Day Seventeen: Saturday 24th August
Journey: Isafjordður to Stykkishólmur, Iceland
The tiny Island of Flatey.
The story so far: Linnea and Lyonel took various busses, trains and boats and have spent almost a week in the Svalbard-like Westfjords of Iceland. They were cold and wet and had some fun in between the two. They are now on their way out towards Reykjavik…
The couple of days we spent in the Westfjords were lots of fun, a bit cold maybe, but besides that, it was totally worth it. Still, the Westfjords were just one leg of this whole Iceland-trip thingie, and there was a still a lot to do…
On Saturday morning, we woke up real early and packed the tent under a charming mixture of morning dew and Equatorial monsoon. We then trotted away towards “town”, in order to take a long-awaited shower. Indeed, the camp site’s shower was rather terrible, and we managed to avoid it by receiving an invitation from Dylan, the High German scholar from the Gisla Saga course, to use his shower. This was rather nice.
Lyonel making funny faces in the cafeteria of the Ferry Baldur.
Once we cleaned off the earthen mud that had come to cover our whole bodies, we moved towards Isafjordður’s tourist information where a tiny mini-bus was waiting for us. We paid the driver, entered the bus and headed southwards.
Thankfully for Linnea, we passed by the impressive landscape around Geirþjófsfjordur and she had the opportunity to witness the glorious view of the Dynadi Waterfall. Even better, our driver (most likely a proud local) left us have a short photo stop there. This was rather nice.
Icelanders have strange traditions, this elf was taking part in his bachelor party.
After that, we passed the mountains and reached the southern end of the Westfjords (namely the huge Dyrafjörður) where we took the ferry towards the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Upon our arrival at the harbor, a strange looking guy dressed in an elf costume arrived and started talking bullshit to random people while another guy was filming him. It was rather strange (and certainly not like most people would think of Icelandic Hulder) but we later found out that this (poor) dude was having his bachelor’s party and had people giving him orders through a headset while streaming his exploits live through their accomplice’s camera. One thought: poor dude. Another one: the first of my male friends to get married will get it. This will be rather nice.
On the Ferry, (which was incidentally named Baldur), we ate food and managed not to throw it all up despite the boat’s constant rocking. We passed the Island of Flatey halfway through the fjord, an Island so tiny that it challenges your pre-conceived notions of tininess.
This bright red building housed the volcano museum.
Once in Stykkishólmur, on the other side of the Fjord, we moved our heavy backpacks towards the bus station and once freed from this nightmarish burden, decided to go cultivate ourselves. With only one hour and a half, we didn’t have so much time to browse around but by sheer luck, a Volcano museum materialized itself at the edge of town, giving us an opportunity we couldn’t refuse.
Stykkishólmur´s Volcano museum was interesting. It of course informed about the Geologic aspects of Volcanology (the museum’s owner is in fact, one of Iceland’s most respected Volcanologists) but it mostly focused on the way people represented Volcanoes and volcanic eruptions through art. There were many paintings, sculptures, maps and other priceless artifacts on displays, spanning thousands of years and about a dozen continents. And we even managed to see through the whole exhibit before heading back to the bus station. Neat says I.
And the soon-to-be-bride, dressed as a princess.
When we reached the bus station, no buss was there to great us. We therefore ate chocolate-coated Oreos (gotta love American cultural imperialism sometimes). While stuffing our mouths with diabetes-inducing treats, we noticed a group of people on the other side of the street, playing this strange Scandinavian game called “Kubb”. One of them was a lady all dressed in pink plastic attire, she seemingly was forced by the other members of the group to salute and wave at every car and pedestrian passing by. This seemed rather strange, but the woman was actually our green elf’s soon-to-be wife. Icelanders really do know how to have fun it seems.
While pondering on Iceland’s strange nuptial traditions, the (mini, once again) bus arrived and we got in. An hour and a blog post later, we arrived in Borgarnes.
