Sleep apnea jolted me awake early, despite my jaw insert. I was hit with every fatigue factor at once: I was cold, my breastbone hurt from sleeping unsupported on my side, my ribs hurt from the hard ground, my face mask couldn’t block all the light, I was thirsty, and I needed to pee. Arrgh!
I stuck my Airpods Pro in with the noise cancellation on to try and block the yelling of the other campers, but it was too late. Sleep would not return until evening. Time to pack up my gear and get riding. It would be a long and interesting day.
Looking back from the little pedestrian trail, as I manhandle my bike along it once again.
Looking back from the little pedestrian trail, as I manhandle my bike along it once again.
Today I would be making the journey out of Fjallabak Nature Reserve and losing almost all my altitude, hopefully getting to the Hólaskjól Higland Center before nightfall. I expected to cross many rivers along the way, and still had no idea how difficult that would be.
Sometimes I get the impression that sheep are activelty searching for the most remote patch of grass, even when they’re surrounded by perfectly good grass near home.
Sometimes I get the impression that sheep are activelty searching for the most remote patch of grass, even when they’re surrounded by perfectly good grass near home.
Pretty sure this is the last actual bridge the road will provide me with for the next 50 miles.
Pretty sure this is the last actual bridge the road will provide me with for the next 50 miles.
For a while it was easy riding. The road was still gravel but it was blessedly flat as it weaved gently between strange treeless peaks and skirted a dramatic blue lake.
For a while I got a gentle downhill slope across a valley, and observed that one of the reasons this terrain felt so strange was I could see so much of it at once, with zero trees blocking my view. Even the deserts I’d crossed had sagebrush and cacti complicating the foreground.
Alas, the easy riding wasn’t permanent. For short intervals, gravel lost out to sand in the battle of erosion, causing the bike to pitch out of control and putting a spike in my heart rate as I flailed to regain balance.
Aaah, the open road! I really should have come here with better tires...
Enjoying the day.
Ugh, more loose sand.
But could I complain? Naaaah! Just after skirting the lake, I rode along the edge of a gorgeous flat valley covered in flowers, and it was time to stop and have a little picnic of crackers and tinned sardines in the sunshine. Bloody hell, this is the life.
Some motorcyclists waiting for their group to catch up.
Stopping for a snack and pee break, because why not.
After a lazy half hour I was rolling again, but soon I was forced to stop by something way more compelling than flowers or sunshine. On the left side of the road I beheld a giant living carpet of bright green moss, vaguely circular in shape, exploding across the loose rocks and gravel. The color was so intense it was hard to believe I was seeing something natural.
I’d seen carpets like this before, usually growing alongside streams, but this one was interesting because it was so flat. That gave rise to a much stranger phenomenon: There were tiny puddles of rainwater floating in the hollows of the carpet, suspended there with surface tension.
And they were … vibrating … in the wind.
I’ve been around. I’ve seen a fair number of weird landscapes on this planet. But until today, I hadn’t seen anything like this. Not even in nature documentaries.
Oh look, Timmy has spilled his soda water on the polyester carpet! Except… THE CARPET IS ALIVE.
Oh look, Timmy has spilled his soda water on the polyester carpet! Except… THE CARPET IS ALIVE.
You think it’s ice, don’t you? Or some kind of resin or sap? Nope! It’s ordinary rainwater, floating on top of a blanket of thick moss due to surface tension.
You think it’s ice, don’t you? Or some kind of resin or sap? Nope! It’s ordinary rainwater, floating on top of a blanket of thick moss due to surface tension.
Sometimes the water sinks in, sometimes it doesn’t.
But I had a destination to reach, so I couldn’t linger there forever, tempting as it was to set up camp and sleep next to this thing, and maybe photograph it in sunset light.
As I sat by the side of the road, a dude in a huge red truck went blazing past, riding on enormous tires. Probably a rental. He left a plume of dust behind him ten meters high. I doubt he even saw the mossy patch that had so captivated me.
It was within easy walking distance of the bike, so I strolled over.
Nice sno-cone material, except for the grit.
Scoopable!
A bit farther down the road, I came across the first fording place. It was basically a giant puddle, with a bottom made of loose rocks that caused my narrow bike tires to flounder.
I resigned myself to getting wet feet, and carried the bags across, and then the bike in a second round. It was inconvenient but I was still pleased because it was’t dangerous.
Near me a guy was having his car pulled onto a trailer. It probably had an electrical short, or maybe water soaked through the air intake from too much splashing around.
Crossing number 2. Same deal as the first crossing.
Successfully shoved the bike across. Good thing I have waterproof bags along the bottom.
That was how some of the fordings went. There were twelve in all — four more than the eight displayed on the tourist map. With about half of them I could just dismount and push the bike around the margins of the puddle without removing any bags. The rest were more serious, and I had to move things in stages while pushing against troublesome current. I wouldn’t say they were actually dangerous, but they were risky, because if I slipped and dunked the bags I could mess up some of my equipment or even lose it downstream.
This fellow did a U-turn in the river, since it was the widest part of the road. He’s probably towed a hundred broken cars down from these roads over the years.
This fellow did a U-turn in the river, since it was the widest part of the road. He’s probably towed a hundred broken cars down from these roads over the years.
Up there somewhere is a cute little lake, according to the map.
I reckon if I’d been traveling in the springtime, all these crossings would be much harder, and some of them would be quite dangerous indeed. Rushing current up to my waist, and I’d have to carry the bike over my head just to drive my feet down against the soil and avoid being knocked over. Not good.
As it was, I did fine, and was rewarded with even more strange terrain, this time in little sections between short hills.
I don’t recall seeing hills this dark anywhere else. The lack of vegetation contributes to it.
The terrain was so jumbled that I lost track of my progress. I had a line on my GPS that I could vaguely match with the line on the map, but that couldn’t tell me whether the route ahead would get easier or harder. I could be out here for the rest of the afternoon or the rest of the day. There was one road, and all I could do was follow it, as it sank into rivers or elbowed its way up hills.
Even with the river crossings, this chunk of the route is actually easier than the chunk leading down into Landmannalaugar from the north.
Even the river crossings became fun, once I was used to them. I got overconfident at a smaller one and tried to plunge through it without dismounting, and just as the front tire cleared the water it drove into the sand. I laughed and laid the bike down, getting the outside of one arm and one leg wet, amused at my own folly.
Just then I heard the rumble of tires on gravel and realized a car was approaching. They would spot me easily with plenty of time to stop, so I wasn’t in danger of being run over, but I was in danger of looking like an idiot to a motorist. Cyclists are weirdly sensitive to that. I scrambled the bike upright and got on my way, feeling like a cat who has just fallen off a shelf.
One of the larger fjords, but it had a narrow span suitable for my bike.
The land opened up again as I drew near the last river crossing in the highlands. I passed a long row of rocks, placed to make the road visible when it’s covered with deep snow. I’d be so screwed if I was biking this in the winter!
These rocks are here as a polite reminder that people shouldn’t go joyriding away from the road.
These rocks are here as a polite reminder that people shouldn’t go joyriding away from the road.
And then there it was: The last river crossing on the map, before a very long downhill shot to the lowlands. There was one more after this, but it had a trail and a footbridge around it, so this was probably the last river I would need to push through in my Iceland journey.
Just before the long downhill, the land rose slightly, making a lip. In the dust of the road I found what looked like a crushed animal skin. Closer inspection revealed a destroyed pair of pants. Hmmm. Iceland stole someone’s pants.
Hundreds of square miles of wandering river, in one view.
I had to ride the brakes on the downhill. I was worried that the lumpy road could tear a hole in one of my tires, leading to a nasty crash and a really long walk down to the coast.
Deep channels eroded into the hills from meltwater streams.
Deep channels eroded into the hills from meltwater streams.
I was treated to a panorama of a valley sliced and diced by hundreds of versions of the same river re-routing itself over intervals measurable in human lifespans. Again, the complete lack of trees enhanced the weirdness of the view.
Partway down, leaning on the brakes. A fall onto this at speed would be brutal.
Partway down, leaning on the brakes. A fall onto this at speed would be brutal.
As I went, I got more worried about tire damage, and went slower. This hill would have been an absolute nightmare to climb. Glad I came at it from the other direction!
At the base of the hill I was pleased to find the terrain was just as wonky as before.
A landscape of fuzzy lumps. Not a tree or even a bush in sight.
A landscape of fuzzy lumps. Not a tree or even a bush in sight.
In due time I came to the last river crossing. It was annoyingly deep. A path led to a bridge on the west side, so I tried that, and the path turned out to be so lumpy and slick that a slog through the river looked like the smart choice after all.
But I’m stubborn, so I just grunted and swore my way over the bridge, taking pictures to document my suffering. Well no, it wasn’t that bad. I’m being dramatic. The bridge itself was adorable.
Someone got so wired on their French-press coffee that they took off and forgot the French-press.
Beyond the river, more wonky terrain. The sun was getting low, so instead of taking the cue and hurrying up, I slowed down to get photos of nicely backlit hills and sheep butts. Gotta have your priorities.
I tihnk these ruts are from groups of horses and cattle being run up and down the road.
At first I thought these parallel ruts were made by animals. Then I realized they were previous versions of the road.
People drove their trucks over the hill in the same ruts, year after year, until the ruts got plowed too deep and began scraping the underside of the vehicle. Then they started driving up a fresh patch of ground on one side, adding another rut. Do that for fifty years on a fragile landscape … and the results remain visible for another century.
I always like signs with lots of symbols. Plenty of services to choose from.
I’d been planning to grab a campsite and set up my tent, then pay in the morning, but I was early enough to catch the attendant and ask about the lodge — and food.
She walked out to greet me. “As soon as I saw that bike I knew I had to ask you about it,” she said. I gave her my usual spiel about how comfortable it is to ride, but how awkward it is to haul around so much gear. She was intrigued.
We turned to logistics. “I have water, and some drinks to sell, but no food,” she said apologetically. “Not even candy bars.” But there was some good news: The lodge had plenty of space and the beds were quite reasonable. After a couple days of roughing it, I decided to open my wallet and get a real mattress.
There were three other people in the big house. A pair of Icelandic women who chatted quietly over tea, and one solo bicycle tourist. He was writing determinedly in a small notepad. I wonder if he’s writing about fording rivers?
I wonder if he’ll mention the weird guy who came in with a huge pile of gear off his weirdo bike?
I sorted photos on the laptop, taking advantage of the power sockets and table space. It seemed to get dark all at once. Exhaustion threw a cloak over me and soon I crawled gratefully into the bunk.
I checked in with the campsite manager and paid for my previous night. I wasn’t sure if I could stay here another day, since I was low on food. Riding all day on sketchy terrain with zero calories can get dangerous!
I did some sink laundry and hung it up, then went exploring again. There was another cluster of buildings farther down the valley I hadn’t seen.
There was a lot of activity. People in vans and trucks were arriving on a regular basis, pushing their way carefully through the giant puddle at the entrance.
Honestly, I will never understand the appeal of sitting in a hot spring with two dozen random strangers.
The water feeding into the spring was lovely, though. A big chunk of the valley was threaded with tiny streams, some of which were clearly way above ambient temperature and hosting some interesting life forms. I wandered among fluffy sheep and other quiet hikers, enjoying the heat of the sun and water mixing with the cool air and the shadows from the peaks.
I wonder what the story behind these is. Are they all from cars that got destroyed by the roads?
Tourists arrived and departed constantly, all day. Every time, spectators would pause and turn their heads to watch the minor drama of a vehicle fording the stream.
A beat-up diagram. I’m currently at the lower of the two house icons.
Just look at those hills! Gotta get up in them thar hills! Let’s do some footwork that isn’t pedaling!
The local maps showed a network of major hiking trails, taking off in different directions and promising multiple days of rough cabin camping, plus a few looping paths that went out into the lava field to the west and up along the ridge line.
Hikers examining the local maps, and getting advice.
I lingered by the ranger station and listened to people ask questions about the weather, the terrain, the daylight, the landmarks, and so on. The variety of broken forms of English was fascinating.
Eventually I decided it would be more fun just following the bank of the river on the north side of the valley for a while, rather than doing a loop trail. All of them felt longer than I wanted, since I tend to walk very slowly and inspect the ground and wave the camera everywhere.
Climbing up out of the narrow valley, onto the lava field.
I swapped some kit out back at the tent, and started some Skyrim music on my headphones because I’m hopelessly metropolitan. The shoreline was easy to follow. True to form, I spent half the time with my head bent down staring delightedly at tiny weird plants and textures of rock that were familiar in context but alien in detail.
Eventually I climbed up the hillside and walked out along the top of the lava field. Actually, “top” is the wrong word: It was a massive tangle of ridges, like a stormy sea frozen in place, coated with rock, and then squished together.
Some artist could probably turn this into about two dozen really nice looking table lamps. Well, except it would be illegal to do so.
These were absolutely stunning rock formations. More than the whimsical terrain of Skyrim I was reminded of the crumpled life-on-top-of-life set design in The Dark Crystal. Picking my way carefully, I had to concentrate intensely on keeping my sense of direction, because If I took more than two steps in a straight line I would tumble into one of countless steep fissures obscured by pillows of moss and lined with jagged rocks like broken glass.
The official bathing area isn’t the only spot with hot water. All this water runs the spectrum from warm to burning.
As I drew closer to an established path, backtracking and jumping over gaps, it became very clear that this landscape was both too dangerous and too fragile for people to go hiking across like I was trying to do. The risk of cutting my leg open and falling into a hole just deep enough to stop my voice from projecting anywhere but straight up felt so great, it almost felt inevitable; as if the lava field was actually a labyrinth designed by some spiteful artist to keep misbehaving explorers trapped and confused … until it extracted a price in blood.
IN BLOOD! BOOHAHAH HAA HAA HA HAAA!!!
If I’d been a good tourist and read all the signs beforehand I would have known that being here was frowned upon. Every footprint compacts the soil and makes it harder for the meager plant cover to persist. I only realized my error afterward when I came back down along a sanctioned trail and saw the sign. Oops…
Thank goodness I got back safely. I’d been foolish. If I went missing, no one would wonder about me for weeks, and no one would go looking for me for months.
Three sheep buts clustered together looks really alarmingly like a black bear.
The trip back to the campground was trivial. Just walk along the trail, and grab the guide rope if you want. I did have one frightening moment: I came around the corner and saw the wooly butts of some sheep standing together and mistook them for a black bear. Finding a black bear in Iceland was completely impossible, regardless of the era, but my instincts were tuned for wandering in the California mountains. I laughed it off but it took a while for my heart to stop pounding.
Mineral deposits crusting over the hot water spigot, making it look much older than it actually is. Not to mention gross.
Mineral deposits crusting over the hot water spigot, making it look much older than it actually is. Not to mention gross.
Close to the ranger station I got a good look at one of the built-up water spigots feeding the pools. Years of mineral build-up and clouds of steam gave a clear signal that this water was very, very hot.
In the evening I re-packed my stuff for a smooth morning departure, and organized my photos. These ritualistic movements gave me time to revisit some earlier thoughts about communication and ecological change.
As recently as my father’s generation, the main problem with humanity on a global scale was that most people just had no idea what was happening out there. Humans have been gobsmackingly ignorant of their impact for 99% of human history, and our ability to really make change on a global scale, and adjust to keep changes from backfiring, is a recent development. Recent enough that we still don’t even know the scope of our problems or what we’re capable of. We’re discovering it as we go; as I live and write this.
This situation only exists because communications technology has improved at a pace comparable to our environmental impact. We have global-scale economies now, relying on fast global communication. We have “breaking news” available all the way around the planet. A producer of grain on one side of the world can get compensated for it by customers on the other side. But economics on this scale has also made us vulnerable to disruption by human conflict — especially conflict over land, and especially when that becomes open warfare.
The environment can bounce back from war. Some of the worst battles of World War II happened on sites that reverted to farmland in a few decades. But humans, on the other hand, are fragile: Deprive us of food for a couple months and we’re goners. Block a couple of massive grain shipments from a few crucial ports on one side of the globe, and suddenly ten million people are in danger of starving on the other side. Any number of us could be held ransom at any time by a sufficiently armed warlord. The flexibility of our communications might allow us to adapt, but it might not. If that grain is held up too long and rots, some people, somewhere, are going to starve, and the commerce over the wires is just going to be about who specifically.
So, the same miraculous technology that might have rescued me if I fell down a ravine today drives a global economy that – like my own body – has enormous reach, and is also terribly vulnerable.
And, somewhere in the middle of this micro- and macroscopic view, our communications technology is responsible for making me – and tens of thousands of tourists around me – aware that Iceland exists as a tourist destination. I like to think of myself as an environmentally conscious person, but if I truly prioritized sustainability and the environmental sanctity of Iceland… I would not be here at all, right? If I truly worried about the fragility of a globally wired economy, why would I be feeding the demand for food and tchotchkes in Iceland — a place that would starve terribly if the shipping lanes were cut off? Is the point of coming here to realize that I shouldn’t?
It seems an obvious case of hypocrisy. And it would be, if we left the lid closed on our ideas about economy and conservation. But: If the overriding goal is to preserve, for example, this lava field from all human interference, a crucial stepping stone towards that goal is making humans give a crap about the lava field in the first place. And given that if you take the long view, the planet could shake us off like a case of fleas and keep trucking along for another 600 million years (at which point the sun will be bright enough to interfere with the carbon cycle of the planet, and all plant and animal life as we know it will be permanently extinguished regardless of what we do) … then the question of whether humans should give a crap about a lava field is very much open for debate when there are mouths to feed and lives to live here in the present.
So, putting pictures of a lava field all over the internet, busing people up to it, and then threading rope-guided tails across it so humans can admire it and feel humbled and refreshed by it and get attached to it … doesn’t seem like a bad move.
Because, frankly, it worked. This is an amazing valley and I’m glad I came here. And I’m grateful for the struggle Icelanders are waging to balance global interest and investment against the soiling of their own back yard by millions of curious feet. And all this has made me think about a bigger picture, just as it will do for others. Not everyone, sure. And maybe not immediately, or directly.
As I re-packed my dry tent and clothing, I did my best to compartmentalize the previous day. Between this trip, thoughts of new romance, and my Dad’s care needs, I was being pulled in three directions to three different spots on the planet.
It’s cool how we have similar adventures over similar terrain but create these absurdly customized vehicles. Between that bike and mine, every single component and piece of gear is different.
This sign was one of many, trying to warn away the casual tourists. Gasoline wouldn’t be a problem for me, but food might.
A brief downhill ride gave me a nice panorama of this odd treeless land. How much longer would the road be smooth enough to coast like this? The digital map was showing a sinister dotted line ahead.
Just after the road tilted upward, I met a cyclist going the other way:
He said he was just finishing up the “Iceland Divide“, a route that crosses the interior of the country on mostly unpaved roads and rough trails. There are different versions of the route depending on who you ask, but the one my friend was doing went north-to-south and covered about 350 miles.
“I wanted to do it a year ago with friends,” he said, grinning. “We were planning it forever. But, you know… Pandemic. Now I’m doing it solo. It was easier than I thought. The weather was mild. You’re just doing this road? You’ll be fine! No worries.”
After our conversation, he took off and I decided to walk down the edge of the road and check out another of those amazing moss-covered streams I’ve been seeing all around Iceland:
These little hillside streams are often exploding with green.
At first I thought it was a burned-out cabin. I think it’s actually some kind of monument.
The road curved away from the lake, and the land on either side became what I can only call “more Icelandic.” Any vegetation taller than a hand faded away, leaving only moss and scattered blades of grass on the rounded hillsides. Every now and then the lumpy hills would gather up into a peak, with a fuzzy streak of green crowning the windward side like the hair of a balding giant. Elsewhere in deep folds where streams cut the hills, thick beds of fresh moss glowed with a green so intense it seemed unnatural, even dangerous, like the water feeding them was too powerfully enchanted and would melt down your body if you were foolish enough to be seduced by it.
Beware, traveler! You are in the realm of the Gods now…
In a couple of hours, I crossed a bridge and the high-quality pavement turned into hard earth coated with gravel. It was bad for my narrow tires, but I decided to push ahead. At least the gravel wasn’t thick, which would force me to dismount and walk.
I paused to walk around, and discovered some kind of busted-up footing right on the edge of a cliff, as though years ago some extremely Nordic locals had installed a diving board.
It was lovely and I took plenty of pictures. I also picked up lots of rocks, and I swear, every dang time I turned one over there was a spider attached.
Just after this spot, the road pitched upward and the gravel became loose. I pushed the pedals to give my rear tire more traction, but I still lost control of the bike multiple times and had to put my feet down in a hurry.
The first of many, many sand skids.
Under every rock... A spider!
I had to dismount the bike and push awkwardly through the carpet of gravel, as the road switchbacked up away from the lake. This was bad. If the road stayed like this and I had to push the bike for the rest of the day, it would be well after midnight before I got to the Landmannalaugar campground and I would be brutally tired. Making things worse, the cloud cover would combine with the dark shade of the land to obscure the road, and I would be pushing the bike too slowly to operate the generator in the wheel. I would have to find my way by putting my USB flashlight on my helmet and swiveling it all around.
To my great relief, I only had to push for another half an hour. The road went over a hill and the gravel thinned out on the other side as the ground became more rocky.
I could ride – slowly – for the rest of the day, but there were still patches where the mud or the gravel would suddenly thicken and I would have to flail wildly and stop. Falling over on a loaded bike is always dangerous, even at just a few miles per hour. Your limbs could tangle up in just the wrong way and you could sprain something terribly, or something small might fling itself out of your bags and you won’t notice until five hours later. Or worst of all, you could fall over while a car is trying to pass you, and get crushed by a driver with no time to react.
Bike touring! I’m doing a great job selling it, yeah?
Seriously, though. I grumbled a bit whenever the bike lurched, but the landscape was just magical. I paired it with the soundtrack to “The Black Cauldron” in my headphones and had a marvelous time.
Yet another sand skid.
Ugh, nearly fell from that one.
Soon I passed into the official nature reserve lands.
Just beyond the sign was a rushing river, moving alongside the road. In my head I worried: “Is this the sort of thing I’m going to have to cross with the bike?”
The day moved on, and got darker, but never fully dark of course. The road was rough but intact. If I was back home and saw a road with this texture under this much rain, I would never attempt it on a bike, but the soil here was different. What looked like thick mud was actually more like hard-packed volcanic sand.
When I reached the turnoff to the Landmannalaugar campground in the center of the preserve, I’d been on the bike for over 8 hours, and my GPS needed charging.
I find it hilarious that there is a warning about needing a 4×4 vehicle out here in the middle of the park.
The terrain was so neat – and the road so hilariously rutted – that I had to make a short video.
The final approach to the campground involved fjording a sizable puddle, fed by a small river. It would have swamped my saddlebags, so I diverted to the pedestrian path and crossed a cute little bridge instead.
Manhandling the bike over the hillside trail that pedestrians use to get to the camp.
The charming pathway to the camp. That water is actually quite warm.
When I rolled into the camping area I beheld a long row of parked vans and trucks, and a flat valley scattered randomly with tents of all kinds. There were no marked spaces. Some areas were turf suitable for anchoring a tent; others were washes of gravel. Campers had obviously tried to find a balance between usable ground and isolation from neighbors.
On the far side of the valley I found a cluster of buildings, next to a few trailheads that wandered away into the hills. It was the facilities of an RV park: Stall showers, sinks for washing dinnerware, a few tables sheltered from the weather, and a small shop with some basic hiking gear. This would do nicely, except so far I couldn’t see any sources of food.
I also noted that one could embark on several milti-day hikes from this spot. I wondered how many people in a typical season took a shuttle up here and then walked back down to the coast. Sounds like a cool adventure!
I finished my survey, and got busy with the tent. It wasn’t very hard to find a decent spot of open ground. As soon as I crawled inside I felt the wind pick up dramatically, and it was pushing one wall down against my head, so I had to get up and rotate everything.
While I was doing that, a guy crawled into a tent near mine and started playing an audiobook in German, loudly enough to disturb other campers. A few minutes later a guy crawled out of a different tent, trudged over, and asked him to turn off his book, speaking English with a thick Polish accent. Interesting to hear it used as a common language.
One of the few acceptable patches of open ground that was also a polite distance from other campers.
One of the few acceptable patches of open ground that was also a polite distance from other campers.
I went back inside, snug in my long johns and sleeping bag, and listened to a very mild rain pattering on the skin of the tent, sounding like pitched-down radio static.
Half an hour later, just as I was falling asleep, I heard a man yelling in the distance. He sounded drunk and overtired: Somewhere between happy, furious, and insane. His voice echoed all over the valley. He would gibber for a few seconds and then go quiet for a minute or so, then start up again. A few other people yelled at him but it had no effect.
“Glad I brought earplugs,” I thought, and stuffed them in. A while after that the temperature dropped and I dug out my wool hat.
I awoke feeling refreshed. Perhaps it was the silence around me, perhaps the feeling of clarity from yesterday’s decision. Either way I was glad.
Sleeping bag got a little damp at the foot again. Time to dry it before packing.
What damp adventures lay ahead today?
Pricey, but given how hard it is to find salad greens in this country, I'll take it.
The light rain had continued all through the night, and the corners of my sleeping bag were damp again. I had about half an hour of relative sunlight with a constant wind, so I stood around eating a lettuce-forward breakfast, and the bag was mostly dry when I rolled it up. I had an actual room booked for tonight, so I could unroll everything in there to let the drying finish.
The few patrons around me had vanished in the early morning. With no other campers here, the site felt less like a campground and more like a tangle of animal paths and tiny clearings that I’d just wandered into. There were no markers to delineate spaces, and tall bushes crowded the sides of the road, which curved around continuously as if to avoid them. Perhaps that was true: Perhaps trees are so rare in Iceland that the locals would rather redirect a road than cut one down. If so, I liked it — even though I almost got lost on my way out.
The road squiggled on. When my phone caught a signal, I got an email update from my new okCupid friend. We were sharing meta-thoughts about dating. The rain had paused for the moment so I stopped on the shoulder and typed a response:
Yeah, in a dating context, I agree it’s not common for people to talk so much when they know they can’t meet in person. I have a funny question about that: What if we’re talking so much because the distance makes it feel safe? Like, if we can’t actually meet, maybe that lowers the stakes?
I certainly didn’t set out to make myself physically unreachable, and if I could teleport to where you are, I totally would. It would be easier to talk and it would answer important questions. So I don’t think I’m deliberately trying to keep things abstract … But it’s still on my mind.
What about you? Have you wondered about it? What if part of me being interesting is based on me being inaccessible?
Later in the day I got an equally thoughtful response:
As far as talking with you because you’re physically remote — it’s perceptive of you to ask. It’s not why I started talking to you. I liked your profile and saw an easy way to strike up conversation. I assumed that you’d be back in a couple of weeks, since it’s pretty unusual for people to be able to travel longer…
But yes, you being away does take the pressure off in terms of a face to face meeting. I don’t feel rushed. On the other hand it’s kind of a double edged sword because we’re learning a lot of background about each other but it exists in a vacuum. It seems like we’re pretty compatible on paper, but we could have zero chemistry when we meet in person. We could hate each other’s smells, or have totally incompatible proxemics.
She proposed that we try a video chat when I got to the hotel, assuming there was coverage. I said that was a fine idea. We were both curious to see how we’d react to each other in “real time”.
Also I had to look up “proxemics.” What an interesting word!
I stowed the laptop again and kept pedaling. Around the next corner I saw a delightful sign:
It’s called Þjórsárdal. It’s a reconstruction of a Viking farm based on the layout of an archeological site in the Þjórsárdalur Valley, which was buried under a thick blanket of volcanic ash when Hekla erupted in 1104. The eruption was not so sudden that people were buried – they had time to flee – but it was continuous enough that the entire area was rendered uninhabitable. Archeologists dream of this sort of thing!
The parking lot in Þjórsárdal was nearly empty. I just rolled the bike up and set the kickstand. Admission was cheap, but the lack of people also meant that most of the events and activities were cancelled.
I cued up the soundtrack to Skyrim – because I’m an incorrigible nerd – and walked slowly around, enraptured by the artifacts, the equipment, and the little informative placards.
The exterior turf construction was historically accurate, as well as the peg-and-hole interior construction, with the exception of the ticket booth and other modern areas used for running the business.
I was in the lodge house for at least an hour, reading everything and thinking deep thoughts about human lifespans and cultural transmission. What a cool place!
Eventually I ran out of stuff to stare at, and I knew I had a big hill to tackle and many more miles to ride, so I took a few photos in the parking lot and then got back in the saddle.
YES. MORE FISH...
After the hill I rode out across a plateau. The terrain around me felt a little more volcanic; less grassy. Rain started and stopped half a dozen times. Even if there was time to set my gear out to dry, the sun never broke the clouds for longer than a few minutes at a time.
In the distance I spotted huge power lines, and eventually rolled past a hydroelectric power station. Another (relatively) free modern resource for Icelanders, to go along with geothermal heat and clean water, though I imagine the up-front investment was huge.
It fit the larger pattern, really: Iceland has amazing potential for renewable resources but the up-front cost could not be met without a massive influx of cash, technology, and material from elsewhere. The picture of the country as self-sufficient is very carefully framed.
No wonder this terrain has been a substitute for alien planets in dozens of sci-fi films, of budgets high and low.
Eventually I reached the hotel. It was raining heavily when I propped the bike outside. The place was crowded, which was disorienting after my long solitary ride. Everyone indoors was walking around in slippers, or bare socks, or wearing shoe covers. Apparently there was a serious problem with tracking in the volcanic soil.
I turned both heaters on full blast and cracked the window, then laid my tent out on the bed. Like a gross-ass bike tourist I did my laundry in the shower, then shuffled things around to dry that as well.
Then it was time for my video chat with my new friend. Feeling weirdly nervous, I joined the hotel wifi and clicked the link.
As soon as my face appeared on the screen, she said, “Oh thank goodness, this isn’t some elaborate catfishing thing. You actually look like you!” I laughed.
She had been serious-looking in the photos. In real time, she smiled and laughed and took equal parts in sharing and asking questions. The give-and-take felt natural. I knew I was being a bit over-enthusiastic but I couldn’t help it; I was nervous. We’d only recently started talking, but she actually knew far more about me than anyone I’d been talking to in Iceland for weeks.
I only realized later that she seemed to be much more used to video meetings than I was. Her setup was composed so that she sat way back from the camera, showing her whole upper body, and she was reclined comfortably. The arrangement allowed her to express with their hands, and not worry so much about whether eye contact was constantly happening. Also, had she chosen that arrangement so I could confirm that she was the shape she claimed to be? My little hotel room was so small there was no way I could reciprocate.
We talked about the history of London, and the schedule of my road ahead in Iceland. She talked about the “times of antiquity” and how Europe had plundered other parts of the world to gather artifacts. She mentioned a book sitting over on her shelf, and recommended it to me. She’d only gotten partway into it because she’d been reading it during her dissertation time. She talked about Stephen Fry and some of his writing, and how her sister had accidentally run into him twice, and I mentioned his interview on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. She didn’t care much for that podcast – the format was too boring – but she always liked Paula Poundstone. Turns out we’d both seen her live in our youth. She recommended another podcast called “Behind The Bastards”.
We talked for almost an hour and there wasn’t a second of dead air, which was nice. I had to sign off though, because there was some business to deal with involving my father. We agreed to chat again soon, though I cautioned that I would be entering the highlands and video would probably not work for the next week. The whole thing was delightful; so much so that I instantly began asking myself: “Why are you so far away from this person? Why did you want to go on this trip anyway?” And that, after a pretty amazing day of riding that included a surprise tour of a Viking farm. I had a bit of whiplash.
Then it was time to switch gears again: I had multiple phone appointments with caregivers and healthcare workers. My father and his wife were both struggling with dementia and had multiple people providing different kinds of assistance, and they all needed to be coordinated, and they all needed to be paid through a recalcitrant insurance system, and at the same time I was trying to get my father evaluated so he could potentially move into an “assisted living” home and share an apartment there with his wife.
The process was seriously hampered by the fact that I couldn’t make outgoing calls on my phone from Iceland. I had to contact my sister, who would call the person I needed, then call me up, and merge us into a conference call. Then she stayed on the line making notes, which we sent back and forth in the chat. She couldn’t do the talking for me, because I was the only person who had “power of attorney” and could make decisions about my Dad’s life.
It was a whole lot of stuff about doctor reports, and paperwork filings, and therapy approvals, and lots of arguing over who was qualified to evaluate my father and what it would mean. It dragged out for hours. I was grateful for the time difference at least, since it meant I was catching all these people early in the workday before ennui set in.
When that was done, all I could do was drop onto the sheets in a dead faint, with my laundry arrayed around me. What a weird life I’m leading.
I had a meta-dream last night. I was wandering around in a hotel, and I ran into a guy I knew in college named Kenny. He was wearing pajamas and brushing his teeth. I said: “Wow, I haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to?” He said nothing, just kept brushing his teeth.
I said, “Ah of course you can’t answer, this is a dream.”
He took out his toothbrush long enough to say: “You can’t tell me what to do in a dream!”
I said, “No, no, this is my dream. And I don’t know what you’ve been up to, so I can’t dream you telling me!”
“Agree to disagree,” he said, and shook his head and kept brushing his teeth as he wandered away.
Fast-moving canyons of cloud cut the sunlight into miniature days, fading the landscape around me from gray and somber to green and dazzling and back to gray, over and over.
As I went up, the clouds came down, mingling with the terrain. Sometimes they would condense a bit too much and coat my bicycle and the road. There were almost no cars to break the silence.
In the back of my head, I’d been wrestling for the past few days with the state of my romantic life. The last time I was in Iceland two years ago I was at a curious inflection point where I was newly single and considering the idea of staying that way, while I continued riding, somehow extending my three month visa into a journey much longer. Work, then the pandemic, altered my plans. This time, I didn’t feel like there was an inflection point. I knew I was on a trip with a limited timespan and I was fine with that. I also knew I had some romantic trauma to recover from but it was different in nature.
Probably the strongest evidence that things were different this time was that I felt like I knew who I was, rather than a stranger trying to rediscover himself. But there was still work to do.
My obsessive filing-clerk soul wants to nail everything down and remember it. So I’d been writing, for the last week or so in bits and pieces, about my last relationship and the way it ended. I was convinced that some useful insight would eventually appear. At the same time, I knew I was going through my own version of a process that everyone does, when things go wrong and pain happens and they need to get somewhere past it. You sift, and you think, and you talk, partly just to pass the time while the pain shrinks to something small enough to fit on a shelf where it won’t be underfoot. Maybe you pick something out that feels like a big insight, and that becomes the label you stick beneath it on the shelf. And maybe the insight you chose was just what was in front of you when you got tired of looking. Maybe it’s nothing more than a flourish, announcing that you can move on.
It’s a jaded interpretation, I know, but it’s useful for me: Obsession and documenting can unmoor my brain from the immediacy of life in a living body. Sometimes it helps to let some hot air out of that self-important balloon, and drift back to Earth.
I arranged the flight to Iceland just after I got vaccinated, when the country was still making tourism top priority and flights were dirt cheap. It seemed like the best idea, since I’d already tried dating for six months and my heart wasn’t in it. I even walked away from two promising starts, in favor of this long-term travel. Then in Reykjavik I had a vague feeling like I missed romance even though I was probably still bad at it. So I turned my dating profile back on and browsed around a bit, distracting myself from work and enjoying the diversity of people and their stories. Then I forgot it was there.
A week passed, and a couple “intros” appeared in my email, but they were inane one-liners like “hey how r you.” Easy to ignore. Then two days ago I got a message that caught my attention. The sender actually acknowledged I was in Iceland, which I’d written at the top of my profile, and asked some good questions!
I started a conversation with her over email that quickly snowballed into an avalanche of words. So at the same time I was trying to wrestle the story of my previous romance down onto the page, I was eagerly sharing brain-dump emails with this interesting new person, and there was so much more to talk about that I didn’t really feel like pondering my ex or what happened any more. I didn’t even care about searching for a nice label to put on the shelf. It felt like a waste of time.
Thinking back, I shouldn’t have turned the profile back on, in case something like this happened, because there is currently no way I can tell if I’m actually attracted to this person, and there won’t be a way for months. Today in the latest email we both acknowledged that, which put me in this thoughtful mood, and led me to a particular thought:
My ability to make records has outpaced my need for them. This trip needs to be less about processing, and more about letting go of the past, to make room.
One liter of reduced-fat milk: My constant companion in Iceland.
So I decided to close the file on my ex, and made no commitment to return. Maybe what happened with her could just be something that faded from memory without a lesson learned … or at least without a lesson identified. Maybe going back over it was just forcing me to relive the trauma. Maybe I would feel better, faster, if I just talked about all the rest of my life with this fun new person, and the rest of my family and friends.
More looking around and forward, less looking back.
I arrived at the campsite early, and wandered around until I found a spot that looked safe from the rain. I didn’t want pools forming under my tent. For the heck of it I decided to make a video while setting up camp:
The soft patter of rain faded in and out as the clouds continued their march overhead. I ate snacks, listened to a few podcasts, made some notes, and generally drifted until sleep overtook me. It was still light outside of course.
