Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.12.2012, Síða 22

e able to hike or explore on
our own.
Gates of hell
The group is sleepy and quiet
as we soar through the south-
ern lowlands while Siggi relays
stories about the scenery. My
attention wavers. Hekla ap-
pears to th
22 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2012TRAVEL
As I stumble out of the car and aboard the bus
that I was supposed to be on, I’m warmly greeted
by Védís, who says apologetically, “I think we
must have left two minutes before you got there,”
even though I’m sure it’s my fault. I turn to find a
seat and face a full bus of tourists staring my way.
I consider announcing “Góðan daginn everybody,”
but think better of it and instead proceed down
the aisle, sheepishly nodding to each seat.
Bad at running away from volcanoes
On route to the glacier we drive through mostly
agricultural areas. “And this is Selfoss; here
there’s a slaughterhouse,” Védís says, deadpan. “I
hear some people here commute daily to Reykja-
vík, and some even knit on the way,” she quips.
The volcano Hekla is our next drive-by sight.
The last few eruptions have been what Védís calls
“very friendly,” if such eruptions exist, poking fun
at Icelanders’ attitudes towards volcanoes. “We
aren’t very good at running away from volcanoes,”
she informs us. “We’re more often running toward
them to take photos.”
At around 14:00 we arrive at Sólheimajökull
glacier, which translates to “Glacier of the Sun”:
an ironic name given our guide tells us it rains
here about two hundred days of the year. We are
lucky to hit one of the nice days.
After having crampons fitted to our boots, we
are each issued an ice axe. Slightly intimidated by
their presence, I ask Arnar about the walk’s level
of difficulty. “If you can manage to walk around
town for two hours, you’ll be fine,” he says and
later admits the axes are mostly for the photos.
Aesthetically, the glacier is nothing short of
spectacular. Ice sculptures are scattered amongst
sharp crests and deep crevices, some coated in a
thin sheet of ash, like an ice labyrinth.
Like Mother Nature making a pizza
Sólheimajökull is a glacier tongue, extending
down from its mother glacier, Mýrdalsjökull,
which is Iceland’s fourth largest. Arnar explains
the process of the glacier melting as if Mother
Nature were making a pizza: first there’s the
dough, the flat earth, and then there are the top-
Icelandic Mountain Guides runs their Take a Walk on the Ice Side tour daily.
For more information visit www.mountainguides.is.
distance from Reykjavík: 165 kmSólheimajökull1
Out There On The Ice
Glaciers, waterfalls and Icelandic meat
soup in the South of Iceland
Words by Thomas L. Moir
“This tour’s been a bit of a game-changer,” our guide Arnar says from
the driver’s seat. “Its popularity has been unprecedented.”
Their most popular tour, ‘Take A Walk On The Ice Side,’ is an updated
version of a previous tour, which also included a northern lights sight-
seeing leg. “We can’t really promise the northern lights though, so now
it’s kind of an added bonus if we see them,” Arnar says.
Natsha Nandabhiwat
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