Hi, everyone!
Last Wednesday I helped Grandpa put the last Trex deck boards on the lower section of the deck. Doesn’t it look nice? I thought we would finish the railing next, but Grandpa said we had to go out to Sodus to mow the lawn, instead. It was very windy when we went to the Point to watch sunset. The sand was blowing all over! Thursday was a little nicer, so we got the lawn mowed. I even had time to make friends with a tulip tree blossom before we went back to Fairport!
Friday morning, Grandma and Grandpa took me to the airport to start another trip! Grandma told me we were going to go walking in Iceland! Iceland is in the middle of the North Atlantic, so the flight wasn’t as long as going to Japan or the Netherlands. Iceland is so far north that it doesn’t get much sun at all in the winter. It’s easy to see the Northern Lights then, and the cabin lighting in the plane looks a little like them. This time of year, it never really gets dark at all in Iceland. We finally got to our hotel at 2 in the morning, but it was still light outside!
When we woke up on Saturday, we walked around Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland and the biggest city. About 2/3 of all the people in Iceland live in or near Reykjavik! On weekends, some of the streets are closed off from cars so people can walk around and shop. This Saturday, even more streets were closed off for a Color Run! Grandma said I could watch, but it would be very hard to get green and blue powder off lion fur! Then I made a new Viking friend and a new puffin friend. Vikings and puffins are very popular in Reykjavik! Later, Grandma let me choose pastries for Sunday breakfast at the bakery. On our way home, we saw lots of people watching a soccer game being televised in the park. Europeans call soccer “football”, and the Iceland national team is in the European championships this year. Everybody here is cheering them on!
On Sunday morning, we met the rest of our walking tour group and our guide, Atli-san. We all took a walk around Reykjavik. At the harbor, I saw the only railroad in all of Iceland. The tracks only ran along the dock to carry freight from one ship to another! Next, we went to the Harpa concert hall, which was designed by a local artist. It’s very pretty inside and out! Grandpa said it reminded him of the Sydney Opera House because it is located in the harbor. There’s a lake behind City Hall that’s very pretty, too! I especially liked the statue there of The Unknown Bureaucrat. Atli-san says the sculptor, Magnus Tomasson, is one of his friends! At the end of our walk, we stopped to look at the excavation of the first building in Reykavik. There’s a window to look down on it. The ground has built up a lot since that farm was established!
We all got on Atli-san’s van and had lunch at the home of his friends Inka-san and Hordur-san. Their house overlooks part of the bay, and they served us smoked salmon and grilled lamb and roast potatoes and broccoli salad and Skyr with maple syrup. It was yummy! When we were on our way again, Atli-san stopped to show us a field of drying fish heads and skeletons. They are exported to Nigeria as soup base! Then we drove to Krysuvik Seltun thermal reserve! Iceland is a volcanically active part of the world, just like parts of Japan and New Zealand and Hawaii. I got to see hot springs and boiling mud and lots of steam. The air smells like sulfur, and some of the rocks are colored with mineral deposits. Grandma and Grandpa made sure I didn’t fall in to one of the pools of boiling water or mud!
After the stop at the thermal region, Atli-san drove us along the south coast of Iceland. There are a lot of black beaches with lava rocks on them! There are also fields of lupine wildflowers all over! They were imported from Alaska to help keep the volcanic ash from blowing around, and they grow very well here. We stopped at a little church in a fishing village. The name, Strandarkirkja, means “church on the beach”. Atli-san says this is the richest church in all of Iceland, because fisherman believe making donations to it improves their luck and safety.
We had dinner at a lobster restaurant in Stokkseyri, another fishing village. Because it was Grandpa’s birthday, he got a sparkler in his dessert! Then we went to the Ranga Hotel, where we will be staying. We can see Mt. Hekla from our patio! We can also see Eyjafjallajokkul. That’s the volcano that erupted in 2010 and kept us from going on our tulip cruise!
Yesterday, our tour schedule said we were going hiking around Mt. Hekla, but Atli-san said that exceptionally late snow had closed the area. Instead, he brought his off-road truck so we could go to the area in between Mt. Hekla and Eyjafjallajokkul, instead. We had wonderful weather all day! Before we left the hotel, I spent some time in the sun with my new travel buddies. Then we got in Atli-san’s special truck. Everywhere we went, people were taking pictures of it! Our first stop was a narrow gorge with a hiking trail along the rocks. It was very pretty! Grandpa said the name Nauthusagil sounded like something from Lord of the Rings! Grandma and I crossed the creek on a little bridge, but we didn’t get as far up the creek as some of my travel buddies. Helen-san found a hand-knitted sock that was just my size and gave it to me as a souvenir. I like it a lot!
After that stop, Atli-san let some air out of the tires of his truck so we could go off-road. I helped him make sure the tire pressure was just right after that! We drove to Gigjokull glacier, which is a side glacier to Eyjafjallajokkul. Eyjafjallajokkul is really a volcano with a glacier on top. When Eyjafjallajokkul erupted, it melted a big piece of Gigjokull and released a lot of rocks sitting under the glacier, as well as volcano rocks and ash. Those rocks completely filled up a lake and raised the ground a lot! I was excited to see my first glacier! I wanted to go into the ice tunnel, but Atli-san said that wouldn’t be safe to do in summer.
After our stop at the glacier, we rode over more rocks and climbed in and out of small creeks, following a track to one of Atli-san’s favorite places, Land of the Gods. He used to be a park ranger there! Land of the Gods is one of the few places in Iceland that still has native trees. We took a hike to the top of Mount Bolfell. There were a LOT of steps to climb, both up and down! The view at the top was very pretty!
After our hike, I needed a rest in the sun. Then Atli-san grilled hot dogs and we had a picnic! That’s the first time I’ve ever had potato salad in a bun right along with the hot dog. It was yummy that way! I made friends with one of the biggest trees around. I didn’t think it would be polite to tell him how much smaller he is than my redwood friends in Muir woods or Tane Mahuta in New Zealand, or even the oak in Grandma and Grandpa’s back yard!
Because it was a sunny day, there was more meltwater in the streams we crossed when we drove back out of Land of the Gods than when we drove in. We weren’t done visiting beautiful places! We stopped at Seljalandsfoss on our way back to the main road. That’s a waterfall where there’s a path behind the falling water! Grandma tucked me into her raincoat to make sure I stayed dry! Then Atli-san drove down to the coast and let air out of the tires again. We drove partway back on the black sand beach! Atli-san knew to turn right at the second narwhal skeleton on the beach to get back on the road. While he put air back in the tires, we explored an abandoned amusement park!
Today, we took a ferry trip to the Westman Islands. We didn’t need Atli-san’s off road truck for the trip, so we were back in his van. The Westman Islands are the newest parts of Iceland. One of them just appeared out of the ocean in 1964, and the biggest island, Heimaey, got bigger when there was a volcanic eruption there in 1973. Heimaey has a very pretty harbor! The cliffs have lots of nooks where birds can nest.
The first place we went on Heimaey was a field where we could see puffins nesting. The puffins share the field with sheep, so we saw some of them, too! We had to go in through the gate or the stile to make sure the sheep didn’t get out! There was an observatory right next to the puffin nesting area, so we could watch them without disturbing them. We watched them walking around and flying and diving into the water. I think I made one or two puffin friends, even if they couldn’t see me!
By the time we returned to the main part of Heimaey, the sun was out! In January of 1973, in the middle of the night, the volcano that formed the island erupted without any warning. The ash started covering the entire town, and everybody had to get off the island in a hurry! Lava started flowing right over parts of the town and into the harbor. The lava would have closed the harbor off completely, but workers sprayed the hot lava with cold water from the sea to make it harden and slow down. They kept doing that for a year! They were successful in stopping the lava, and the harbor is actually better today than it was before 1973. Lots of houses weren’t so lucky: many were covered with ash and cinders, and some were totally destroyed by the lava flow. We took a hike on the lava. Even today, parts of it still feel warm!
Grandma remembers seeing color photos of the eruption, with glowing red lava advancing on the town. Everybody got off the island safely, but nobody could go back to live in Heimaey for almost two years. At first, everything was the color of volcano ash. Now there are lots of green plants and wildflowers. Some houses could be dug out of the ash, and some new houses were built on top of the lava flow that destroyed the old ones. Tomorrow, we’re going to another part of Iceland to see more sights, but I’m glad I got to visit Heimaey!
Love,
Lion-san
Lion-san’s itineraries are always very instructive! He should publish “Lion-san’s Guide to Iceland.”