The morning was clear, and the full extent of the Seydisfjordur's beautiful surroundings quickly became evident. We strolled along the fjord's edge toward breakfast, the mountains around us rising upward like cupped hands, a dozen waterfalls spilling through their fingers. Later, during the walk back, we noted that the weekly ferry from Norway had pulled in, and thankfully, only a few dozen figures ambled along the streets, a slight bend in their sea legs.
The drive over the hills to Egilsstaðir is supposed to be one of Iceland's best, one we'd missed in the fog on the drive in. As the car switchbacked upward, each curve brought a new perspective upon the beauty of the cozy little fjord, and at the top was a delightful alpine lake, which in the mists of last night we'd mistaken for the sea. A larger lake on the other side came with its own monster legend, but we turned east again before further research could be attempted.
Back out by the sea the weather was truly horrible, and I fretted internally over what we might be missing. This was easily squelched with a cappuccino at Café Sumarlína in Fáskrúðsfjörður, a drink introduced no doubt by the French fishermen who settled the place in 1880. There were few traces of French culture left here, merely the name of a few hotels and the trois couleurs which drooped listlessly in the rain. Today the town sells itself as a good place to view the northern lights, a fine idea as in looking upward, you'd hardly notice that it is one of the least attractive towns in the country.
The mists carried on through the morning. Planned stops in Breiðdalsvík and Djúpivogur were kept brief, as both villages were beautiful due to their surroundings, yet today well obscured. A longer visit was planned for Stokksnes, and miraculously, we exited the tunnel above the town to clouds lifting their shroud to the abracadabra of blue.
Though not terribly interested in haikyo, I am a sucker for visiting the ruins of old film sets, but this one was unique in that the film never actually got made. It was wonderful to stretch our legs after hours in the car, toward an old Viking village that looked like was about to be engulfed by the clouds breaking over the peaks above like a massive wave. The village looked authentic and was well detailed, though in the previous nine years was beginning to crumble and fall into decay, which made it easy to believe that it actually was authentic.
The easy to pronounce Höfn was just across the bay, famed for its langoustines. I attacked a large pile on my plate, fortified by local craft beer. It was leisurely drive from there, a multitude of glaciers beginning to appear to our right. They all seem to interconnect higher up, making it easy to believe that the entire Vatnajökull National Park is one massive icecap.
A neighboring table at lunch was raving about the ice flows at Jökulsárlón, and even before stopping the car I immediately concurred. Icebergs had calved from the far off glacial wall, little dignified mountains drifting silently toward the seas beyond. The landscape was awash with a pale blue, broken by the dark grey heads of a pair of seals bobbing between fish and photographs. I longed to join the kayakers getting a closer look at the glacier itself, gliding through water that must be unbelievably cold.
The scenery was repeated not far off at Fjallsárlón, though on a smaller, more intimate scale. You could walk nearly up to the glacier itself, and there were few people around, just one man who was pushing an iceberg around in a little skiff.
I rewarded myself with a little walk toward evening, up a steep forest trail to the famous Svartifoss waterfall in the Skaftafell National Park. I had the trail to myself, up through low scrub and pines that would be at home on the Alaskan panhandle. After Dettifoss raised the bar for me, this particular one fell a little short, but there was a magnificence in the striated stone pillars that framed it from behind. LYL chose to stay below so I didn't linger, arriving back at the car just as the rain began once again to fall.
But there was one last stop. I walked the short distance from the car to the Svínafellsjökull Glacier with my hood up as the rain beat down. I moved past a gate and scrambled a little higher up the mountainside, taking good care of my footing as I went. A sign midway commemorated a pair of hikers who'd gone missing here a decade or so ago. At the visitor center in Skaftafell earlier I'd seen the remnants of the gear of two researchers who had gone missing in 1953, a collection of battered items that had turned up again after glacial recession. This set the mood here as one of awe, as I faced a simply colossal form. Back in university, a friend and I had once pondered whether fire was alive, since we describe it in terms we also use while discussing animate objects. And now I thought that we do this too with water, and by extension, must consider it to be a living form. And this mass before me seemed alive somehow, its movements so slow that they were just shy of slumber.
On the turntable: Johnny Winter, "Second Winter"
On the nighttable: Norman Lewis, "A Goddess in the Stones"
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