glaciers are the coolest

I said *ice* spelunker. ICE.

Walking through a glacial ice cave was probably my number one goal of coming here (number two hasn’t been accomplished, but I have one more Friday night left), so my trip to the Solheimsjokull glacier didn’t disappoint. Words and pictures can’t really describe how majestic and awesome it is to stand on the precipice of a deadly crevasse or drink ice-cold glacial meltwater straight from the source, but here’s some pictures anyway. The weather was absolutely perfect (at one point I was walking around in a t-shirt) you could see the ocean from the glacier, our mountain guide was a burly Viking dude, and we were in a small group of 6 so it didn’t feel touristy at all. I even convinced the group to climb out of the ice cave the hard way, Gollum/ninja-style! Even if the rest of my time here had sucked, the glacier walk pretty much would have made the trip worth it. Everyone should do it sometime, whther here or in Alaska or wherever. Get ‘em before Dick Cheney makes them all melt into the oceans!

After the glacier we made a couple quick stops at two more waterfalls, which in my opinion were more impressive than Gullfoss, the main touristy waterfall. This was probably because you could see them from the ground, from the top, from behind…wow, I sound like Amber Waves talking about Dirk Diggler here. When combined with the football match and the dinner I had at Vox, this was definitely the best day of the trip. Where else can you walk through an ice cave and behind a waterfall, attend a World Cup qualifying match and eat a world-class meal within 6 hours?

Tags: iceland, naaaature
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geyser so-so

I haven't seen a spray like this since I was a fluffer for Peter North.

After Gullfoss, the bus pulled up to the Geysir hot springs area, home of the original geyser, Geysir, which was pretty gay, sir. Actually, it was quite good, I just wanted to see how far I could take the joke. Geysir doesn’t erupt very frequently–like every 100 years–but there were many other interesting hot springs, including Strokkur, which erupts like every 5 minutes. Continuing the LOTR landscape, Geysir is a bit like Emyn Muil, although it’s Mordor-ish too; the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume owing to the high sulfur content of the hot springs.

Some of the springs are filled with boiling mud, which sounds like a pack of wild hungry dogs. Then there’s other mud, which appears solid until you fall in it. There were these mysterious signs featuring a pair of shoes inside a “No Smoking” circle, which I took to be Icelandic for “Explore this area, you stupid American jackass.” The Muddy Shoe Incident of 2008 would set in motion a chain of events heretofore unexperienced by humans, about which much is written in the Saga of Stefan Davidsson.

The landscape around Geysir was really amazing–hills covered in moss and delicious wild blueberries, giant porcini mushrooms that I would have taken with me if I had any way to cook them, views for miles and miles. And there was a remarkable sense of impromptu community amongst the people waiting for Strokkur to erupt; you could sense the anticipation as it bubbled up, and when it finally blew, everyone went nuts. It doesn’t matter how many times you see a geyser blow up, it’s still cool.

Tags: iceland, naaaature
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iceland day 6: gullfoss

Exploring the countryside has yielded a lot of pictures, so I’m breaking each event into separate posts.

The first stop was Gullfoss, Icelandic for “Golden Falls,” which is the largest waterfall in the country. These pictures just can’t do the landscape here justice. Everything is so big and majestic and almost scary. It’s also really cool to think that it’s virtually unchanged from 1000 years ago. This country could easily have been the setting for the LOTR movies. As such, I did my share of Golluming around the waterfall, getting pretty much soaking wet and eating wild blueberries off of moss-covered cliffs. And I’m still alive!

Tags: iceland, naaaature
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