Iceland Page 10
The hardest day of riding ever: GPS recording
August 16, 2019 Filed Under Stress
It is time for a day off
August 17, 2019 Filed Under Introspection, Stress
I had already decided yesterday that the epic adventure of the wind and rain called for a day off to recuperate. Especially since that adventure had already eaten most of the next day anyway. When I woke up it was 1:30 in the afternoon.
A week earlier I had decided to try and photograph every place where I set up my tent, to help me remember how each day of the trip started. Most of the time I’ve been remembering this only after I’ve packed up the campsite and am preparing to ride away. So here’s what I saw after packing up today:
It was well weird being the only person in a campground.
With everything ready for transport, I boarded the bike and rode directly into town and up to a hotel, where I checked in for the day. Then I pulled all my gear off the bike and spread it around the room, and cranked the radiator up as far as it would go. The intense rain from yesterday had soaked everything. If I was going to pay nearly 200 bucks to stay here for a night, I was going to take full advantage of it.
With that taken care of, I walked out to a nearby restaurant and ordered a seafood salad and a big chunk of oven-baked cod. Both tasted fantastic, and I ate them slowly as I sorted photos and made notes, then checked in with my workmates. I could tell my body needed rest and repair, and plenty of nutrition for both. I also spent a while answering more questions about the trip.
I was expecting to have to camp nearly all the time, and stealth camp some of the time as well — or at least knock on doors and ask for permission to camp on someone’s land. Perhaps that would have been the case 15 or 20 years ago but apparently the country has changed a lot.
I was expecting to see a lot more snow, and a lot more meltwater, even at this time of year. I was definitely expecting it to be much colder, much more often. Maybe I’ll still encounter some real cold in the higher elevations when I head inland some more, but so far it has been almost disappointingly moderate. Like autumn in San Francisco.
I was expecting the country to feel even smaller than it actually is — and it’s pretty small. On the ground it feels big. The days have turned into weeks, and I’m still geographically only halfway across it.
I was expecting more of the roads to have wide shoulders, instead of almost no shoulder, which is the norm here. On the other hand I was expecting to have to negotiate gravel roads much more often. If I added up all the segments of gravel road I’ve covered it’s still probably under ten miles.
I am impressed by the availability of electronic payment systems, pleased by the ready availability of high quality information about services and road conditions, and in general finding the tour around the country to be much more first-world and accessible than I was expecting.
This long range tour thing is something I’ve definitely missed. Doing a tour in this place, with equipment that I’ve been refining for such a long time, is a dream. I wake up each day feeling glad I’m out here, and amazed that nothing’s gone seriously wrong yet, despite my risk-taking.
But at the same time I keep remembering that I don’t have anything else going on in my life except for this trip. Back home – if that’s even the word for it right now – I have a cat, a job, and a stack of possessions small enough to fit in a closet. I don’t even have a bed, or an actual place to live since I rented out both units of my duplex. And that’s it.
When I was still in my previous relationship and feeling low all the time, I kept nagging myself internally with a question: “The real measure of ambition is sacrifice,” I said. “How much would I give up to go on this trip? If my partner doesn’t want to come with me, would I give up my romantic life and go anyway?”
Well, the relationship ended before I could make that decision. But now, here I am in the middle of nowhere with no romantic prospects, cautiously going through my regrets and making peace with them in an unhurried way, and re-examining my priorities, and I’m still doing just fine. And that’s great, but it also sort of worries me.
I’m wondering, what does that choice say about me, and about my future? Some days out here I float the idea of locking the bike in a storage unit and flying home to go on some dates and jumpstart my romantic life. Other days I feel like that is the absolute last thing I’d ever want to do, because I am truly enjoying this adventure and flying home would bring it to a screeching halt. And if I do head home, will I just want to be back out here again in a few months? Regardless of who I’m with, or whether I’m with anyone?
I can’t see that far into the future right now. But I feel blessed in that I don’t have to. Right now each day brings healthy exercise, fun little discoveries, good food, and all the time I could ever want to think and write. Plus I can talk with my friends and family any time, thanks to the iPhone. I can just let this roll forward into the next day, and the day after that, as long as I put in some work hours and stay on schedule to reach my work conference after crossing Iceland. And that’s what I want to do.
So I guess, if anyone asks, tell them: I feel fine.
Now give me an easier question, please…
Hikers generally don’t have the fortitude to pack out their poops, but it’s easier for a cycle tourist, and since a cyclist is more likely to be close to civilization on a road, it matters more. The land on either side of a road is likely to be somebody’s residence or farm.
Official campsites are usually on the outskirts of a town, or near a restaurant or shop along a highway. Some are run by local government, some by private citizens. I’ve been camping about 3/4 of the time.
Relative to other ways of spending a night, camping is DIRT CHEAP in Iceland. You’ll pay over a hundred bucks for a hotel room, at least 80 for a room in an AirBnB, and around 50 for a shared bunk in a hostel — but a campsite with hot running water and bathrooms will cost about twelve bucks a night.
On other trips I have stealth-camped, or stayed in hotels all the way.
Okay, that was enough questions. It was 8:30pm and the restaurant was shutting down around me.
Next order of business: A hot shower, during which I applied soap to both my of long-sleeved shirts and all of my underwear, then added them back to the drying pile. Another Iceland-style laundry day.
And then, I was done. How done was I?
- Just done.
- Like, so done.
- Done.
- Totally completely done.
Back to bed!
Icelandic nerds
When I exited the tent in the late morning, there was no one around. Was this going to be the new pattern?
I wasn’t in a hurry, so I set the phone on a little tripod and made a video of myself taking down the tent.
After that I still wasn’t in a hurry, so I went to the one local coffee shop and got myself a mocha, and sorted more photos on the laptop.
For a while I was the only person in the shop, and then a crowd of college-aged people came in. They carried books and papers, which they spread all over the largest table in the room before sitting down around it and talking excitedly in Icelandic. A stout man aged about 22 with a pile of curly blond hair sat at the head of the table and answered questions. He seemed to be in charge.
At first I assumed they were studying for some class, and turned my attention back to my laptop. Then I overheard the following conversation between the stout man, the woman on his right, the man on his left, and the barista who had come over to chat:
I grinned. This was making me feel right at home. I hung around for another half hour, enjoying the silly banter of the gaming crew, and then realized it was time to continue my journey before I got too lazy and just crept back to the campsite.
One more tunnel to pass through: The Múlagöng. Another older single-lane model; the twin of the one I’d passed through three nights ago.
I tried again to take a video of my passage through, and this time I held it a bit steadier. Here’s a 2x sped up version:
On the other side of the tunnel was a pleasant stretch of coastline. No nasty wind or rain, no biting cold. Just sunlight and a few fluffy clouds. It looked like Iceland was back to treating me like a regular tourist, instead of a human punching bag. Hooray!
I did the usual stopping and snacking. As I made my way down to Dalvik, my next rest stop, I checked out a few waterfalls by the side of the road.
The moss growing around them was fascinating:
A little farther along I saw this marker:
And a few interesting things in town too:
I found a restaurant specializing in fish, and ordered a giant chunk of it. Super delicious, as usual. Then I rode over to the local campground and found a place to set up. As I curled up in my sleeping bag again, I reflected that the day had been the perfect combination of relaxing and exercise to move me closer full-on touring mode. Tomorrow would be a big push down to Akureyri.
Ferries to and from Hrisey
August 20, 2019 Filed Under Curious, Introspection
Unlike the previous two sites, there were actually campers here. I guess Dalvik has more going on? Looking around it doesn’t seem so, but the migration patterns of Icelandic tourists are not my area of expertise!
My plan for the day was to catch the short ferry ride from Dalvik to the island in the middle of the fjord – a small chunk of land with a cute little town on it called Hrísey – then catch another ferry from there to a town just a little bit farther down the coastline called Árskógssandur on the same day. It wouldn’t save any time – I’d lose a few hours at least – but it would add some variety to the journey.
I rode down to the docks and hunted out the ferry office. The woman behind the counter told me at first that the ferry I wanted didn’t exist, then she made a long phone call to someone else and when she hung up she told me that yes, there’s a boat that makes a run to Hrisey in about an hour, and I needed to pay a small fee for myself as well as my bike which would be treated as cargo. I paid her and she gave me several pieces of paper stapled together that would act as my ticket.
Business done, I cycled over to the ferry boat and ate lunch near the water: A chocolate muffin and another huge piece of vacuum-packed fish. I was really liking this easy access to pollution-free fish. The sunlight was almost warm.
I thought about how hard the fishermen must work on their boats to bring in the fish that I sat here comfortably eating, and how lucky I was just to have the time to enjoy it without watching the clock. I thought about how amazing it is to have an economic system where I can be paid money for work I did in California, and use that money to buy transportation and lunch – two things that involve work done on my behalf – in a town thousands of miles away from where I was paid.
And then there’s that weird business with exchange rates… Money I am paid in one place could buy much more work in some other place. In the context of the messy world economy with its multiple currencies this makes sense, but when confronted directly, it seems like nothing but exploitation. Well, there was none of that going on here at least. My American money wasn’t actually as strong as the Icelandic money and every time I paid a bill with my phone, the dollar got into an arm-wrestling match with the kroner and lost.
When the crew of the ferry boat arrived, I handed my paperwork to the woman who looked like she was in charge. She glanced at it, then motioned for me to bring my bike around to the back of the boat and load it over the steel ramp, into the cargo hold. I did as she asked, then tethered the bike in place. It was more of a gesture than a requirement, since the sea of the fjord was quite calm.
I climbed up the stairs to the seating area and was amused to discover that I was the only passenger.
I had fun staring at all the information posted on the walls as I waited for the ferry to complete the short ride.
When we arrived, I untethered my bike and pushed it over the loading ramp on the side, then stood around chatting with the crew as some workers from Hrisey loaded a diverse pile of boxes and hardware onto the boat. Apparently this was the primary method of exchange between Hrisey and everywhere else.
I saw a nearby kiosk which gave some interesting history:
Then I went poking randomly around the island, as a bike tourist does.
I wound up at a local restaurant, where I did some writing and route planning over a gigantic mug of hot chocolate. My creativity was inspired by the constant feed of 1950’s rock’n’roll songs playing quietly on the speakers, and the charming paintings in the windowsill nearby.
A man I thought was the proprietor came over and chatted with me about America and the experience of being a bike tourist. He had that usual awkwardness that I’ve come to know in rural Icelanders: He was very curious and intent on being friendly, but also struggling to come up with ways to start the conversation, and very unsure about what the correct amount of personal space was.
He would come over from the kitchen and stand about two meters away from me in the otherwise empty restaurant, staring at a point on the floor to my left, and then abruptly move up next to my table and say something. Then we’d talk for a minute or two, and he’d walk about three meters away, stare out at the ocean for a bit, and then either turn around and repeat this little ritual or retreat back into the kitchen.
Nevertheless, he was friendly. I learned that he wasn’t actually the owner of the restaurant, and that the restaurant was struggling.
He was fun conversation and I suggested that the next time he visit America, he check out the desert in Utah and Arizona, because there isn’t really anything like that in Europe. He said he would keep it in mind. Before I took off, I got a photo:
And then I had just enough time to get down to the dock for the other ferry boat that would take me to Árskógssandur.
This ride was even shorter, and as soon as I unloaded the bike I climbed aboard and started pedaling. I had a good chunk of miles to cover before reaching Akureyri.
I passed the time with goofy radio shows from the BBC. “Bleak Expectations” was my current favorite. Hours rolled by.
I tried to keep up a good pace because I wanted to get into town before all the restaurants closed. There was one in particular I was aiming for: A Thai restaurant. I hadn’t seen one of those for weeks.
The sun went down and it got cold but I pushed those pedals hard, and made it to the restaurant just in time to get a takeout order of yellow curry with chicken. VICTORY WAS MINE! I took it over to my hotel room and scarfed it while I did another round of bathroom sink laundry and dried it next to the radiator.
I was back on my touring legs, and although it would have been great to stay in Akureyri and check out all the cafés and museums and trails, I needed to keep covering ground if I wanted to make it across Iceland in time to board the boat to Denmark. I looked over my maps and saw that tomorrow would be a tough day, with a massive climb right at the beginning. Could I keep up my pace?