Today started with rain. Well, really it started last night right when we were hitting Reykjavik but continued into today. We made it all the way back to Vik last night so we only lost some time (read: sleep) but no distance. The morning was drizzly so we dressed warmly and fretted a little about being cold and wet on our first stop, the Glacier Lagoon. To those of you who haven't been intensely studying Icelandic highlights, the Glacier Lagoon (Jokulsarlon) is an tragically beautiful manifestation of climate change. The 8th largest glacier in the world is melting into the ocean, and every day pieces of it break off and make their way into the lake (lagoon) to melt down to a depth where they can continue their journey through the shallow causeway and out into the sea.
We lucked out and hit sun about 45 minutes from the stop and enjoyed clear skies while on an amphibian boat tour we reserved to wander out among the 'Calf Icebergs'. What is a calf iceberg you ask? Its a Glacier's baby (when a big hunk o' ice breaks off and ventures out on its own).We learned that the calf bergs (or baby bergs as we have taken to calling them) live about 5 years although the ice is about a thousand years old. We also learned that the landscape of the baby bergs change daily. New ones are always breaking-off and slowing shifting/moving towards the causeway, but additionally, they are prone to flipping and rapid color change. This is largely due to the presence of salt coming from the ocean mixing with the fresh water coming off of the glacier. The salt erodes the submerged part of the iceberg until the weight distribution shifts and an iceberg will tip (either gradually or sometimes suddenly). The brilliant blue color on some of the icebergs is due to the high water absorption but will diminish within hours of a tip as the air exposure starts to turn it white (as it freezes). You'll also see a lot of black. If there are significant black spots, it is just sediment (as much of the rock and sand in the area is black), but if there are thin lines of striation, then it is ash, and can be read like tree lines to identify certain volcanic eruptions in the past.
Our guide pulled a small chunk of ice out of the water for us to hold and see up close (and busted up a piece of it for us to taste). It turns out, all it takes to be an Icelandic viking is to hold this piece of really freaking cold ice in your bare hands for 30 seconds. Audrey and I are now both proud vikings and looking forward to receiving our official horned hats and raiding how-to any day now. Back on land, we wandered down the causeway to the ocean, where the baby bergs spend their final days. The much smaller baby bergs rush down the causeway and into the ocean where they are shoved back on shore by the waves. The glittering ice, like diamonds nestled in the deep black of the Icelandic sand has earned it the name black diamond beach. I have never seen a sculpture with more poetry than some of these beached pieces of glacier with indescribable whirls of lacy holes and supple curves. We finished our time at the glacier lagoon with some Icelandic staples... Audrey had a famous Icelandic hotdog (part local lamb and served with a remoulade) while I got my first taste of langoustine (looks like a crawfish, tastes like a lobster) on an Icelandic interpretation of a lobster roll. IT.WAS.SPECTACULAR.
The rest of the day was largely committed to the drive up the eastern coast of the island and inward to reach our B&B for the evening. On the way, we hit another natural hot spring to warm up and enjoy the breathtaking landscapes which still haven't stopped coming, and this time Audrey joined me! Despite being pretty close to the ring road, we ended up having them (there were 5!) entirely to ourselves and enjoyed an hour of warmth (and some light bathing, finally!) mixed with sweeping views of a rural valley bounded by monolithic plateaus....let me just say, Iceland makes it pretty hard not to appreciate everything it has to offer. From there it was all about the drive. We thought it might be funny to start a running sheep count because they range freely across the country side and have been a running theme of our trip thus far but we hit the hundreds in less than an hour and realized it probably wasn't going to be feasible. We also tried to count 'Secret Waterfalls', ie the small waterfalls we can see from the car, just casually spilling down from every high place on this island (we're convinced they've simply sprung a leak somewhere) but that quickly reached an unreasonably high number too, so we gave up on counting things and just enjoyed pointing them out to one another as we made our way through the Eastern Fjords.
Our lodging (The Wilderness Center) caused us to leave the ring road and forge far into the interior on the Eastern side. Our adventure off the beaten path was well rewarded by some new breathtaking scenery and a spectacular vista at the top of the switchbacks (I feel like we've being using the word breathtaking a lot, but honestly, its hard to come up with other adjectives when we literally gasp every 5-10 minutes). I will say that the landscape started to look a lot more familiar with lots of evergreen and crystal clear water bubbling along bouldered stream-beds.It was a noticeable change, not only in the types of mountains we were seeing, but also in the nature of the trees themselves. Our first day out of Reykjavik, we noticed that all the trees were growing in eerily straight lines, or in squares of identical height and it dawned on us that nearly all of the trees we were seeing had been planted by hand to serve as wind, snow, and possibly as noise and dust breaks for the houses they surrounded and there were almost no naturally occurring trees on the souther part of the island...Which is really crazy... Anyways back on task: The Wilderness Center is an old farm house (and related structures) which bounds some nature preserves, and has maintained it rustic historical roots. Most of the buildings have been converted into beautiful little rooms with cozy blankets and hand-milled beds. We went straight for the showers and enjoyed the first real shampoo we've seen since day 1 before heading down for a family dinner around the table in the kitchen, cooked by our lovely hosts and shared with our fellow guests. We shared dinner with a pianist traveling on her own from La Réunion (a french island off the coast of Africa), an retired danish architect and his wife, and a couple hailing from Berlin (although she's originally Irish). Shes a software designer and he works for the german government as an economist, naturally, we had nothing to talk about.
Over vigorous conversation, we were treated to freshly baked bread, local broccoli and salad, and a curried fish and rice casserole for dinner, and rounded it out with a perfect home-baked date-cake with caramel topping and fresh whipped cream. After saying our goodnights, we rolled ourselves, exhausted but clean, full, and satisfied, upstairs and into bed.
Signing off,
Chelsea and Audrey (who's once again asleep by the time I am finish this, poor girl)
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