Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.11.2015, Page 29

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29The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2015 TRAVEL
Distance from Reykjavík
Around 97 km
Onwards and upwards
Bjössi has another employee who helps
him to run the pool—a Polish worker
named Aga. “It’s just two of us working
here,” Aga says. “It gets very, very busy.
And there’s so much to be done—we
need bigger changing rooms. We don’t
sell souvenirs or anything like that, and
we’re proud of that. We only charge for
entry for the pool—we want to keep it
as uncommercial as possible, just about
the swimming."
They’ve also found partners in other
new travel businesses. Breathe Iceland
is a young company running day-long
excursions in which people do yoga
classes in the Icelandic nature, includ-
ing Gamla Laugin, and there have also
been groups who arrive with swimwear
kits that allow them to float freely in
the water. “That’s a funny thing to see,”
says Bjössi. “All these people just float-
ing around. Those groups are regular
now—they listen to Sigur Rós music,
make boiled eggs in the hot spring, and
watch for the northern lights.”
Bjössi’s take on Iceland’s tourist in-
flux is, understandably, a positive one.
“I think Icelanders are happy with it,”
he says. “It’s good for the economy.” He
pauses for a long time, suddenly red in
the face and looking like he’d rather be
doing anything else other that being in-
terviewed. “I don’t really have much to
say!” he smiles. “I don’t talk much.”
With his Secret Lagoon project still
growing rapidly in popularity, some-
thing tells me this reticent but re-
sourceful Icelander will be just fine.
“That’s a funny
thing to see. All these
people just floating
around. Those groups
are regular now —
they listen to Sigur
Rós music, make
boiled eggs in the hot
spring, and watch for
the northern lights."
“When it comes to sightseeing in Ice-
land, I’m your girl. I’ve fanny-packed,
camera-bagged and way-too-big-ruck-
sacked with the most over-prepared of
tourists, and I’m far from done.”
Driving The Ring Road In Two Days:
Speed-Dating An Old Friend
Words Rebecca Conway
In a direct challenge to most internet
commentors, two friends and I de-
cided to spend two days circling the
island in a grey rental car. While cer-
tainly not “preferable” to taking one’s
time, driving Iceland’s storied Route
1—the ring road—in thirty-eight hours
is by no means “pure folly.” Maintain-
ing such a pace certainly results in
many lost opportunities to explore
alluring sites—at the same time it
provides a distinct sense of the raw,
sometimes infuriating beauty (here’s
looking at you, fog) the island reveals
when taken in as a whole.
For goodness’ sake
When it comes to sightseeing in Ice-
land, I’m your girl. I’ve fanny-packed,
camera-bagged and way-too-big-
rucksacked with the most over-pre-
pared of tourists, and I’m far from
done. Thus, when a friend needed a
ride to Seyðisfjörður, I figured that
since I had yet to see the east, my
scant free time would be best spent
driving him there. We called it the
“Fury Road Trip.”
Our driver barely blinked as we
drove north from the city, winding
around the near-empty roads. The
mountains were half-swathed in
snow, the countryside horses propped
so picturesquely in front of them you’d
think some nearby farmer was offer-
ing equine modeling classes. The light
alternated between a faded yellow and
green-blue, sometimes cradling both
colors. It was beautiful, while it lasted.
Pure folly
Nice as it was, my arm reached long-
ingly to the window as we sped past
old friends like Goðafoss, Fjaðrár-
gljúfur and Reynisfjara. I desperately
craved pulling over to reconnect with
these fine entities, but we had so little
time. To say nothing of the rain-fog.
Oh, the rain-fog.
In general, visibility was low. For
most of the trip, we could barely see
ten feet ahead. We bounced uncom-
fortably over the pot-holed roads. It
rained intermittently until darkness
set in, and the fog returned in surges,
even when the dark had completely
taken over (this happened by 7pm,
mind you). We missed a lot of things:
historic sites, landscapes and small
coffee shops. I drank too much RedBull,
and saw the inside of too many N1s.
The ring road in two days
Yet, despite all that rainy, foggy dark-
ness, I saw things I never thought I’d
see. Iceland revealed itself to us from
the angles that tourists lose when
they seek nightly refuge in their ho-
tels. Did you know that a spotlight
shines on Foss á Síðu at night? That
Akureyri looks so much bigger when
seen from a nearby mountainside in
the evening, once the locals have lit
up their porch lights? That I can, in
fact, drive straight through a cloud on
a curvy gravel road for forty-five min-
utes, without any accidents?
It’s rare to see the varied land-
scapes of Iceland in rapid-fire suc-
cession. I liked tracing the island all
at once, like a ribbon. I liked compar-
ing western Iceland with northeastern
Iceland, since we had driven by both
at the same time of day. I know Mý-
vatn doesn’t usually look much like
the South Coast. But it does, in dense
dark and even denser fog.
As I watched a German tourist
use his jeep’s high beams to illumi-
nate a night-enshrouded Jökulsár-
lón, I thought about how different the
shards of glacier would look tomor-
row. How different they had looked
when I visited them earlier this year.
Iceland is a landscape that chang-
es. Nothing accentuates this fact more
than seeing so much of it change in so
little time.
It was terrifying and comforting,
and I felt it all at once.