Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Page 52

“Sleepy” is an adjective so fre-
quently and tiresomely appended
to the noun “town” that together the
phrase “sleepy town” seems to con-
vey nothing at all, save an author’s
uninspired attempt to recycle ge-
neric diction for a specific circum-
stance. Yet here in Hafnir, on the
western limits of Reykjanes, as tat-
tered flaps of a homemade geode-
sic dome ripple in a noncommittal
breeze and three dogs sit solemnly
on someone’s doorstep, not one of
the town’s hundred-odd inhabitants
is in sight and I can’t help but think,
“What a sleepy little
town.”
S i t u a t e d j u s t
beyond an est u-
ary from Keflavík
International Air-
port, Hafnir seems
indifferent to the
changes of the last
decade, to the mil-
lions of new visitors
landing—loudly—in
full view across the
water. Although it’s
still not unheard-
of to find a town so
unamenable to the
whims and wants of
travellers—there’s
neither gas station
nor shop, hostel nor
campground—Haf-
nir’s proximity to
the airport makes
this lack all the more
remarkable. Only a small sign,
hardly noticeable, vaunts the town’s
extraordinary claim to antiquity.
The remains of hunting and fish-
ing cabins recently unearthed here
are possibly the earliest traces of
human inhabitation in Iceland and
may well revise the narrative of set-
tlement, suggesting that the island’s
first inhabitants were temporary,
seasonal visitors seeking the un-
tapped bounties of an unpeopled
land—bumbling foreign backpack-
ers in a 9th century tourism boom.
Lonely lava road
We’re gliding through Reykjanes
peninsula today, eschewing land-
marks with jam-packed car parks,
seeking instead unfrequented nov-
elties and oddities along the way.
Suburbs turn to lava fields along the
expanse of Route 42 that extends
south of Hafnarfjörður. Two long,
straight stretches of relatively flat
road make this a popular cycling
route: dozens of cy-
clists, heads hunched
over handlebars, ped-
al through the mo-
notonously igneous
terrain. The land-
scape becomes more
mountainous in the
approach to Kleifar-
vatn, the largest lake
on the peninsula, but
before the lakeside
vista opens up to us,
we find our first im-
pulsive diversion and
turn onto Route 428.
A sign at the entrance
to the road warns of
its potential dan-
gers: stony, sinuous,
sometimes soggy.
But without a tech-
nical designation as
an F-road, we’re cau-
tiously undaunted
in our Subaru. The road takes us
through archetypically Icelandic
lava fields abutted on either side
by craggy hills, but every so often a
twist in the road reveals an unchar-
acteristically lush expanse of grass
rolling along the hillsides. Hiking
trails branch off the road, some
several kilometres long. It’s not an
activity for today—we’re in sneak-
ers, and somewhat hungover—but
at only forty minutes’ drive from
Reykjavík these paths would make
a quieter alternative to scaling Esja
for the umpteenth time. Except a
lone teenager revving along on an
ATV and a handful of sheep, there’s
not a soul in sight on our hour-long
sojourn through the region.
The pebbly percussion of gravel
turns to asphalt’s continuous hum
as the road spits us out by Krýsuvík.
We take a spin around the area, to-
wards the sulphur clouds billowing
from the fumaroles and mudpots of
Seltún, but having all visited before,
we remain in the car and instead
discuss what it means to really see
or visit a place. I argue—unorigi-
nally—that photographing a land-
scape robs one of the experience of
the landscape, at which point we all
realize how hungry we are.
Deep-fried banana
Grindavík is a charmless place, but
that need not be a value judgment.
An active fishing town and one of
very few harbours along Iceland’s
south coast, Grindavík wasn’t built
to charm tourists. We stop for
lunch in Salthúsið, a fish restaurant
housed in a large pine cabin, a moun-
tain lodge amidst strip malls. Over
oven-roasted trout, we plan to con-
tinue not planning our day; like the
independent grownups that we are,
we order deep-fried banana for des-
sert. We pass through the town’s tiny
church on our way out of town. In-
New Old
Reykjanes
Looking and Seeing on a lazy day trip

Words: Eli Petzold
Photos: Timothée Lamrecq
The road takes
us through
archetypically
Icelandic lava
fields abutted
on either side by
craggy hills, but
every so often
a twist in the
road reveals an
uncharacteris-
tically lush ex-
panse of grass
rolling along the
hillsides.
52 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2017
The landscape becomes more mountainous in the approach to
Kleifarvatn, the largest lake on the peninsula,
We stop for lunch in Salthúsið