Black sand

Holidays!

Before leaving Iceland for good, we would like to take a couple of days to travel a bit in this beautiful country we didn't almost see. We got a car and we took the road to the south, in direction of Vik where Tince's got a friend we'd like to visit. The road from Reykjavik to Vik is beautiful. We left the lava fields of our peninsula for new landscapes of mountains, glaciers and waterfalls.

Vik is a cute town of southern Iceland, stucked between the mountains and the ocean. A small church overlooks at the town from a small hill, while down there waves cursh on the black sand. Just like sand, but black. With the storm and the rain around us, and the cliffs hidden in the fog, the scenery was surreal.

The storm went on during the whole day. We tried to figure out where to go and what to see in this weather. We drove a lot in the wind at first, making circles aound hills on gravel roads, before to find a spot where to stop. We were having a ride around another misty mountains, when we found a high cave where to have a dry lunch. And the view from the cave was incredible. Facing the ocean, we wouldn't see the waters, but a violent, raw and surreal stormy melt of black sand and gray rain.

Later we drove inland on a country road. At first the view was rather pastoral, the sheeps surrounding us in a green valley with a few lonely farms on the hills. But the farest we would drive from the sea, the farest we would go from this first scenery. The country gravel road changed into a scaring mountain trail. The grass left for sharp rocks. The highest we got in the mountain, the windiest it got. In the end the roads were like roller coaster - or like those roads in Tusheti, Georgia - going up and down between the rocks, with the fog blinding the gaps around and the wind making the car shake. A true Hell-like vision!

And so we came back to Vik for a rest, in the swimming-pool. The swimming-pool is small, but is the oldest in Iceland. From the pool and the hot-tub we have a pretty view on the mountains around. They have a sauna too. I must say this was the best sauna we had in Iceland, the closest to the real pirtiņa, unlike those steamy smelly ones they usually have in Iceland. In the evening we drove to the direction of Gullfoss where we spent the night.

For our last day in Iceland we did the so-called Golden Circle. We woke up by the waterfalls of Gullfoss. With it's 32 meters high and 70 meters wide this was a loud one! But it was nice to be there in the early morning, when no tourist or almost have arrived yet. Later we drove the 10 kms to Geysir, a geothermal area that gave its name to the word geyser. The geyser there is very active, with an ejaculation every 5 minutes, unfortunatly we didn't succeeded to take any good picture of that moment. The landscape was nice this place, with beautiful autumn colors, and even some trees! They also have a lot of warm houses in this region. With the naturally hot ground and water they can grow tomatoes, and even bananas!

We eneded our trip in a better weather, in the national park of Þingvellir. There, in the rift between two continents (eurasian and american plates), used to be hold the Althing, the first Icelandic parliement and the very first parliement in the world. That is also in this place the first viking settlers were giving justice among eachothers.

Skàl

Here they are! We finally got our visas to India! To celebrate, we went to the sea swimming, to the church and to a pub. We also chased city gosses and saw a helicopter landing.

Speaking about celebrating : I would like, before to leave, to talk about an important matter : Beer.
Iceland has good beer. In comparaison to other scandinavian countries, we could even say Iceland has very good beer. I will introduce you to some of our discoveries (many of them you can actually try in Tallinn!).

First Icelanders are crazy about stout beer, and they do brew some tasty ones. Two stouts stand out of this dark crowd :

• Lava : a smoked imperial stout from Ölvisholt Brugghùs. Very specific and original smokey taste.
  
• Borg Nr.19 Garùn : This is a great Icelandic stout! Nr.19 has a rich aroma of coffee, licorice and alcohol. It tastes really intense. But beware the combination of caffeine and 11.5% of alcohol, it can loose the best of us!
  

To carry on with dark beers, Iceland also brew nice porters :

• Borg Nr.13 Myrkvi : From the same brewery than the previous one. Quite an intense taste as well, with roasted and bittersweet aromas. This one really got Tince into dark beers!
  
• Einstök toasted porter : Dark and rich taste, yet easy to drink. Very nice to drink with dark chocolate.
  

And let's finish with some refreshing wheat beers :

• Einstök White ale : This one is indeed refreshing! Very light with a subtile note of citrus, this beer is perfect for hot summers ...so not for Iceland!
  
• Borg Nr.25 Solveig : This one is not my favorite, but it tastes interesting. It smells like banana and the beer itself is very hoppy.
  
  

A pair of Einstök white ale in local gay queer bar

There are many other beers here. Most of the beers people drink are average tasteless lagers and pilsners, such as Gull or Viking. Not much to say about those ones. But I was very surprised that in EVERY alcohol shops you may find Saku originaal...


Skàl!

L'autostop en Islande

L'autostop par temps sec...

...ou par temps de pluie.

Es gribu braukt ar savu velo!

Vakar mēs vēlreiz devāmies uz netālo pilsētiņu Grindavík. Šoreiz nolēmām nestopēt, bet gan doties turp ar velo (30 km turpceļa, pastaiga pa pussalu un 30 km mājupceļa šodien atgādina par sevi sāpošajās kājās). Mūsu brauciena galamērķis bija Hópsnes pussala, kas ievērojama ar tur notikušajām daudzajām kuģu avārijām. Ik pa gabalam krastā redzami izsviesti kuģu vraki, un priekš tik mazas pussalas to tur ir patiešām daudz! Šeit arī pāris foto no šīs dienas.

 

C'est la rentrée!

Today, 1^st of September, is a special day. C'est la rentrée – the first day of school! As long as I can remember, this day has always been important, as pupil, as student, as teacher. It feels kinda weird that I'm gonna miss school today. It's strange that today for me, is just a day.

J'ai néanmoins aujourd'hui une pensée spéciale pour ceux qui ont préparés cette journée, et avec qui je passais d'habitude mon 1er Septembre, mes anciens collègues, mes anciens élèves, mes anciens professeurs.
Nevertheless today i have a special thought for the ones who got ready for this day and with whom I would have usually spent my 1^st of September, my ex-collegues, my ex-students, my ex-teachers. 

And for the first day of class, I have a special treat for you : Let's learn some Icelandic!

I selected 7 words I would like to teach you. So far, after two months and a half here, it seemed to me that those words are some of the most important to know here in Iceland. But let's play a little game first. Please read this text. Some hidden icelandic words sneaked into it. Can you understand them?

Hi! My name is Sigurður. I live in Iceland, in the hraun fields. I love to go fishing in the fjords or in the vatn. I made my fishing rod myself, out of björk. My favorite fish is the þorskur. On my way back home I stop at the búðin to buy some mjölk. Takk!

You can now check out below the words you understood. You can find here the translations in the three most used languages of the visitors of the blog (in order : latvian, french, estonian), plus english for the ones who don't speak any of those.

Islenska	Latviešu	Français	Eesti	English
Hraun	Lava	La lave	Laava	Lava
Vatn	Ūdens / Ezers	L'eau / Le lac	Vesi / Järv	Water / Lake
Björk	Bērzs	Le bouleau	Kask	Birch
Þorskur	Menca	La morue	Tursk	Cod
Búðin	Veikals	Le magasin	Pood	Shop
Mjölk	Piens	Le lait	Piim	Milk
Takk!	Paldies!	Merci!	Aitäh!	Thanks!

Huldufólk

Elves, dwarves, trolls, fairies have been inhabiting Iceland together with human fishermen and vikings. They are called the Huldufólk, the hidden people. According to recent surveys (2006), nearly a quarter of the Icelanders believe in their existence, and another third assume it possible. But in Iceland also are dragons lying under the lava and various sea-creatures or lake-creatures in the waters...

For our little journey looking for the Huldufólk we had a car - and even two! No hitchhiking this time. We could get the polo with which I do the airport transfers. But right after leaving Keflavik, we had a breakdown with the car (the 3rd I had with this car!). The trip started well! Not enough money to call anyone we had to walk back to the town. But luckily (and quite surprisingly) our boss gave us the key of another car so we could go on with our plans! Direction : Grindavik, once again. But only crossing this time. After passing the town we drove along the southern coast of Reykjanes peninsula. The southern coast is much more beautiful than the northest one, more mountainous. We would like to get to Krýsuvíkurberg, some cliffs famous for birdwatching. To approach the cliffs we need to go out of the road. Fortunatly we are driving a 4x4 kangoo so we don't have to walk until there. That's very funny to follow the rocky trail and cross some shallow waters with a kangoo. Cliffs are nice, with very dark stones. Perfect spot for a picnic. But no birds to watch, only sheeps around us.

Later we got to Krýsuvík, a geothermal area in the mountains. Grey, red, yellow, green, the hills offer a colourful frame behind the steam. Boiling mud around us bubbles and brings us aroma of bad eggs. The smoke, everywhere, runs out of craters as if Hell was opening under our feet. We climbed on the hill to have a look on the smoky land. Solstafar, the hill, is actually a vent, a chimney shaped by the steam. On our way we could see the hill smoking by its sides. We actually didn't know it while climbing. Now it seems to us like we were sitting on a giant pressure cooker! Climbing wasn't easy, because of the strong winds, but the view was worth it.

 

Further we drove along a lake on an impressive gravel road, going up and down the hills. Kleifarvatn is a large lake (about 10 km2) and is almost only "feeded" by ground water. Landscape was incredible. The blue water contrasts with the black sand. This huge lake seems like a small sea, with waves crushing on the beach. A monster, ressembling a huge serpent, is suppose to live in the depths but we didn't see it. Probably the highlight of our day was this ride by the lake.

And in the end we arrived in Hafnarfjörður, a viking town at the entrance of Reykjavik. We had a walk around the harbour and the center. The town is quite lovely, with nice houses and streets (for icelandic standards). A bit out of the center, we found Hellisgerði park, supposedly inhabited by the royal family of Elves. Hellisgerði is a garden in the shadow of trees and rocks. We didn't find any Elves, only some cute blonde kids with unpronounceable names who seemes interested in us. This must be the ideal place for children to play and teenagers to hide.

 

We didn't find any Huldufólk today, but we had a pretty nice day. We discovered some amazing things to sight that were actually very close to us.

Liqueur, swimming pool & volcano

Yesterday was Tince's birthday. The occasion for us to try a new swimming pool, in Sandgerði, and to taste Icelandic blueberry liqueur. Tince is 25 years old now, and this 25th year we shall spend on the road. I'm glad we started this adventure together. I believe I wouldn't do it with anyone else.

Also yesterday we got some alert about Bárðarbunga, a volcano under Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Iceland. That's the price to pay for energetic independance and free hot water. Let's hope this will not cause troubles like when Eyjafjallajökul erupted in 2010 and flights got cancelled all over Europe. We wouldn't like to miss our flight to India...

100 ways how to cook a fish

In this post I want to share some pictures of our temporary hometown. We will be leaving this place for good on 1st of October. Yesterday we bought our plane tickets, one way to Delhi. It still makes me feel excited and freaked out at the same time. On our way to India we're gonna make a few stops, including a 24 hours long one in... Jordania. The most random destination I've ever had, still it makes the flight to Delhi quite a lot cheaper.

But for now we are still in Iceland, spending most of our time in Keflavik. If I was writting a book about our life here, I would call it "100 ways how to cook a fish". Fish factories near the coast, fishermen going home at the evening when I'm having my walk near the harbour, the smell of fish in the air, fish in local supermarket, fish on my dinner plate. Fish, fish, fish. And rocks. And wind.
That's Keflavik.

A lovely small harbour on the way to my favourite place - the cliff.

 

On the cliff. Lupīnas wich were blossoming all around here when we arrived are gone now uncovering the ground of lava rocks and fluffy moss.

 

 

 

Town Keflavik. Icelandic towns always make me think of how brave people Icelanders should be to settle their lifes down on the windy fields of rocks.

The sign on the door of this house warns: Crazy cat. I think those two look quite similiar!

Another "sign"  at the door. When the days are rainy and grey, you can draw your own sun or even two!

Hraun

 Free day, sunny day. Probably the most beautiful weather since we arrived. Perfect time to get a bit out of here and carry on discovering the peninsula...

Direction : Grindavík, in the south. Two cars to hitchhike and we are there. Our second driver, originally from South Afrika, lived for 24 years in Iceland. Coming back from his fishing morning, he took us down Þorbjörn, a mountain nearby the town. We spent a good part of the day hiking up and down the mountain. The place used to host an US military base during WWII, and every year events take place on the mountain for celebrating Midsummer.

The view up there was incredible. The sea covered three of the four horizons. Down we could watch at the wide lava fields circling the mountain by a sharp desert. Funny to imagine the lava still warm drawing Hell around our mountain/island. The famous touristic spot Blue Lagoon lies down Þorbjörn. From our place we could observe the smoke swirling up the hot waters. By the lagoon, a station transform the heat from the water into electricity.

After a tasty picnic we climbed down Þorbjörn to cross the lava fields separating us from Grindavík. In the lichen grew different kind of berries. We had no really idea about what kind of berries were there. But after chating with a woman plucking some of them, we decided to give it a try. She told us the name in Icelandic. No idea what it is in Latvian or French. She said they are very popular in this season. Those berries were indeed everywhere, we just had to sit down and pick them. We gathered a full bowl before to continue walking.

Grindavík is a town rised out from the lava. The cosy normal houses, their yards with barbecue and fences, stand somhow absurdly between the huge sharp stones.

Before to start hitchhiking back we stopped in Vínbúðin for some beer. We enjoyed our ending holiday drinking some refreshing Einstöck, made from pure icelandic water. Still looking for Garún n°19, the Holy Grail of icelandic booze...

A night at KEF

Tonight I'm standing in Keflavik Internationnal Airport, holding the boardsign of my touring company. In the back of it, I keep the list of the people I'm waiting for. The list is long, so will be the wait. I'm standing among other people like me. I bet we look funny, all at once trying to be visible. I know some of them. Or at least their faces are common. Some give me a sign from the head while I'm arriving taking my spot for the next 3 or 4 hours.

Six times a week I'm coming at KEF. After grabbing my lists and a pen at the office I jump in my car and drive to the airport. The car is very bad. Doors don't close anymore so I don't even need keys to get in. Fortunatly Iceland is a quite safe place, plus I don't know who would bother stealing this garbage. It makes an awful noise, but usually it's enough to drive the 5 kms to the airport. I say usually, because once I had a breakdown right before a roundabout on the way... I wouldn't have expected that I would come to Iceland to drive something worst than my old twingo!

The way to the airport goes through the raw and peaceful lava fields. Sometimes I pass by and scare a family of wild ducks on my way. Soon I find the airport, guarded by a dragon egg. The airport is not big, like every human constructions in Iceland. About 40 kms far from the capital, this is the only internationnal airport, the one of Reykjavik being only used for internal flights, plus flights to Faroese Islands and to Groenland. The airport was built during WWII, by the U.S. military and for military purpose only. In the 50s the terminal found itself positionned in the core of a military complex. This was the start of a big controversy in Iceland as internationnal travellers had to enter military check points. And the U.S. military kept their control on access to and from Iceland until 1987 when the civil terminal was moved. The U.S. actually kept military basis until 2006. This presence was felt by many Icelanders as an occupation and led to numerous protests against the United States and NATO. Every year protesters walked from Reykjavik to the airport, singing Ísland úr NATO, herinn burt (Iceland out of NATO, the military away).

In the airport, the wait is long, as always. Fortunatly I have some people to speak with. My neighbour is a young Icelander. He's amazed by the fact that I "come from Latvia". He's trying to speak with me in russian. His russian sounds ok, but the accent is terrible. Icelandic accent in russian sounds funny. It reminds me of estonian accent. There is also my bus driver (I take my tourists to a bus). I know the one of tonight, she's cool.  She's always so happy to see me, and so kind. She talks a lot about her family and how it is great to spend time with people you love. She also makes me read things she writes. During her long waits at the airport, she is writting stories for children. This one is the story of a polar bear from Groenland who arrives in Iceland on an Iceberg. I read only the begining of the story but it sounds awesome.

Sometimes in my long waits, when I see those many people from around the world, I would like to take off and fly somewhere. I'll have to wait a bit for that. We'll be in Iceland until the autumn. Anyway this week wasn't the best for flying by plane.

Finally my german tourists arrive! I welcome them with my terrible german and explain them they have to wait everyone arrives before to go to Reykjavik. Most of them are nice. Some are very talkative, and I don't get everything but I don't think it matters for them. Some german accents are very hard for me to understand. For instance, berliner german is very easy to get but swiss german I understand only one word every ten words.

All in all it's a funny job (actually only one of my jobs here in Iceland). I like to work at night if I don't have to wake up early the next morning. And I like to pretend I can speak languages! Actually my german is getting much better now with this job...

Épaves

And today we are hitchhiking again! This time, it's not possible to not find a good spot. Up the street where we live stands a signboard with the drawing of a raised thumb and the name of the town we're heading to : Garður. It's noon already, we overslept a little.

The night before we decided to have a look on the nightlife of Keflavík. For the first time since we left Rīga we went to have a drink out. Not much of choice but still it was hard to find a place where to have a drink. We finally enterred a small pub where we could drink some over-priced whiskey and beer. Drinking houses of small towns are always interesting, between a family-like home and a local drinkers' den. Those places seem to be the same everywhere, still they actually vary in each countries to show some kind of truth, the real face of people when they raise their glasses. The place we went in yesterday didn't make the exception. Somehow it reminded me a lot similar places in Finland. I don't know if it was because of the local 30 y.o. metalhead drinking with everyone, because of the 60 y.o. daily-drinker who couldn't stand on his feets or because of the gambling machines in the corner of the room, but there were definitly some similarities between both countries! Only Finland probably goes more epic in the extremes reached from sobriety to drunkenness. Beside that the place had some kind of charm. Everything was made to make the place look like on a ship. The metal balcony was shaped as the deck of a boat, facing the ocean. Inside a blonde girl was singing some pop music covers with acoustic guitar (which reminded me a lot of ship's bars as well). Her very cheerful and very drunk friends were making about 50% of the bar's population. One of them, over-friendly and certainly not sober, invited us to join the group and offered us beer. It was really nice to finally get to meet some real Icelanders. For the first time since we are here I really felt like living in Iceland.

Back on the road, hitchhiking was very easy. In less than five minutes we got a ride! Iceland is the hitchhikers' paradise. Except very often there are just no cars passing at all. But when there is one, it stops. Driver was just like the previous ones we hitchhiked in Iceland : around 50-60, friendly and talkative, explaining us everything there is to know about what is around. Arriving in Garður he showed us an empty former retirement home, and suggested us to start a business running a hotel here. He then dropped us at a lighthouse before to turn back to the direction of Sandgerði. The white lighthouse was closed so we went on the pier. It seems this place is a popular spot where to sight whales, seals and wrecked ships. But with thick fog and no binocculars we sighted nothing. However today we could observe many funny birds. Iceland host a great variety of birds which make the island a great place for bird-watchers.

 
Garður ir ciemats pussalas galā. Pēdējā vieta pirms okeāna. Pēdējā sauszeme pirms Grenlandes. Vietas kontūra un veids man  atgādina Kolku. Sajūta it kā stāvot pasaules galā.

I then had the great idea to walk around the cape to reach the next village and maybe see some shipwrecks. What a mistake! The weather made us fast regret this decision and we arrived entirely soaked in Sandgerði.

Island, kêr-glizh! L'Islande, terre de bruine. A peine avait-on commencer à séloigner de Garður que le crachin nous rattrappa. L'été islandais me rappelle l'hiver breton, avec ses tempêtes qui s'abbattent sur les côtes, les vagues tenant tête aux falaises, l'odeur de l'iode et des algues, l'herbe toujours humide et le ciel inlassablement gris, la pluie ou la bruine qui ne s'arrête jamais vraiment. Même les températures sont à peu près identiques. Nous marchions donc le long de la côte, cherchant les épaves englouties, trempés jusqu'aux os. Cétait déjà pénible, mais ça aurait pû passer si seulement les plages islandaises étaient plus simples à parcourir. Mais non! Ce ne sont pas les larges bandes de sables fin de Kurzeme, mais des amas de pierres volcaniques échouées dans un sable boueux. Malgré tout, ce fut une belle ballade. Douchés mais heureux!

The walk was long and tough before we arrived in an inhabited place. We eventually found a shelter in a seafood restaurant. People there were very nice and welcoming. We had hot chocolate and they showed us their yard where they keep crabs and other sea creatures in small pools filled with seawater. Tince looked quite amazed while holding a sea-cucumber. In this scandinavian-style wooden restaurant we dried and waited our bus back to Keflavík.

Pure Icelandic water

At evenings when I go to bed and close my eyes I see camper cars, and tonight Nicolas spoke out loud while asleep in a very serious manner  - "Yes, yes. A car!" I woke up hearing that and couldn't hold my laugh. Anyway the first full working week has passed and we are having days off. I have to note, that days off in a small town in Iceland are so much different from days off in Riga. First, you do not have hangover. Second, you do not have much idea what to do.

We went for a local swimming pool. It seems that Icelanders are crazy about swimming pools, as soon as they hear we are for the first time in Iceland an immediate question is - "Have you been to a swimming pool already? You definately have to attend one!" So we did. And it was great. Despite the moderate temperature biggest part of the swimming pool is located outside under the blue grey sky. Water here is heated up by geothermal energy wich means that swimming pools are enviromentally friendly and cheap (probably the only thing that is cheaper here than in Latvia). We enjoyed all of it - a big pool, slide, steam baths and several hot tubes with water of different temperatures. The one of aprox. 40°C makes you look red like a lobster.

But not only geothermal pools seems to be a big thing in Iceland. It seems that Icelandic water is a brand itself, or at least Icelanders try hard to make it one. On the bottle of any drink produced in Iceland you will not find such an ingredient as water. No, it's always written - pure Icelandic water! Even on beer and on Coca Cola, which has quite a nice size here.

Līgo vakars uz klints

Līgo! The day to be nostalgic about Latvia. After a hard and long (one could say awful) working day, we finally escaped to the cliffs! Neither Jāņu bonfires nor flowers/oak leaves crown for us, but at least we got to run away for this special night. Beer, small toasts and the ocean in front of us : these are all we needed. Up on the cliffs we had our little moment of midsummer happiness, facing the changing colors of the wind and looking for the midnight's sun. In Iceland sun never really sets around midsummer, but it is sometimes hard to find it through the clouds.

Far from home we nevertheless had a true Jāņu weather, with wind, rain and everything. Or maybe was it just the true icelandic weather. Icelandic beer was nice, but right after the first one rain forced us to move. We went looking for a funny cave we found on our first day. This cave is actually a kind of amusing installation of a giant's home. In there sits a statue of a snoring and farting giant. Anyway, we arrived in front of a closed door. But nearby stones offered us some kind of refuge from the rain. Thus we could finish our picnic with the noises of the sleepy giant...