Ice, Ice Baby
Day 6: Wagner Family in Iceland
Eric described the drive through moss-covered lava fields from Vik as driving through a reef covered in green-colored brain coral. I was lost thinking about the crystal-clear snorkel in the Silfra fissure. We’re on the way to Vantajokull National Park having an animated conversation about how the topography changes with every turn. Unexpected waterfalls flow down cliff faces to creeks meandering through fields leading to farms with cows and horses and twisting into mountains covered in grazing white sheep. It is impossible to get bored because the scenery is so varied with subtle differences, you feel like you’ve never quite seen it before. This is accurate since the weather is always changing the landscape. Navigating narrow single-lane bridges along a two-lane highway (that looks more like a country road, with a dotted white line separating lanes) keeps your attention despite the surrounding scenery trying to pull it away. We’re all taking blurry photos from the moving car trying to capture it.
Speaking of driving, Eric has taken over and is really enjoying it. Today, on the way to Jokulsarlon Glacier for our zodiac boat tour, he pulled into the oncoming lane to pass 6 cars. It wasn’t unsafe or reckless but was an impressive move.
[Sidenote: Vacation Eric might be my favorite version of Eric. Vacation Eric says and does really funny things like when we were climbing around one of the more challenging slippery waterfalls and I called out for him (and our children) to be careful, he pointed at some people farther ahead, looked down at his hiking boots and said, “If three jackasses in sneakers can do it (sic. hike the waterfall), then so can I. Put that in your book. Boom.” (He meant this blog and so I’m putting it in.) Occasionally traveling with our young adult children, he slips into fussy dad mode, which is my least favorite version of Eric, but Race Driver Eric is amusing too. RV-Aficionado Eric got really excited when a caravan of over a dozen RVs drove past us. He looked at me with an enormous grin telling the kids, “This is what Mom and I are going to do when Matthew goes to college.” He chatted a little longer about RV-life, but my mind had wandered out the window again to green, flat-topped mountains leading to black sand beaches covered in streams.
The Jokulsarlon Glacier is so large, it covers nearly a tenth (8% percent) of the entire country. Once Matthew learned we were coming to Iceland, he started talking about how cool it would be to hike a glacier. Which glacier are we hiking? When are we hiking the glacier? Are we packing lunch for our glacial hike? Do I need new hiking boots for the hike? (Since he walked into the shoe store in a size 10 and out in a size 12, the answer was yes.) Balancing Matthew’s need to get close to nature with the rest of the family’s interest, I booked this zodiac boat tour on a glacial lake guaranteeing that we get comfortably to a glacier. (Had I known a photo-op of a sheep would have accidentally put us on a glacier I could’ve saved the money and skipped the tour, but then I’d have missed out on the extraordinary beauty of driving towards Vantajokull.)
The glacier looms larger with every kilometer and never seems intimidating, instead seducing you to get closer. As we pull into the black sandy gravel parking area, I’ll admit it, it feels a little like a snub with the crowd the glacier has invited in. A little like expecting an intimate dinner party and realizing you’ve stumbled into a massive Big 10 football-level tailgate. There are several food trucks serving huge portions of fried cod (fish and chips); another truck serving lobster soup and lobster rolls; one with hot dogs and sausages. A small, unmarked gift shop offers a surprising number of souvenirs and foul-weather gear. There are porta-potties which are nothing like porta-potties in the United States. (Sidebar on bathrooms in other countries. I believe travel is one of the most important things you can do. It’s an investment in your education and life experience and there are ways to do it at any budget. Not to take anything away from how great America is, but we can all learn a lot from what other countries do well, like bathrooms. Other nations have much better facilities than ours. Japan has a life-changing virtual car wash system for your nether region; the U.K. offers fantastic water closets; France has handheld sprayers leaving you feeling fresh; Switzerland is super clean; Qatar also offers immaculate privacy in the privy; and Iceland’s bathrooms are super clean, most offering private floor to ceiling walls and your own sink. Even their port-a-potties offer a modern sink. India is more on the level with U.S. standards, and both could take the potty game up a notch.)
We find our tour and are invited into the moving truck-size van to put on what looks like red astronaut uniforms designed to keep the wind and chill out during our ride. There we meet our guides, Erik and Sæmundr. Erik is personable and funny. Sæmundr (pronounced like “Say-mun-derah) is more reserved and looks like a Viking with a strong bone structure and long red hair tied up on his head and the coolest tattoos. (He had serious Jamie from Outlander vibes, which demanded my full attention. If you haven’t tuned into the Starz series or read Diana Gabaldon’s series, I highly recommend it. The first book starts a little slow but picks up like a rollercoaster. James Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Frasier aka “Jamie” is worth the ride.) We climb up into a massive tour bus outfitted with 5-foot-high tires. (Thank goodness there was a step stool.) A short ride to the drop-off point, we can see the zodiac boats returning across the clear lake. The thick black rubber inflated boat with ten people leaning against the sides holding on to ropes for dear life. They pull into the floating dock as we walk up to it. Erik fills his boat and the rest of us climb on with Sæmundr.
He introduces himself and explains that his name means “Hand of the Sea.” We joke that he was born for this job. He laughs it off explaining that many Icelandic names have something to do with the sea. Then he said, “If you have any questions, don’t ask ‘em” and laughed, “Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m here to answer anything — this is your time, you want to ask, I’ll answer.” He said some tours are silent. He could not have been prepared for the Wagners. We took turns asking him questions and learned a lot.
He drove the boat smoothly and raced us the 8 KM out to the glacier. A few hours earlier, the glacier had calved (broken off) a massive new iceberg that had already floated well into the lake. It was a bright blue. Sæmundr explained the color was because the new iceberg was still reflecting light and in a few hours, it will dull to a lighter blue-white. While he was explaining that calving sounds like thunder and produces big waves, we start to hear a rumble in the distance and a smaller piece of the glacier cracked off into the water rocking our little boat.
The glacial lake evokes the ice castle Christopher Reeves’ Superman builds in the 1978 original film when he throws the crystal and it explodes into a massive ice fortress filled with memories of life on Krypton. It’s enormous and filled with blue and white ice.
Sæmundr spent nearly an hour motoring us around the lake explaining how the glacier melt started in the 1930s creating the lake and showing us how quickly it is receding. Some of the icebergs are terrifying for their sheer size and I’m grateful to be in this rubberized boat gliding across the water and not cutting deep into it. We drive over tiny ice chunks, slush floating on the water, they’re noisily chopped up propeller shocking me with the loud grinding. He points out Arctic Terns, saying these little birds have the longest migration from Antarctica to Iceland during the summer each year, which is equivalent to us going to the moon and back 3x during a lifetime. I have no idea if what he’s saying was right, but he could read the telephone book and I’d find it interesting. Sæmundr is as knowledgeable about this lake as he is adorable. When Matthew asked if he lives nearby, it comes off a little stalker-like and the whole family teases asking if we can come to visit, get together later, and join him for his after-work swim in the glacial lake. He’s a fantastic sport and laughs along with us even posing for a picture with the entire family. (I stood next to him and my heart did a flutter when he put his arm around me.) All of Sæmundr’s talk about the benefits of swimming in the freezing temperatures has captivated Matthew’s imagination and when we go across the street to Diamond Beach he decides to take the polar plunge.
The Diamond Beach is a black sand beach adjacent to the glacial lake. As icebergs move through the lake either by calving or freezing temperatures, they make their way across a narrow channel where seals can be seen playing, moving toward the ocean. Waves wash ice chunks onto the beach, and they glisten in the sun like diamonds, thus the name. Matthew appears a few minutes later wearing his bathing suit and swim shirt. After posing for a quick picture, he counts himself down and runs into the freezing water, dives under, and runs back out a few moments later. I half expected the beach to cheer for him. He said it was invigorating and he felt great, alive. It wasn’t enough of a selling point to get any of us to go in, but we were proud of him for trying it and not getting hypothermia.
We drove on to Kirkjubaejarklaustur (halfway between Vantajokull and Vik) and enjoyed a lovely, but a little contentious pub dinner. It was boys versus the girls debating if we should and how to go to the volcano. Ultimately, Eric threw the Dad card on the table and announced we’d tell everyone the plans in the morning. Ours weren’t the only fireworks. At midnight the front desk rang our room as requested to let us know the Northern Lights were putting on another show. They were extraordinary, even brighter than the previous night, but they weren’t enough to lighten my mood. I was anxious about our solo climb to the volcano.
