August 10, 2010

Gullfoss & Geysir

The first horse trip I took was a 6 day Golden Circle tour. Its almost 200km roundtrip, and starts and ends at the farm where the horses are from and passes both Gullfoss and Geysir, probably the two biggest attractions in Iceland after the Blue Lagoon. I certainly wasn’t in shape for 5 hrs of riding a day, so the first few days kicked my ass, but luckily this trip was actually considered a beginner level ride and the group took it pretty slow. There was even a 10 year old Swiss girl who made the whole journey, showing us all how unfit we probably were and even ran to the rescue when her mother fell off her horse.

riding towards geysir

I’ve been to the Golden Circle countless times at it is the main tourist day trip I take my friends on when visiting, and later in August took 7 friends there in 2 cars. There was something much more satisfying about riding up to Gullfoss though, since we rode along the gorge where the water flows and got such a better feel for the area where the waterfall is and enjoying the landscape around it, instead of just driving up 20 m from the falls and taking 10 photos, then leaving 10 mins later. Riding up to Geysir was also fun, since the 10km journey took an hour instead of minutes, and we got to watch Strokkur explode in the distance every few minutes as we neared the Geysir guesthouse where we were staying.

lunch time break

We spent two nights there, at a cosy hotel on a golf course just across the road from all the geothermal pools in Geysir, and I didn’t realize what a luxury it was that I had my own room until the next few horse trips where 25 people share one big room. The tour guide on this trip was Denni, a tour guide by summer but movie producer and director most of the other time. He was this really friendly, quirky guy with a great sense of humor, and once published a book on elves in Iceland but secretly admitted he made it to tease the fact that elves are actually believed in. My conclusion was that he was just a part-elf who tried to convince us of this since he couldn’t admit to being a visible elf… or he was just a really magical guy.

Denni & Thordur looking guilty

One night we decided to break into the pool next door since the punk teenager earlier that day made all of us pay 500kr per person to bathe when he thought Ishestar would cover the expense. The boy was still inside the pool house an hour after it closed, with some buddies just doing who knows what. We took the darkness as our cloak and stealthily snuck up behind a big tree and climbed the fence into the pool yard. There we changed into our suits and ran to the tub where we sat with water up to our ears to avoid being seen by the camera we realized was on us. We actually didn’t get caught, and climbed back over a different section of fence to safety – must have been the elf in Denni that kept us invisible to the pool boy.

August 3, 2010

Thjodhatid, aka Þjóðhátíð

I said coming back home to Iceland after 2 months in Africa was coming back to reality, but Thjodhatid is anything but real life. Its one of the biggest parties in Iceland every year, with some 15 or 20 thousand people arriving in Haimey, one of the Vestmann Islands whose resident population is only 4,000. For three nights and three days there is a stage and a bunch of white tents in the Valley between this massive mountain ridge, and planes, helicopters, boats and ferries work around the clock to bring everyone there. People sleep in tents either in the valley or on the lawn of a friend or relative, and all of a sudden there are more tents than houses scattered around town.

disco party on the boys hands

One of the main sponsors, or maybe just advertising campaigns, was by the phone company Nova, and they set up a shop that was basically a dj stand blasting funky music, giving away lanyards and waterbottles of all colours, and selling disco ball gloves. This resulted in everyone in the valley matching with nova décor. Many were also wearing 66 degree north waterproof gear, usually in the form of big fishing overalls in neon orange or yellow. Most people wore cool sunglasses, many had matching clothes and dressed in teams with just their last name differing one sweater from another. Everything was sparkly and bright, and even though some complain the music is horrible, everyone was dancing and having a great time on the muddy ‘brekka’, the natural grassy slope creating the audience holding area.

the brekka, full of people

Every night something special happens, and the first night a huge bonfire was lit, giving heat more than 200m away. Near the end of the night when the fire was basically a massive pile of coals, me and my friend Bjorgvin hiked to the top of it before being told no one was allowed there and almost died on the steep, slippery decent away from our slowly melting butts. On the second night was an amazing fireworks display, and me and Bjorgvin again decided to hike to the top of the rise and only accidentally planned it so perfectly that the moment we peaked, turned around and sat down to rest, the firework show started and we had the most spectacular view of the sky being lit up and the valley below it, full of screaming people and a building, eerie fog.

on top of the mountain looking down on the valley, the tiny stage and firework smog

I actually missed the last night, also the biggest and best night apparently, which involved some cool light show on the brekka, but I also missed the only rain fall and instead took the last ferry back to the main land, where Thordur, the horse god, met me to take me away on horse back for the next 4 weeks. Not a bad way to have to leave, I guess, but still too bad I missed Sunday night so I guess Ill just have to go back to Thjodhatid next year.

April 23, 2010

Photo Trips to 'hey, you forgot le yogert,' aka Eyafjallajökull

I heard about the first volcanic eruption about 1 minute after the news report was released, late at night around 1 am, and almost drove out to it that night. Hearing rumours of road closures and safety risks, I waited until the next day, and then life just carried on as usual, busy days doing nothing, until all of a sudden, the volcano was over!

I was expecting a 2 month or even 2 year spectacle and assumed I would eventually get out to it so I could also get my photo taken with bubbling lava behind me like everyone else, but the couple weeks I waited proved to be too long. It was also because there was no sign or evidence of a volcanic eruption here in Reykjavik, as no sounds, sights or smells of the eruption reached us.

But then, we all know what happened, the real show began! The most recent eruption started at around 20 times the strength, defeaning sounds echoing around southern Iceland, and ash starting its quick and lethal journey to mainland Europe. I decided I of course couldnt miss this opporunity again, and drove out to it within a day of it blowing its top. The road was actually closed, but I was driving with an Icelandic friend of mine who convinced the authorities we had to go into Úlfsey to help a friend move horses. It wasn´t 100% true, but there was a friend and there were horses, but we were just going to take photos all night from beneath the volcano with our zoom lenses and tripods.

The lightning in the plume cloud was one of the most amazing natural phenomenons I have ever witnessed, the most beautiful, bright sight you could imagine in an otherwise horribly dark, grim volcanic ash cloud. It was red sometimes, orange other times, and even a white lightning streak sometimes lit up the whole cloud. It was soundless lighting though, and the missing thunder just made the volcano seem more scary, like a silent monster. Northern lights speckled the sky half way into the night, and the view of a billion stars all added up to make the night one of the most unforgettable I’ve ever had.

The next day we took advantage of the day light and took photos of the plume cloud, rising 10 km´s above the crater, and the endless, drifting ash cloud supposedly spreading ash in Russia and leaving ash on people´s cars in Norway. Crazy to think about.

I went back to the Volcano 2 days later, Monday the 19th, to see a much smaller, lighter plume cloud, but an even murkier, spooky ash cloud blowing straight south, barely missing the Vestmann Islands off the southcoast of Iceland.

The road closure was slightly closer, right at the bridge over Markarfljót, with the rebuilt ringroad highway that was originally torn apart to allow for glacier melting and run off water to flow. As we arrived, the time was 19:27, and the road block was officially lifted 2 minutes later. So, with a sense of adventure, everyone in the car thought we should carry on and we drive straight into the ash cloud. It was a spooky, eerie feeling, extremely silent and lifeless, and the sun looked like a radioactive ray glowing far away through the thick ash. We didnt get out of the car but took photos from the safety of our sealed windows.

After all the excitement, we started our journey back to Reykjavik, and as we drove away and nightfall set, we saw the flickering red glow of the volcano light up a pitch black sky, which we later learned was the turning point of Eyafjallajökull into a roaring lava flow eruption.