Before leaving town I decided to have a nice breakfast at the restaurant. Only a handful of people were there, and the atmosphere was quiet and comfy. In the corner I noticed an interesting collection of furniture:
It’s pretty cool seeing all these little kid toy sections in restaurants.
It’s pretty cool seeing all these little kid toy sections in restaurants.
The owners had set up a little play area for kids to mess around while their parents ate. Lovely! I can’t imagine any American restaurant doing this, at least any corporate-owned one, because of liability issues, and the drive to make customers move along as soon as possible.
(Much later when I was thinking about this, I discovered that Djúpivogur is the first – and so far the only – Icelandic town to join the Cittaslow movement.)
Shout-out to Glen, giving his trailer a trial-run on this Iceland tour!
Glen is a long-range cycle tourist, and has been all over the world. For his Iceland visit he’s using a trailer, and is not entirely sure he likes it.
The luggage rides low to the ground and the trailer tilts with the rest of the bike, so maneuverability is pretty good, but there’s still extra drag to deal with. On the one hand you can inflate the wheel to a very high pressure to make it roll better – but on the other hand, the wheel is relatively small. Plus there’s the weight of the frame.
“So what do you like the most about Iceland so far?” I asked him.
“I think I’ve been the most impressed by the deep clear water here.”
“Is there a place you’re recently been that you think is under-appreciated by cycle tourists?”
“Turkey is amazing, and relatively unknown. It was kind of a paradox, to be honest. I wanted to stay there longer but I also knew I would never want to stay permanently. The people there are in denial about the social and political problems they have, to the point where it’s surprising Turkey even holds together as a country.”
We chatted a bit more and wished each other luck, and as he vanished around the corner I spent some time preparing my rain gear. I’d been lucky the past few weeks, but now it was back to the standard waves of rain, and the all-day dance of add-a-layer, shed-a-layer.
The back of the bike: Table, coat rack, extra hand, clothesline, and occasionally even a work desk.
The back of the bike: Table, coat rack, extra hand, clothesline, and occasionally even a work desk.
I had to pause for a moment and enjoy a thankful thought for something I use every day: The flat surface on the top of my backpack. On a tour, it’s my kitchen table, my workshop, my clothesline, my staging area, and my extra pair of hands.
This could be a clear day or a cloudy day, depending on your perspective.
This side of the rock was constantly getting wet from streams of water and then quickly drying out from the wind, over and over.
As I rode along, the rain intensified, and so did the wind. By the time I stopped for a self-portrait in the afternoon, I was fairly soaked by the wind blowing water sideways into my jacket and hood.
Just how much mist is an excessive amount? Iceland has no such limit!
I kept pausing for photos, or to eat snacks, or to just stand around breathing the air, and lost all track of time.
You could climb to the top, but I don't know where you'd stand when you got there!
Creepy!
Another world, above and below the clouds.
Gorgeous sandwich layers along every fjord.
I cairn do this all day.
Mysterious!
And all this geography, right by the side of the road...
Ride on in, the mist is fine!
Farming the sea.
Watch out for them trucks!
That rock's in the way! Blast it!
Before I realized it, between the cloud cover and the hour, it was getting pretty dark.
I assumed I wouldn’t be doing any night-riding on this trip, partly because I have to pay more attention to a work schedule and keep regular hours, and partly because it’s less interesting to ride at night in a country as gorgeous as Iceland.
If I was riding through boring terrain with nothing new to see, then night time would have some clear advantages: It’s quieter, there’s less traffic and more privacy, and there is a real increased sense of intimacy with the bicycle. On a recumbent it’s like sitting at home in a chair in a comfortable study, though of course you need to keep spinning your legs.
Is something wrong with my lens? Nope. It’s the northern lights.
On a whim, I pulled to the side of the road and dismounted. My headlight went dim, and then slowly began to fade out entirely.
I looked up and saw two satellites slowly coasting across the sky. As my vision adjusted, I tilted my head and realized I could see the arc of the galaxy spread right across the top of the sky like a stripe. Turning my head to take in the view all around me, I looked back up the road, and above it on a shelf of cloud the constellation of the Big Dipper was right in the center of my vision, looming larger than I had ever seen it before.
I looked around for Orion‘s belt – which I thought would be easy to see because it’s a very familiar constellation – but there appeared to be so many other stars in the sky that I couldn’t pick it out. If I set my camera up for a long exposure for 30 seconds or more like I did a few days ago in the Viking camp, I was certain it would reveal a deep royal purple undertone filling half the sky as the northern lights undulated across the camera.
The aurora, vaulting up behind the clouds. I did not expect to see them this time of year.
The aurora, vaulting up behind the clouds. I did not expect to see them this time of year.
I stood around in darkness for almost half an hour, lost in thought, and then abruptly realized that I hadn’t been passed by a car the entire time. The only car I could see was a microscopic point of light on the outer edge of the mountains across the bay ahead of me, just where the mountain slope met the ocean. I saw another light below it, coasting off in a straight line to the east, following the horizon. That would probably be a fishing boat, starting the night’s work.
Perhaps the majesty of this environment isn’t entirely lost when the sun sets.
I got back on the bike and rode for a while, reaching a decent speed, and then tilted my head to look at the Milky Way again. Instead of a scattering of stars forming a rough shape, it was now a distinct band with its own weird texture. Tilting my head made my balance a bit wonky so I tried to keep it brief, but nevertheless in that few seconds a minor gust of wind shoved my helmet right off my head. As it rolled on the highway behind me I hit the brakes and burst out laughing. Nothing says “safety” like a helmet that tumbles to the ground randomly because you forgot to clip it on…
As I laughed quite loud at my own folly I looked up again, and a meteorite went streaking across the horizon. I stood and appreciated that, and a few seconds later I heard a loud bleat from a sheep directly behind me, surprisingly close at hand. This patch of road was full of surprises! I wanted to stand there for hours, watching the sky get ever more grand, but there was a number I had to contend with: The one on the thermometer. In conditions like these, if I stop cycling for more than about ten minutes I grow very uncomfortably cold, even with all my layers on. And tonight my layers were compromised by water. Best for me to move along.
Fjardabyggd:. More than just that thing you shout when you stub your toe: It’s also a town!
Fjardabyggd:. More than just that thing you shout when you stub your toe: It’s also a town!
Google and Apple maps could not agree on where the hotel was. Apple maps had the nerve to present two results for the same address, each about half a mile apart on the same stretch of road. I found the place on the third try, an hour after I passed it the first time.
It was a four unit lodge built underneath a house, with a common kitchen and showers. There were plenty of shoes propped on the rack by the door so I tried to stay quiet as I lugged my gear and my exhausted ass inside.
My room had two beds, so I luxuriated by pouring all my stuff on the smaller one to organize it. My last act for the night was to prop my squishy gloves on the windowsill over the radiator.
Didn’t get a chance to pay for your spot? Be a good citizen and leave some cash.
Today would be a quiet day, spent snacking along into a mild headwind. Headwinds are never nice, but at least this one did interesting things to the sea:
I switched between music and books all day, giving myself room to think. My mind kept coming back to the scene of the accident from yesterday, and the behavior of the people involved, especially the victim.
Aha! I think I found the Icelandic version of Pride Rock!
Aha! I think I found the Icelandic version of Pride Rock!
The young woman had not yelled or cried, just sat there in awful silence. As a fellow introvert I knew there was a storm inside her head of course. It was just thoroughly walled in by learned social behavior and disposition. I wondered if that expression would come later – days or weeks from now – ambushing her in a safe isolated place, or perhaps somewhere embarrassingly public. If I was dealing with people back home in California I would anticipate that. But could I expect it here, with Icelanders? Perhaps the stoicism I see around me on the surface goes all the way to the core, and this young person already lives inside it to the point where a more intense expression of her feelings will just never arrive.
It would be silly of course to extrapolate one personality onto an entire country. But it’s still possible, and interesting, to talk about averages, and why those could exist. As I rode along, snapping the occasional picture of the rugged coast and forbidding mountains, I wondered if there was a geographical influence at work.
How much does this terrain influence the people living on it?
This bay is protected by a long thin arm of land that smooths the waves on the ocean.
This bay is protected by a long thin arm of land that smooths the waves on the ocean.
I thought about the young woman, and her age group. What must it be like, spending your teenage years in Icelandic terrain? I amused myself by trying to puzzle it out.
For one, the population here is either super-concentrated, or sparse. There aren’t a lot of suburbs. If your family does farming or ranching, there is plenty of kid-appropriate work to be done. This makes me think that Icelandic kids are not likely to hang around together in large groups unattended, away from the normalizing influence of adults.
Geese on the water near the Hvalnes Nature Reserve Beach.
This is the same stuff that’s in the pillow packed into a compression sack on my bike!
Iceland may be rural, but it’s not quite big enough to be anonymous. All your socializing destinations are in town, where you stand a chance of blundering across some family friend who knows you. If you drove for an hour you might be among total strangers, but if your embarrassing young-person shenanigans have any real consequences – litter, vandalism, noise complaints – word might get back to your parents anyway.
Your parents are probably quiet people. Farm work isn’t a dialogue-driven process. There isn’t a big dancing or singing tradition relative to elsewhere, though you do get a lot of wickedly funny verbal humor that you’ll appreciate more as an adult.
I wondered about this, actually. In rural places where the winter is harsh, there’s a long chunk of time where people are trapped indoors with each other. Being quiet and polite is a good way to avoid expensive conflict, but don’t people also need an outlet? Like, a tavern down in the middle of the village, where music is playing, and people are drinking and shouting over the din, and getting some chaos out of their system? Maybe a bit of dancing?
But if that exists here, what about young people? Would they get their own youth-oriented places to carouse, or would they be mixed in with adults, as usual?
Got a piece of cardboard? Maybe you can slide down!
Got a piece of cardboard? Maybe you can slide down!
It’s a funny idea that a place made of quiet wilderness could also be socially confining. But the terrain seems to push that way. You can’t go skipping down to the beach for a roll in the surf and some sunbathing. You can’t go wandering into the woods, where the cover of trees gives you easy isolation, because there aren’t really any woods. If you want to be alone you need to hike into the hills, and for that you need gear, and people need to know where you’re going.
Another factor is the separation of the country from its neighbors. It’s pretty hard to leave. You can’t hop in a car and drive for a while and end up in Mexico, or go through an undersea tunnel and emerge in France, where people speak a different language and there is serious anonymity and weirdness. In Iceland you’re more likely to be exposed to other countries via incoming tourism, and that isn’t usually a positive filter. I mean, if my community back home was just comprised of the entitled action-hound subset that went on international vacations all the time, I’d probably be a serial arsonist. Let them all stay abroad, thank you very much.
That tourism – all those loud rude people coming in and setting a bad example – probably makes Icelanders want to double-down on their stoicism. Most of them, at least. And that’s another way geography contributes.
This pressure probably goes in the opposite direction too: If this terrain doesn’t fit your personality, then you can emigrate. The way is open, by the big airport and ferry terminal.
Now, I shouldn’t get carried away. Young people are going to find outlets wherever they are. I hear popular indoor activities for kids here are video games, D&D campaigns, drinking, playing in bands, chatting online, drinking, having movie nights, going to shows, drinking, endless flirting with potential romantic partners, and going on joyrides to any place where there’s a bit of privacy, even if it’s just a 24-hour mini-mart. That overlaps a whole lot with what my friends did back in Santa Cruz.
And sure, you can’t do casual outdoor stuff, but you can still be outside. There are field sports when the weather’s good. Get your legs working and the cold doesn’t matter so much. And anything that you can do on ice, is available in Iceland.
I had fun pondering all this, then switched to some Skyrim for a while to reset my brain.
Lots of travelers want you to know they’ve been here before you.
A while after that, the sun broke through the clouds, and I rearranged my layers. It felt like an autumn day back home, and I felt a bit nostalgic. To feel connected to things in my home country I started listening to a news podcast. That sent my mind in quite a different direction.
It was an NPR news report, talking about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. With a shock I realized it would be the 20th anniversary of them in about a week. Had it really been so many years? I could still remember exactly where I was, when I saw the first image that day…
In the report, people were being interviewed who were still active in a support group for the families of Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked with the intent of hitting the Capitol Building but crashed in a field instead. I listened as one of the interviewees, a woman with a low somber voice, reminisced about visiting the site of the crash only a little while after the incident. At the time, she gave a speech about her lost loved one to other bereaved people, sharing their grief, and their determination to build a memorial that would honor all those lost.
NPR rolled a short clip, of that earlier speech. It was the voice of a child.
That traumatic, era-defining splinter in modern history, shared by my whole generation, was now so far in the past that the children involved had grown up into middle age. That timid 11-year-old in the recording is now married and has school-aged children.
A terrible feeling rushed through me, as though two decades of my life had been skipped, and just yesterday I was in that small San Jose apartment staring at a television, watching the world get rearranged. Now suddenly I’m this grumpy old person, with all this gray hair, partway around the world on a bike. What happened? How the hell did I get here? Did I even live during those 20 years? What does any of it mean?
Tears blurred my vision and I had to roll the bike to a stop, and wander blindly to the side of the road so I could sit down in the grass for a while.
Needless to say this was not where I expected my nostalgia to lead. I pulled the phone off the bike and sent a few messages to family, checking in and centering myself. I drank some water. Felt the sun on my back; ran my hands over the grass.
As I calmed down I tried to understand the intensity of my reaction. I think it was because I had already passed into a post-post-9-11 era, and been living there a long time. The recording had dragged me back across two eras, to the beginning of the previous one.
For years the attack was a lens that shaped my politics, my sense of history, my relationships with Americans and non-Americans, et cetera, but that lens was eventually ground down into a temperate flatness: Politics couldn’t just be about terrorism any more. History wasn’t just about preventing my country from committing atrocities in the name of self-defense in the Middle East. Being American wasn’t just about debating the national stance on Muslims or Arabs or the dangers of petroleum dependency. I passed into another era. We all collectively needed to, because history just kept happening.
I’m here now, and there is so much more to think about than fire and smoke and the drumbeat of war, and for that I am intensely grateful.
Okay, back on the bike. Maybe some nice audiobook? Let’s see what’s ahead on the road…
Awww, don’t run over the dude! He’s just walkin’ here!
Awww, don’t run over the dude! He’s just walkin’ here!
I stopped for a while at a neat waterfall. A few picnic tables were nearby, but I had no food to eat on them. Bike tour metabolism is hard to plan for!
That’s way too tilted to be a house foundation. Some kind of waterside animal pen?
Then I began a long stretch of road that followed a narrow fjord (Hamarsfjörður on the map), with layered mountains visible on the opposite shore. The thick strata of the mountains were all tilted at a shallow but consistent angle, bending down towards the interior of the country. What immense forces were at work here?
Curious, I went poking around on my phone for some kind of geologic chart.
Since this was one of the long fjords on the eastern edge of the island, I was seeing a tilt down towards the point at which new land was being generated between the tectonic plates. Maybe the sheer weight of all the new layers in the middle, without the benefit of erosion to make them lighter, is causing the center of the island to sink a little bit, into the stew of molten rock that everything floats on?
An interesting theory! I made a note to go ask a geologist about it in the future. Also it was a pretty good reference to the colors of the Icelandic flag: “Blue around white around red” clearly means “sea around snow around volcanism.”
A ways after that I found an interesting memorial, in the form of a massive pile of rocks. A saint is buried here, and travelers consider it lucky to add a rock to his burial mound as they’re passing by. This has been going on for many, many years.
Apparently there’s an old religious dude buried right around here.
I am amused by the way this burial site has been turned into a picnic spot.
It’s funny how even extremely sensible people will do this, just to enjoy for a brief moment the whimsical idea that the spirits of dead saints can take a role in material affairs. I considered doing it myself, but the rain was picking up and the rocks were a bit slick. It would be hilarious if I went gathering rocks to boost my luck and busted an ankle.
Whole lotta symbols in the next town. Not sure what a bunch of them mean…
Whole lotta symbols in the next town. Not sure what a bunch of them mean…
Eventually I reached the town of Djúpivogur. The sign on the highway showed an encouraging number of little icons. There would be food and shelter!
With so much of my gear wet, and multiple days of camping behind me, I decided to try for a room. All the rooms were booked, but the hotel had a scattering of tiny wooden cabins behind the main building for a decent price. I grabbed one of those.
If you don’t dry your frillies on the radiatior, some other camper will come by and do the same.
If you don’t dry your frillies on the radiatior, some other camper will come by and do the same.
I went poking around the common area in pursuit of a shower and a washing machine, but they were all in use. A few people were splayed on a ratty-looking couch watching television. A miniature kitchen had a few abandoned tupperwares on the counter. Laundry was spread along the top of all the radiators. The place had that cavalier hostel atmosphere. Ah, my fellow tourists. Or rather: Aaaaa! My fellow tourists!
I was pretty hungry. Even a vending machine full of candy bars would have snared me. I tucked myself into the bed of the adorable little cabin and dreamed of snacks at the cafe in the morning.
Had to use one guyline here, on account of the high wind. Still a pretty good site!
It was an indirect problem: To open my airway, I have to sleep on my side. But to do that without my ribs hurting, I need a body pillow. So on bike tours I take all my laundry and stuff it into the sack my sleeping bag is usually kept in, and put that against my chest. Last night I didn’t stuff in enough laundry and I was too lazy and cold to go digging around for more. I was also too lazy to locate my jaw insert, which was an even dumber mistake.
All night I kept rearranging my pillow to try and open my airway enough that it would stay open when my body went completely limp from entering REM sleep… And instead, I kept choking and waking myself up. Classic sleep apnea. What a stupid lesson to keep learning!
Well, the cars starting up and slamming doors only about ten feet away didn’t help, and the headlights of the late arrivals bothered my eyes until I deployed my sleep mask, so it really was a group effort to make me tired in the morning. But the sleep apnea was most of the problem.
I rinsed my face in the restaurant bathroom. It lacked a mirror which was probably a blessing for my self-esteem, since I always look ghastly when I’m underslept. Then I shuffled over to the cafe side of the building, bought snacks, and set up the laptop to get more work done.
I also took some time to plan my route ahead. If I rode every day, I could get to Seyðisfjörður and the ferry boat in less than a week. I didn’t need to lock my schedule down because there were plenty of campsites ahead on the route I could just roll into. Assuming I could buy a ticket for the boat to leave the next day, I’d have about four weeks to explore the Faroe Islands and Denmark, as well as Norway and Sweden, before my visa hit the 90-day limit and I was forced to fly out. It would be nice to have more time.
I decided to apply for a “work-stay” extension, like I’d been pondering in Reykjavik. The final document I needed was a letter of permission from my boss, so I put together a draft of that. There was a place to submit all the paperwork in Egilsstaðir, the county seat of Norður-Múlasýsla, one day out from the ferry terminal. If I still wanted to apply, that would be the place. No need to bother my boss about a letter until then.
Several hours passed in a montage of code, email, and design documents. The snacks disappeared. On the wall I noticed a panoramic photo of the mountains I passed coming in, and realized rather late that I was in one of the most photographed areas of the country. The range includes a mountain called Vestrahorn. Tourists use that name for the whole range.
You know your cafe is in a beautiful place when you can look at the photographs adorning the walls and find the cafe itself at the base of the mountain.
You know your cafe is in a beautiful place when you can look at the photographs adorning the walls and find the cafe itself at the base of the mountain.
There were a lot of photo shoots and films taken here. I guess that helped to explain the presence of the Viking movie set.
I wrapped up my work and exchanged the laptop for some warmer clothes, then went strolling around on the beach.
I get the impression that most of this is leftover material from back when the viking movie set was constructed.
By the time I spotted the movie set, it was pretty late in the day, and the cloud cover made the light weaker than usual, providing a sense of actual “evening”, which is rare for Iceland. Still plenty of visibility though.
Pretty majestic spot for a settlement. Well chosen, location scout!
Pretty majestic spot for a settlement. Well chosen, location scout!
I was strolling across the blasted heath, towards a place built for the purpose of staging a drama about the crafty and warlike Vikings. Suddenly I had a weird idea: How about I complement this by listening to an audio production of … MacBeth?
I had a copy of it on my phone, and started it up. Thunder rolled, and the Weyward Sisters gathered around me and began to whisper about battles, and betrayal, and blood.
Hard to tell how accurate any of this is. What would a building of this shape be for?
Hard to tell how accurate any of this is. What would a building of this shape be for?
The movie set had been built and abandoned years ago, but retained a presence in tourist culture. Eventually it came to the attention of another movie company, and now there are plans afoot to retrofit the buildings for use in another Viking epic. Like Hobbiton in New Zealand, this place may find a second life, and then a third life as a more permanent attraction.
I wonder how many raiders were spotted from these gates? (Answer: Zero.)
I wonder how many raiders were spotted from these gates? (Answer: Zero.)
I can imagine an actor being crammed in there with the bars shut, screaming about an imminent invasion. “Wait ’till my brother Hrölf finds out I’m here!”
I can imagine an actor being crammed in there with the bars shut, screaming about an imminent invasion. “Wait ’till my brother Hrölf finds out I’m here!”
Absurdly shallow stairs must have made daily life here a bit treacherous.
Evening darkened very, very slowly as I went poking around the abandoned, half-modern half-ancient structures, listening to a 400-year-old play delivered by exceptional actors, with eerie sound effects and music.
As I stared at the door, Scene 3 of Act 2 began in my headphones. A drunken porter woke up to the sound of furious knocking on a giant door, and began shouting as he made his way through the castle to answer it. To my disbelief and then delight, I recognized the porter as David Tennant. I was only familiar with his work in Dr Who.
What fun! I had my folding chair and footstool with me, which I’d been carrying in a sack along with a few remaining bits of food from the cafe. I assembled the chair in front of the lodge, put my feet up, and listened to MacBeth slowly go insane.
Me
Good afternoon! I’m listening to an audio production of MacBeth, and just heard the phrase “one fell swoop.” Is this play the origin of that phrase?
Mom
Shakespeare often used images from nature. “One fell swoop” sounds like the sudden, obliterating attack of a bird of prey.
Me
Very dramatic!
Mom
… I just looked it up. Yep, he was the originator. He refers to a kite – a hunting bird – and to his family as chickens.
Me
Ah hah! That definition of “kite” makes this passage clearer to me:
(Macbeth is seeing a ghost) “If charnel houses and our graves must send those that we bury back, our monuments shall be the maws of kites.”
I thought he was referring to kites like the ones we fly on a string. Some sort of metaphor like, our monuments will be empty of bodies, so the wind will whistle through them like it whistles through a box kite.
But now I see it could be something else: Our monuments will accumulate bodies only to vomit them up again like birds feeding their young.
Mom
Kites not only eat live things, they eat carrion too.
Me
Oh dear. So the metaphor is, with the dead walking, birds will pick them clean, so we might as well declare the birds themselves to be grave markers…
Mom
Yeah, i think so.
Me
How delightfully gruesome! … It’s … Murder most fowl!
When the play concluded I went back to music, picking some nice electronic stuff by Biosphere. Then I wandered over to the fence at the edge of the movie set and took a few pictures with the fancy camera, trying to capture the strange light I was seeing.
Three superimposed 30 second shots from the iPhone. Not bad considering it was quite dark out.
When I pulled them off the camera later, the photos were pretty good.
With bits of Shakespearean dialogue floating through my mind, I picked my way back across the swampy grass to the seashore, and then along to the road that led me back to camp. At one point I put a foot wrong and got a wet shoe, which I left outside my tent flap.
The scenery, the music, the Scottish Play, the blustery wind and the glowing sky, had all combined to make one amazing day that I would remember for a long time.
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.
Today was one of those “this is what it’s all about” touring days, even though I had to put in six hours of work.
Actually it started on a strange note. I woke up to weird animal sounds, coming in through the screened window of my room. The window was over a central plaza, and as I scooted around in the bed I thought “This is a very urban place to be hearing animals. Actually… What kind of animals are these? There are no coyotes in Iceland. What else would be large enough?”
Eventually I realized I was hearing words, mixed in with the gibberish sounds, echoing around the walls of the plaza. What the heck? … And then the sound resolved to two middle-aged people having sex, in a room somewhere else high up with the windows open. It was a mixture of grunting and words, but I could only parse some of the words – which were all curse words in English – because the rest was in Icelandic and sounded like the babbling of a semi-human animal.
“That is hilarious,” I thought. “Also, dang, Icelanders are surprisingly kinky. I thought this was a more conservative realm, but perhaps I’m using a definition that doesn’t fit…”
I laughed for a while, then debated whether to make them aware they were being overheard. It would certainly embarrass them, but it would also be quite funny to the other people who could hear them too. I couldn’t be the only one. I wanted to lean out the window and shout, “THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT, LAD! PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT! GET ‘ER WHERE SHE WANTS TO GO!”
But I changed my mind, and decided to roll out and start the day instead of spoiling theirs.
Some company’s representation of how the city plumbing looks. I think it’s pretty cool!
Some company’s representation of how the city plumbing looks. I think it’s pretty cool!
I’d done plenty of riding around the capital city before, and even with all my wanderlust I am a creature of habit, so I ended up going to the same coffee shop as yesterday. In fact I went there for almost an entire week, to work and write or just get a nice coffee to start the day.
And this became one of my go-to meals. Swiss mocha, fresh bread, and a kind of tuna salad to spread on it. This got me through a lot of meetings and a lot of lines of code.
After working into the afternoon, I shut the laptop and rode the bike over to a hardware store, where I purchased some velcro straps to do a minor bike repair. Then I took off, taking streets randomly for a while.
How tall does a building need to get before Vikings stop trying to raid it?
I wonder how many times that viking has tried to kill that spider...
Strangely, this statue has no explanatory plaque saying who is being depicted. Perhaps it's just J. Random Vikingson.
I found myself out on a spit of land bearing an art installation, known as Þúfa:
I went to a fish and chips shop I’d spotted earlier. Ate fish and chips and did some code review, then got some soup to go. I also found a chocolatier, and made a memo to check it out the next day.
Around 5:30pm it started to rain lightly, so I put on my raincoat and waterproof socks and kept right on biking.
It walked right up to me as though it was keeping an appointment. I imagined it saying, “Hello, I’ve been stationed at this cemetery to complete the spooky picture for you tourists. Sorry I’m late. Where are we sitting?”
I pet it and sang it the “graveyard cat song”, making it up as I went:
Graveyard cat. Grave Yaard Cat! Spooky at midnight, how about that!
Bein’ all fuzzy, Pokin’ at the graves, Lookin’ for a mouse to chomp today.
Cat cat, cat cat Catcat cat!
Graveyard graveyard Graveyard cat!
Does this picture just scream "Halloween" or what??
Does this picture just scream "Halloween" or what??
The cat sat down nearby, so I took the lid off my fish soup and set it next to the cat, and it licked the lid clean while I drank from the cup. A nice little shared meal.
I praised it for being spooky and photogenic, and did a round of language practice on my phone, and sent several people back home some cat photos. It watched me patiently while I made weird human noises at it, blinked for a bit, then got up and wandered away.
I learned a while ago that the instinct to hunt is not tied very strongly to the desire for food in cats. That is, they’ll hunt for the heck of it even when they’re not hungry. That makes perfect sense because if cats only tried to hunt when they were hungry, they’d starve before they got good enough to catch anything.
It also explains why a cat who’s recently been fed will still pounce on a small creature and maul it. I assumed my cat friend was heading out to find some cemetery mice and ruin their evening.
20 minutes later while I was on the other side of the cemetery the cat walked up again, and jumped onto a gravestone and posed for me. I give it a small piece of fish which it licked and then abandoned.
I tell ya: I don’t know where else in the world you would be able to get lighting this weird without some very expensive hardware and a few long extension cords.
The cathedral is visible from almost anywhere in the city. You can navigate by it.
I don’t fully understand my own contrarian nature sometimes. I really feel relaxed and comfortable when I’m sitting around in a place full of old bones and stone markers, commemorating death. If it’s midnight and I’m alone, all the better.
I didn’t used to be like this. When I was a kid I was scared very easily. I also had a stubborn desire to not be controlled, even by my own fear, so I’d go outside at night into the forest and stand there, letting myself freak out, then letting the fear ebb down to a flicker, then taking a few more steps until it flared up again, and so on. It got to the point where I was actively wishing for a ghost or demon to materialize before me, because the fact of it would open up a whole new universe of possibilities, and upend all kinds of things I’d learned about science and nature, which would be terribly exciting.
But it never happened, even once, and it still hasn’t happened, even with plenty of opportunity. Instead the practice of standing around in cemeteries and calming myself has conditioned me to relax in these places, perhaps too much, and I start thinking deep thoughts about nature and spirituality.
Also I think those cartoons about Halloween and “grim grinning ghosts” and the association of scares with candy may have contributed.
