That Jökull Isn´t Funny Anymore

Jökull means "glacier", by the way.

Katrina (the girl from the hostel) and I decided to get up early explore the Snæfellsnes peninsula, before I dropped her off in Reykjavik. Our trip was a grand success, despite rewarding my Toyota Avensis with a slight scratch from volcanic rock.

We had a delicious breakfast at the bakery outside Stikkishölmur of donuts and coffee before beginning our wild adventurs along the northern coast of the peninsula. We crossed bridges, drove on both sides of the road, admired the sharply rising mountains to our left, read Icelandic sagas from my Lonely Planet, dodged dangerous rain storms and indulged in a few sing-a-longs to the radio (a cheesy Icelandic lounge version of Van Morrison´s "Moondance", "Sweet Home Alabama," "Suspicious Minds" and Lisa Loeb´s "Stay") as well as listened to some of Katrina´s CDs (Poe´s "Haunted" and a mix CD that featured my all time favorite band Nickelback.)

We climbed a mountain called Helgafell and braved extreme cold and wind to take a few pictures of the surrounding landscape.

The centerpiece of our trip was Snæfellsjökull, a glacier nestled in a volcano. As a historical note, this was the location which inspired Jules Verne´s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and was supposedly the gateway to novel´s journey. We were unable to get terribly close because my car lacked the 4WD necessary to navigate the lava fields around the crater, but we did manage to snap a few pictures, run around the lava and touch a glacier stream running down the mountain.

As we continued around the peninsula we admired some very small but pretty towns, noticed a car that had smashed itself driving off the road, and took pictures of what was by far the best rainbow I have ever seen. The rain and mist off the coastal mountain cliffs diffracted the light above lush green farmland to create a very bright, distinct and close up rainbow.

I decided to avoid the 1000 Kr. fee to use a tunnel on the way back to Reykjavik and ended up getting stuck with a 45 minute drive around a twisty fjörd. I dropped Katrina off at the Salvation Army Guesthouse in Reykjavik, made reservations for the evening and began the second half of my driving day.

After having driven almost continuously since 8 in the morning, I got on the road at approximately 4 PM and drove two and a half hours to Vik, a town of about 300 people on the southern coast of Iceland. I stopped in one of the towns on the way to briefly use the internet, and at a small barn built into a cave where I met a group of Canadians in town for the Reykjavik Marathon (like Katrina and the group I met my first day in Reykjavik).

Vik was tiny, as expected, and nestled against some steep cliffs were seagulls circled. The towns best feature was the smooth black sand beach. I took a long, romantic walk by myself before purchasing a ham and cheese sandwich at the gas station (as well as a few snacks) and checking into the town´s hostel.

Here, I met Tara, a lawyer from Washington D.C., whow would become my travel partner for the next two days. We discussed books (Interpreter of Maladies, God of Small Things) and made plans for the morning.

I took a shower, lost my towel and went to sleep late, tired and cold after writing a few postcards.