waterfall

Around Reykjavik

Share Button

Around Reykjavik 

On the way back to Reykjavik that first morning, we stopped to pay our respect to Geysir Strokkur–“the Churn”–that shoots water 65 feet into the air every 5 minutes. Visitors are warned to stay on paths to avoid being scalded in the geothermically-heated area.

Driving back to Reykjavik
Driving back to Reykjavik

Still in awe of the waterfall, but getting very hungry and very tired, we found the Hotel Geysir around Gullfoss and Geysir Strokkur. Our first sticker-shock…~$30 for 2 soups, 2 sandwiches and 2 coffees. Colorful money even if it didn’t hang around very long…$7 U.S. = Icelandic Kronur 500…or kr75 to a $1.

I picked up a few postcards of Gullfoss, one of it frozen solid. It looks like dripping white icing, curling at the plate. In the photo, people boldly walk across the lip of the fall…on ice. It is a stunning photograph and tempts me to return to Iceland in the winter

On the quiet ride back to Reykjavik, “All I Want is You” came on the radio…we passed green green fields, stony mountains and saw large boulders resting in odd places as if flung there. Boulders everywhere…spotted with green and yellow moss/lichen and surrounded by short tuffs of golden red grasses. Every now and then, a red gravel driveway led to a distant building.A slinking, curly-headed girl with a tattoo on her chest answered the door to Gisthaus Svala (Gistiheimilid Svala). She wore jeans beneath a black apron skirt and sashayed it like a ballroom gown all the way to Room #7. We tucked in for a 3 hour nap. I dreamed of waterfalls so big I couldn’t see the other side.

We spent 2 days in Reykjavik. Spending time at the Dubliner pub and a little tea/coffee house called Tiu Dropar. Tiu Dropar was at garden level–teapots and sugar cubes, beaded lamps and plenty of time/space to spend writing postcards and warming up after long walks. I was amused by the tin covered houses painted bright colors. They often had window boxes of colorful heath and heathers. We ate well, walked a lot, saw the sites and bought “woolies.”

On 9/18, we left for our drive south to Vik.

Reykjavik windows
Reykjavik windows
Kaffihus Cafe, Reykjavik
Kaffihus Cafe, Reykjavik

A Lunar landing: Reykjavik and Gullfoss

Share Button

Lunar landing in Reykjavik 

The descent was a quick 20 minutes into Iceland. We rented a green 4-door Opel with license plate “TV 222″ and set out for Reykjavik….”Sweet Home Alabama” on the radio.

Surreal.

Have we landed on the moon? Where was the green grass? The waterfalls? The land around the airport was rocky–like a dug up construction site, for miles. Every now and again, we spotted red roof houses in the distance–across the rocks. It was early morning, nothing was open, the streets were empty.

Gullfoss

Jet lagged and without a home to go to yet, we decided to drive the 45 miles to Gullfoss waterfall. The morning sky was overcast…low, dark gray-periwinkle clouds squeezed a thin, bright white break of sky at the horizon line. We passed fields of short reddish-yellow grasses, blue mountains in the distance, very few buildings, and only one or two cars. We arrived around 9 a.m. Not another soul around. You heard the wind and the distant rumble of water–lots of water–and saw the far-off Langjokull glacier from the parking area. We followed the path and in about 10-15 minutes stood at the waterfall’s edge.

Good LORD!  It was HUGE! Majestic! Loud!  Gullfoss–“the golden waterfall”–is the River Hvita tumbling down a deep canyon 70 meters deep and 2.5 kilometers long. I read somewhere that it was to be dammed, until a farmer’s daughter walked to Reykjavik to protest. Now, it is a national monument.

Bryan at Gullfoss
Bryan at Gullfoss

We walked down some steep stone steps, embedded in the ground and slick with mist and moss. The path led us to an outcropping of rocks that change the path of the waterfall. There is a view point from here that puts you below the water fall (as it is falling into the canyon crack before the spit of land you stand on). It is a shocking perspective. Fear nearly rooted me to the spot. Bryan wandered on. I stood there–mist flying up at me in the waterfall’s perpetual rain. The sound was deafening. It was so green, the smell so freshly intense of moist earth. The wind alternated between playing and pushing. And I stood there. Locked into the moment that has become a dreamlike memory.  We spent over an hour there, trying to absorb the spectacle.

on a spit of land below the waterfall Gullfoss
Rooted in fear on a spit of land *below* the waterfall Gullfoss

 

Iceland Flag
Iceland Flag