceland!

I've been in Iceland since the night of Wednesday, 6 June 2007. It's been quite an experience. I have all sorts of stories, photos and videos to share. I'll probably be doing a number of posts within just a couple of days even though I'll have been doing things daily.

Some highlights of the trip so far (entries about each of these will be coming soon)

• Thursday (7 June) - downtown Reykjavíc
  
• Friday (8 June) - Geysir (the "first" geyser ever) and Gullfoss (an impressive waterfall in southwest Iceland)
• Saturday (9 June) - Icelandic Horse tour and whale watching in the Atlantic Ocean

The weather here hasn't been that great, but it doesn't even matter.

Migrating to new Blogger

I've just moved over to the new Blogger - looks good so far.

Chris Anderson on "Everything is Miscellaneous"

Chris Anderson has this to say about David Weinberger's new book, Everything is Miscellaneous:

The world is messy, like it or not, and it's only going to get messier as the Web destroys rules and rule-makers. You can either complain about the chaos and wish for the good old days of order, or you can buy this book and understand why delirious disorder will soon make us all smarter.

Sounds good.