Home to the Happiest Sheep on Earth: Iceland

Our interest in Iceland was sparked while reading “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner. In the book, the author visits what according to one database are the happiest countries in the world. We were a bit surprised to see Iceland on that list. When I thought of Iceland, I thought of cold, endless nights and an empty landscape. Weiner’s descriptions of Reykjavik and its people did not jive with that image at all. So, Milos and I decided to add Iceland to our travel list and see for ourselves, although we had no idea when we would actually make it there. The happy coincidence of a Delta inaugural flight to Reykjavik from JFK (i.e., cheap promotional fares), a wedding in Bulgaria, and the desire to see something other than our home countries on a visit to Europe, transformed Iceland from an item on a list to a destination on an actual itinerary. So, off we were on August 12.

I have always believed that first impressions of a place and people are the most telling; and also quickly fade away as one’s senses adapt to the surroundings. My first impressions from Iceland would have to be:

1.     People are super friendly and helpful. They are also curious as to what you think of their country and how you are enjoying your stay. All in all, they are the perfect hosts.

2.     Nature in Iceland is overwhelming… in a good way. I felt small and insignificant in comparison. The only other time I have felt that way was in Patagonia. (But more on nature later.)

3.     Iceland feels empty. I had not realized that the population was only 300,000. A little more than a third lives in Reykjavik. So, as soon as you exit the city, it’s just you and nature (and some sheep). (More on sheep later.) No surprise then that even Reykjavik on a weekend lacked the hustle and bustle. That’s population sparsity for you.

4.     Reykjavik is a fun and very livable mini city – it’s green, clean, walkable, child-friendly, and party central on the weekends. Seattle is apparently its sister city and, although I have never been to Seattle myself, from friends’ descriptions I can see how the way of living and proximity to nature can compare. Conclusion: I would not mind living in Reykjavik (although I reserve the right to change my mind until I have had the chance to experience a Reykjavik winter as well, although Icelanders say it is not as cold as one would assume, since the Gulf Stream brings warm air, but it is dark…for a long time).

5.     Icelanders love fast food. Apparently, there is a strong US influence. Iceland has one of the highest per-capita consumptions of Coca-Cola in the world. They love hot dogs (that’s like the national food), burgers and pizza. While at a famous burger joint in Reykjavik, we saw families downing their burgers with pitchers of Coke. I had not expected that for sure!

6.     And Icelanders love coffee, and they prize high-quality coffee. All of the coffee we had there was much better than most coffee in the U.S.

7.     Drinking and partying is reserved for the weekends (and people go all out on both fronts on Friday and Saturday nights), but the rest of the week is pretty calm and quiet. I guess work hard, party hard is what they abide by.

8.     Sheep are everywhere (outside of Reykjavik that is). They graze freely, and we spotted some in pretty remote areas, far from any farms. Usually, they wander around in groups of 3-5, not large herds, so I would guess families?

9.     Iceland is expensive. I guess that should come as no surprise. It is not as expensive as it used to be before the crisis, but it is definitely not a cheap destination. Didn’t feel much different price-wise from New York.

10.  Children rule. Reykjavik (and Iceland on the whole) must be one of the most child-friendly places I have ever been to. Families with their kids were out everywhere; people aren’t bothered by the multitude of strollers (as is the case in NY), there are plenty of perks and discounts for kids. As one magazine article I read put it, “Icelandic moms look happy and relaxed, not stressed and worn out.” I also enjoyed reading the following somewhere, “Icelanders treat children as mini adults, therefore visitors to Iceland may not see as many things geared specifically towards children.” Who knew?

For me, the most memorable parts of the trip will be the ones spent outside the city. I had been craving some “nature time” for a while and I definitely got my fill and more. My descriptions will not do full justice to the scenery, but I hope the photos will rectify some of that. After an initial day in Reykjavik, we hopped on a bus to Skaftafell National Park in the south, located at Iceland’s largest glacier – Vatnajökull. The way inter-city buses are organized in Iceland is mostly to serve tourists. Most bus journeys are accompanied by some audio guidance, highlighting interesting sights and explaining this and that along the way. On one trip, we had the “guide” tell us a number of Icelandic sayings and superstitions for a good 10 minutes. At the end of it, I only remembered one, perhaps because it seemed the most absurd: “If you see nine cows in a shed with a grey bull next to the door, and all of them lie on the same side, you are in luck, because you will be granted one wish.” I had no such luck.

As soon as you leave Reykjavik, you feel like you have entered another planet – black igneous rock, covered by patches of green moss, alternating with hills of the same colors. And that’s just the beginning. From there the scenery changes several times along the way. Horses and sheep dot the landscape. Villages and towns are merely a collection of houses, sometimes as few as five, and it’s actually gas stations that serve as transit points, where you can switch from one bus to another, not towns or villages. Or perhaps the gas station is the central spot of the town, given the lack of a central square or other central location. There is definitely no lack of natural sights. We stopped at a couple of waterfalls along the way, and saw many more from the bus. 

But the highlight of the day would be Jökulsárlón – the glacial lagoon filled with icebergs, which have broken off from the Vatnajökull glacier. Shades of white, blue and black alternate on these giant floating blocks of ice, some over 1000 years old. We took a boat tour to view them at close range (although you still can’t get too close for safety reasons; apparently, the icebergs are known to flip over without warning and with more than 50% of their mass underwater, you need to keep a good distance). While waiting for our turn to board, we enjoyed watching some seals make laps in the lagoon. It was almost as if they were taunting the tourists. Their heads would appear periodically above water, they would swim around, then dive and disappear for a long time, leaving you wondering whether you will get another chance to capture them on camera. 

 

After the lagoon visit, we returned to the park, hiked up to our guesthouse and left our things, before going to see yet another waterfall, Svartifoss. This one flanked by black basalt columns, which made for an impressive sight. There is much more to explore at Skaftafell, including glacier hikes and other activity involving snow and ice, but we had decided to spend more time trekking more to the southeast, having become acquainted with glaciers on our climb of Huayna Potosi in Bolivia. Landmannalaugar was calling – the starting point of the Laugarvegurinn 4-day trek to Thörsmórk. 

 The bus ride to Landmannalaugar the following morning was accompanied by drizzle. We had had good weather the previous couple of days but knew that there was rain in the forecast and had been mentally prepared. Plus, Icelandic weather can be quite fickle and you can get a little bit of everything in a single day. On the way we stopped at Eldgjá – a volcanic rift that stretches 40 km. According to our bus brochure “only the name itself conjures up images of a mysterious and powerful place.” Although definitely different, I did not share the feelings of the brochure’s author. A trail through the rift led to another… you guessed it, waterfall. This one made up of multiple cascades. The drizzle persisted to Landmannalaugar, covering the surroundings in a veil of mist, which made the greeting “Welcome to beautiful Landmannalaugar” a bit incredible. We had reserved beds at the only hut and were told to find two mattresses in room #1. Room #1 actually contained 32 mattresses and I knew right away it would be a long night. There was no way in the world that at least one person (if not more) would not snore that night. But all in all, the hut was quite comfortable (as were the remaining huts we would stay in along the trek): we had access to a kitchen (cooking and eating utensils included), hot showers (for $4 per 5 mins), and, most importantly, a warm and dry place to spend the night! Our first stop was the thermal pool near the hut. Hot springs are so common throughout Iceland that at some point your nose stops picking up on the sulfur smell, but what is not as common is water of temperature that would not scorch your skin right off. Turns out that in Landmannalaugar water from a hot spring and glacial runoff join to create a pool of perfect temperature. Even the continuing cold drizzle could not keep us away. By the clumps of people in the pool, one could immediately tell where the temperature was best. I only wished that such pampering awaited us at the end of our trek.

The next day, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and just like that, the veil had lifted. (I even got to use my sunglasses that morning! Something I would not repeat until Day 4 of the trek.) The landscape had magically transformed from black-and-white into full color. As we started the trek, I had to admit – it was quite beautiful. Rolling rhyolite hills of shades of green, red, orange, and purple; patches of light blue sky; the tents at the campsite we had just left behind mere colored dots on a canvas. (Given all the volcanic activity in the country, we quickly learned about different kinds of volcanic or igneous rock. Apparently rhyolite rock is formed when mineral-filled lava cools unusually slowly, and the result is these spectacular colors.) 

Another highlight of Day 1 was the geothermal area Stórihver, which literally bubbled, boiled, and steamed. Unfortunately, there was no flow of cold water in this part to make any of the hot springs batheable. As we approached the hut where we would spend the night (Hrafntinnusker), the ground began to gleam in black and grey. What seemed like silver from afar turned out to be black obsidian rock (formed when lava cools rapidly with minimum crystal growth, according to Wikipedia) – very smooth and very shiny. And it was literally everywhere. Hrafntinnusker greeted us with sunshine. But as soon as we got ready to explore the area, the rain started coming down. We decided to wait for it to let up a little and then still hike to some collapsed ice caves nearby. By the time we returned (after making a detour to another set of hot springs as well), the hut had become considerably more crowded. People’s wet clothes were draped to dry all around the hut (which made for a cozy, but somewhat smelly experience). A group of Slovaks (who were camping, but had sought out a drier, warmer place until bedtime) were squeezed into the vestibule area of the hut with all the hiking boots, sitting on small stools, but they did not seem to mind and were engrossed all night with game after game of cards. (I always knew you guys were sturdy hikers, Nadka!) We were just happy that we did not have to camp.

Day 2 greeted us with dense clouds and fog. Some people decided to wait a little to see if the fog would lift but there was little indication of that, and the warden also did not seem optimistic, so we set off. There is not much to report on given the limited visibility, until we began the descent to Lake Álftavatn and could spot the lake in the distance. We knew that the next hut was located near its shores. This turned out to be the most luxurious hut of the hike: we slept 4 people to a room in what looked like a recently constructed building. The only downside was that all of a sudden we felt a little too close to civilization again. A bus made a daily stop at the hut, and some hikers began or ended their hike here, instead of trekking the full route. It was here that we said goodbye to a French couple we had befriended along the way. It was also here that we met a young German, who had brought along nothing but 500g of pasta for the trek, not even pasta sauce or ketchup. By the end of the 4 days he was infamous but definitely did not take himself too seriously – making jokes of how his diet was actually varied, because one day he would make the pasta al dente and the next day cook it fully through. A side hike around the lake turned into an adventure as Milos decided that the trail led up a rocky incline. While the views from the top were spectacular, the scrambling down was not so much. But we made it back to the hut in one piece, just as it began to drizzle again.

Day 3’s highlights included the fording of two rivers (icy cold of course, but also refreshing and good for your feet and circulation!) and walking through an endless desert of black sand. The sight got to be a bit monotonous, but the soft sand underfoot was definitely welcomed by my knees. The sun also peeked out a few times. 

After reaching our destination – the huts at Emstrur – and dropped off our backpacks, we took a side hike to what many described in the guestbook of the hut as the highlight of their day: the Markarfljótsgljúfur canyon, what someone termed as the green Grand Canyon. I have to admit, it was pretty spectacular, especially as greens flowed into reds and into blues. The color palette in Iceland is amazing. Some strange white birds were circling in the canyon. The sun peeked out again and as we headed back to the huts, we were rewarded with a breathtaking view of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier – the sun’s rays hitting the dazzling white ice cap.

 Day 4 greeted us with sun. But a dark cloud was fast approaching, so all of us hastened to pack our backpacks and head out as soon as possible. All along the way, the clouds were at our back, but luckily did not reach us. The terrain was a bit more varied from the previous day – hilly, grassy, rocky in turns. We had to wade through another river. This one had a stronger current than the two from the previous day, but we made it across with no mishaps. So did most people; only one girl managed to drop her boot somehow, and her hiking buddy had to chase it downstream, jump in, and grab it. Then she herself stumbled and fell. By the time we helped her out, she was soaking wet. Luckily we were not too far from the last hut, so we lent her some dry clothes and she hurried on. Then trees appeared. We hadn’t seen any trees in days. It was a nice way to end the hike – walking through a semi-forest, which then opened up into a clearing, and there was the Thörsmórk hut, with the infamous Eyjafjallajökull in the background. I had imagined we would see a ravaged landscape, given last year’s eruption, but it seemed quite like the rest of the Icelandic landscape (may be because it is all volcanic in the end). Our final destination and a bittersweet feeling of accomplishment and nostalgia, as our adventure had come to an end.

Iceland is harsh, resilient, surprising, unique, friendly, and much more. Mostly it’s just hard to sum up in words. I am happy to have experienced it and would recommend it to all nature lovers. Go out there and feel insignificant. I can also confirm Weiner’s observations: people in Iceland seemed quite happy. But the happiest to me without a doubt would be the sheep.