The lighthouse atop Súgandisey Island was squat, like an old Victorian era postbox. The previous evening it had kept constant company with the silhouettes of those taking selfies, but this morning we had it to ourselves. The sky had cleared, and so apparently had my fever, and I felt myself for the first time in days. The coastline we'd traced the previous day was revealed in the clear light, and the sea below washed the rocks below us in undulating blue.
Another short hike was to follow, up nearby Helgafell, Iceland's most sacred peak. At one time it had been remote and quiet, but the tourist boom has caused the family living on this private land to install a small ticket office, funded with new admission fees. The hands of the wife of the family only left her knitting to accept our "user fees," as her small daughter played at the desk beside her. It was lovely scene of pastoral Iceland, with the sleepy dog at the door, and one of the country's famous lopapeysa sweaters coming slowly into being.
The hike up was short, the day pleasantly cool. Legend says that if you make a wish and ascend in silence, that wish will come true. The views from the top were magnificent with the weather, and the marshlands to the north fragmenting to become small islands spilling out into the bay. There was a small set of ruins at the top, once a prayer chapel dating to not long after Iceland adopted Christianity in the year 1000. A newer church at the base sweetened the view, and in the churchyard was a burial stone for Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, who appears in the Laxdæla Saga. The landscape here probably looked little different than it did in the year written on the stone, 1008.
We headed due east along a set of unsealed but good roads, across a highland that had little but sheep and wildflowers. Now and then a small pond would appear, the water impossibly clear. I stopped at one, to feel the icy chill upon my fingers, my face. I could have spent the entire day here, amongst the sheep, and the clouds above that mimicked them, their fluffy shapes drifting silently away.
Lunch beckoned eventually, and we stopped at Hvammstangi, enjoying lunch over the water and keeping a lookout for the resident seals. We were beginning to note that most meals consisted of lamb or fish of some kind, and we quickly developed a system where we'd share one of each. This led to copious amounts of food of course, which we walked off this day with a stroll among the turf houses of Glaumbær. Houses like these were once ubiquitous in older times, and this one now quite the tourist draw, to judge from the coaches in the carpark. Angling yourself away from the other tourists brought the illusion of how things must have been, quaint and probably quite cozy in the winter. A theory I don't personally plan to test.
Our accommodation for the night was not far off in Sauðárkróksvöllur, which we called Sauerkraut. (LYL and I are pretty good at languages, but got nowhere with Icelandic.) We surprised to find that we were staying in what had once been the town post office. In hindsight, we should have utilized the kitchen, for dinner up the street was pretty uninspired after such a fine lunch, and we merely pushed our food around awhile until asking for terms of surrender.
It was quiet evening, the light lingering long in the sky. I'd been reading a digital version of the old Icelandic Sagas, and was pleased to find a print version in our room. I read out on the porch until the growing chill suggested I move inside to the sofa. Looking up from time to time, I noticed a trail cutting diagonally to a bluff at the back of town. In the morning I climbed up, to find a bench overlooking the fjord below. In front of the bench was a pair of footprints cut from metal, one for an adult, another a small child. A story developed in my mind, of a boy who often walked up here with his grandfather, enjoying the view, and listening to sagas of a more recent vintage. The grandfather has passed, the boy now a man, and he decides to honor those memories with this bench, this pair of feet. And as I sat I was awash in sadness, as my work out on the road eroded away these kind of moments with my own daughter, and the ticking of the clock taking away even more as I faced the possibility of her moving halfway across the world. This bench was a reminder that in most cases, it is better just to sit, and look, and love.
On the far side of the fjord was Hofsós. There was a well-known heated swimming pool here, built right up to the side of the cliffs. I was tempted, but the day was overcast again, the hour a little too early. Up the road LYL and I bought a couple of lopapeysa, then continued to trace the shoreline. There were a couple of tunnels that were little more than single lane holes bore out of rock. These were a little nerve-wracking at first, until I noticed that escape lanes had been cut every fifty meters or so, allowing traffic to pull aside and let those with right of way pass. But who exactly had right of way?
One long tunnel led out to a broad bay and valley, giving the illusion of completely isolation. We pulled into its heart, Siglufjörður, a picturesque town where people milled around, or drank at sidewalk cafes. It was near lunchtime, so we settled in awhile at Sigló Hótel, in a a cozy little nook with the quiet harbor just out the open windows. We lingered a long while over books and coffee, but the solitude here, the beauty of the towering mountains dropping down directly into the deep waters of fjord made me long to stay for days. It was a pleasant afternoon, watching the fishermen bring in their catch, or gazing at even older fishing boats from the side of the foot bath out front.
Inertia eventually overcome, we moved south again, passing through Akureyri at the base of the fjord, then up the other side for a quick visit to a small collection of turf houses at Laufás. We had the place nearly to ourselves, but the gathering clouds and accompanying cold drive us back to town. Akureyi is Iceland's second city, though a small one of only 18,000 residents. As such, downtown is just a handful of streets, like an American college town. We disposed of these after an hour, so went to an early dinner at Rub 23, which is quickly becoming well known for its unique approach to Japanese cuisine. I rarely eat Japanese food while away from home, but this meal was truly special, with ingredients pulled from the cold waters not far from our feet.
I suppose all island nations share certain commonalities, and although I couldn't get my tongue around the language, the food culture was a warmly familiar lexicon.
On the turntable: John Coltrane: "Both Directions at Once”
On the nighttable: Robyn , "Desert Places"
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