Iceland Travelogue

My wife and her sisters had the opportunity to use a condo in Hawaii for ten days last spring.  The trip would involve three plane changes going and coming back. I would need to take forearm crutches for hiking and sightseeing. It all felt too overwhelming, so I opted out.  My wife, who was disappointed that I wouldn’t be going, asked, “So, if you could go somewhere, where would that be? We have a fiftieth anniversary coming up; we could plan something.”

My answer was, “Iceland.”

For the past thirty-five years or so, we have tent-camped our way across the United States and Canada. Iceland would be a totally new experience for us. Camping and tent replaced by hotel accommodations with bathrooms. Who wouldn’t be excited! 

Barb looked at maps of Iceland with me. We talked to friends who had been there and read tips on the internet. Then she left for Hawaii. While she basked in the Kona sunshine, I made reservations covering fourteen days, following the famous 835-mile-long Ring Road. We left home on September 20th, temperature in the seventies, optimistic and open to new experiences.

The first surprise came in the airport, when, an airport employee, seeing my forearm crutches, offered me a wheelchair. Barb tagged along as we were whisked through all the check-in procedures. No waiting in line. I didn’t even have to take my shoes off for the TSA check. Who knew? Infirmity has its privileges.

The next surprise came when we landed in Iceland, temperature in the high thirties. A very nice young man, again whisked us through baggage claim, money exchange and even took us to a separate building to pick up our rental car. Wheelchair conveyance, I was learning, was kinda cool. Our “passenger assistant” showed us web sites for checking road conditions and info on the Northern Lights. He made recommendations for “must see” places, wished us well and sent us on our way.

There are so many things about this island that were new and different for us. The predominant speed limit is 90kmh, which is 55mph to us Americans. That allowed us to drive relatively slowly and really take in the scenery.

“What is that beeping?” Barb asked as she drove the two hours to our first hotel. The roads are narrow, one lane in each direction, and our rental car beeped if we touched the white line defining the lane. It was natural to edge toward the nonexistent shoulder as a car rapidly approached from the opposite direction. We heard the beeping a lot.

Other than in the largest cities, three by my count, there are no traffic lights. There are roundabouts, which work quite well to keep traffic sorted and moving. I liked that aspect of their roadway systems.

We chose the unconventional clockwise direction to begin our exploration of the island. Most tourist information suggests going counterclockwise from the airport, exploring southern Iceland first. We headed north instead, thinking to avoid crowds when possible.

We began to see sheep are everywhere. They are allowed to roam freely in pasture and mountainside until sheering time in April/May and October/November. Huge, round balls of wool with legs are what we saw. White and black predominate, but there were some blended grey colors as well. We saw them in large herds in big pastures, in small groups scattered on hillsides and some wandering along the road, not bound by fence or paddock. Those we took to calling the escapees. “Hey, look out, I see some escapees up ahead.” 

The other animal we saw in abundance were Icelandic horses. They are stocky framed with beautiful flowing manes. They, too, wander freely much of the time. The prevailing practice is to let the horses forage for themselves until the weather turns snowy. Then they are gathered in and housed in barn complexes. The Icelandic horses can come in forty distinct colors, and one hundred patterns… each pattern has a name in the Icelandic language. When some were standing along fence lines close to the road, we’d pull over and take photographs. I’ve never been around horses so this was a new experience for me. Many farms had signs offering riding, but I can barely walk so this wasn’t an option we chose.

We missed the puffin season. What we did see were large flocks of white geese. Sometimes we’d pass a field filled with them resting. We are guessing they are snow geese in a migratory visit. They are beautiful birds.

We also saw whales and seals, but not in the numbers we have seen in Alaska, so that was disappointing.

Part of the allure of Iceland for us is its reputation for waterfalls. It didn’t disappoint! I quickly learned that foss means waterfall, so any sign ending in foss meant a waterfall nearby. We saw so many that I can’t choose a favorite. Each was unique in its setting, history, layout, and height. Guidebooks list all the major ones, but as we drove in the north and east particularly, we could see as many as fifty in a three hour stretch of road. The mountains are backed up by glaciers and that means any vertical mountain wall of porous lava rock casts water down its length. We definitely have a Christmas card photo waiting to be chosen from our multiple waterfall pictures.

As we traveled, we were relieved to find that English is spoken everywhere. Children learn it in school, along with some French and Dutch.

The Icelandic language is baffling to our American ears and tongues. Try to wrap your tongue around Kirkjubaejarklaustur, or maybe Blaskogabyggd. We used our map like it was the Bible and didn’t ask for directions to places we couldn’t dream of pronouncing. It was fun to hear our GPS voice saying names, which gave us a clue to some pronunciations.

There is so much more to tell. The landscape variations from north to south and east to west varied. We had some snow in the north. The cold and rain made us glad we had packed warm, waterproof items of clothing.

The clouds hid the Aurora from us. We had a low one day of 17 degrees, while most days ranged in the low to mid 30’s.

There was so much to see, that one day a sixty-six-mile drive took us five hours. We drove on a beautiful, snowy mountain pass, that had me a bit anxious with its ten percent grade descent. We saw lava beds covered in bright green moss and gorgeous heather on the mountainsides as we made our way east. We passed fishing villages both north and south and spent time in whale and seal museums. Viking history and legends rose to greet us at many of our stops. We visited a turf farm museum and walked through a lava tube tunnel.

Was there a down side? Maybe. What we didn’t do was spend time in the capital of Reykjavik. We didn’t go to the famous Blue Lagoon. We ate out only once, because food prices were ridiculous. We did grocery shop and had meals we enjoyed. One of our hotel stops was a third-floor room the size of a broom closet—and no elevator. But that was the exception. We traveled at a slow pace and avoided the “in” places filled with large tour buses parked side by side. We only saw the Northern Lights once in two weeks. But what a show that was from the parking lot of a hilltop church! Awesome.

At 76 years old, life is too short to have regrets, but I’ll list one here. I wish I had done this twenty years ago and in the subsequent years was able to return to explore more of the interior, which was inaccessible to us due to icy roads. To anyone asking, I’ll say, go while you can. It’s an awesome place full of landscape wonders, friendly people and interesting animals. Just do it.

Copyright © 2024 by Gail Greene Ouimet