BEARS ON THE ROAD

We got up to go to our ferry to Hornstrandir, where we met Ester, the person from the Arctic Fox Centre, and Josh from Utah, who was monitoring with us. We saw a minke whale on the way there, which was pretty cool. I hoped it would mean more whales, but no. When we got there, we unloaded about 7 boxes of food, and some gear before getting into the zodiac ourselves. We got to the shore and brought all of the stuff to our designated campground. Then we went with Ester to our fox viewing points. It was a very long, tiring walk, but it was beautiful. There were dandelions and buttercups, and many other flowers. The view was amazing, and the water was beautiful. We walked down, and Ester left. We set up the kitchen tent and Josh set up his tent while we set up ours. Almost immediately, an arctic fox came into camp, as if sizing us up. Just to show us who was boss, he marked his territory, and then ran off, no doubt to tell his friends the strange creatures he had found. We had the rest of

Kayaking in Iceland requires a lot more gear than kayaking in Hawaii We arrived at Isafjordur, and after enrolling at an Icelandic high school, we set off to look around. Let me explain. During the summer, a chain of hotels open called Hotel Edda. All of these hotels are inside schools closed for the summer. They remove desks and all the rest and put in cots. You buy sleeping bag space on one of these cots, and there you are, with a bed. We were in a chemistry room. We went to the Café Braedraborg, and I had really good Icelandic cream cake. It was vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, cake, cream, cake, frosting, cake. My mom was ecstatic that they were making our lunch on our kayak trip. Judging from the menu, lunch seemed like it would be filled with vegetables. Joy. After I ate pizza, we went back to the Hotel Edda for a night’s rest. The following morning we prepared for our kayak trip. We went to the Café Braedraborg, and then, after getting the rest of our group and m

the view over Heimaey  sparkley blue rocks at "Pompeii of the North"  We got up early and headed for our ferry to Heimay. During the ride, we looked for orcas, but none were showing up. When we got to Heimay, there were still no orcas, but there were thousands of birds on the cliff sides and surrounding islands. We were uncertain what to do until 2:30, but then we saw the bus tours. We signed up for the bus tour and then got on the bus. Our tour guide told us there were about 4200 people on the island. Our first stop was a field with puffins atop a hill that had a good view over the rest of the island. We climbed a ladder over a fence into a sheep field and then saw lots of puffins in the water and many puffin holes. We also admired the view and, after a couple minutes, we were driving down again. She told us about the history of all of the islands surrounding Heimay and Heimay itself. She said that a really long time ago, pirates came and killed and captured m

playing dress up at the Saga Center in Reykjavik We got up and after packing the tent, we headed for the next Saga museum. This one is in Reykjavík. We came in just as their geyser- fountain went off. Then we got our listening guides and went in to the exhibit. It was very well done; it consisted of fake people in settings and signs describing the scene they were in. Most of the last scenes included killing people; the earlier ones included the founding of Iceland and Vinland. A couple were about the early government, the Law Rock and the Law Speaker. For more info on that, besides what I said in another post, go to my parents’ blog, no doubt they described Icelandic government better than I did. Later, the scenes were increasingly violent, a six-year old boy that murdered another, a very bloody soldier about to be stabbed, a bishop with his head on the execution block, and a nun accused of selling her soul to the devil being burned at the stake were a few. Then we watched a video

the god of the mountain snaefells We left our hostel and started driving to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The ice capped mountain at the end is where the book "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is set. We stopped in the town of Arnarstapi to look at a monument to Jules Verne and also at a sculpture of the god of the mountain made of large rocks. Next we went to Djupalonssandur. Yes, it’s a long name, and no, I can’t say it. Basically, it’s the place where people were tested to see if they were strong enough to be Icelandic fishermen. There were four rocks in a clearing, Weakling, Half Carrier, Half-Strong, and Fully Strong. You had to be able to lift Half-Strong to be a fisherman. I, of course, zipped through this. I ended by spinning the Fully-Strong rock on my nose. I’m kidding. I couldn’t lift Weakling. No laughing- It weighed about 50 pounds. My dad could lift Weakling and Half-Carrier, but not Half-Strong, which weighed 220 pounds. The heaviest rock weighed 340 poun

geysir We woke up after a cold night in our submarine tent that was soaking wet and drove to Geysir. They have several geysers, including one that goes every three minutes and one that goes three times a day. It used to go a lot more, but some people tried to make it erupt by throwing rocks in it. I’m not exactly sure what they thought this would do, maybe trigger a bomb underneath or wake up some mass geyser god hidden below the geyser, but the rocks clogged up the geyser, so now it goes three times a day. While we were there, we stared at Geysir, but it didn’t go off, so we went over to the geyser that goes off every 3 minutes. This one did not disappoint. It would go off with a large boom and the clouds would go up 15-30 meters. Then the water at the bottom of the geyser would fill in like a toilet. It would then start gently bubbling. When it was about to go off again, it would fizz madly like a just-opened soda can. Then it would give you a heart attack by suddenly spouting s

Okay, after the good ship SS Hyperlight 3 could not be dried, a decision was taken to drive however long it took and crawl begging to the Reykjavik hostel for indoor sleeping. Another cold, damp night in the tent when we are faced with a full week in primitive camping on Hestur could not be faced. We are enjoying electricity, internet, laundry, bathing that doesn’t involve a river, and pizza – not necessarily in that order. Here are the links for the Flikr slide shows: Seydisfjordur and the East: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAnuKcb Jokulsarlon: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAnuB8L   Skaftafell: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAnusVJ

We left our tent early and headed straight to the iceberg lagoon. It was pouring rain, so we skipped the p lanned boat tour, but we were amazed to see that everything looked totally different than yesterday. All the icebergs were new. I managed to find several chunks of ice that I could fish out of the lagoon to construct a model. Then we went across the bridge to wash the icebergs wash out to sea. We were stunned to see ice block of various sizes strewn all over the black sand beach. They apparently got stranded when the tide went out. There were several large enough that I could stand and climb all over them. I was able to amuse myself for a couple of hours by chipping at the blocks and crawling all over them. Unfortunately, the tide came in and washed all my toys out to sea! We walked up the opposite bank to check the view from the other side of the lagoon. Again, it looked like a different place. Seals kept bobbing up all over, except for when we had the camera ready. It was

When we got to Skaftafell, we immediately went to our campground to pitch our tent and then go to our glacier tour; we went with a company called Glacier Guides, and they were great! We met our guide, Svavar; he was an excellent guide and really nice too. We were given crampons and ice axes before boarding our bus. When we got to the glacier, we walked 15 minutes before getting on it, crossing rivers of melted glacier and then walking more. We put on the crampons before getting on the glacier. The glacier was really big. Now you may be thinking, Wow, Zada, years of Language Arts and this travel blog and two parents who are teachers, as well as the wide world of adjectives before you, and you choose, “It’s really big”? Well, I’m sorry, but it was kind of imposing. The glacier was full of micro-rivers and it looked like Swiss cheese, it was covered in holes and tunnels. We came to a river that was somewhat deep, and the Svavar mentioned you could drink from it. So I did. The glacier w

We drove for a couple hours to reach Seydisfjordur. The drive was beautiful. There were lupines and flowers everywhere and waterfalls dotting the hills. They were small and didn’t rate signs or pullouts, but they were pretty from the road, cascading down and falling over stairs in the rocks. We were at eye-level with the snow piles, and it would be very easy to stop the car and get out and throw snow around, but no, we had to get to Seydisfjordur on time, because we were already late. So I was subjected to looking at large, tempting piles of snow less than 2 feet away. There was a river with mini icebergs in it, and my mom started having heart attacks because of the road. When we got to Seydisfjordur, we learned that our hostel used to be a hospital, and until a few years ago, the common room was a delivery room where everyone was born. We also discovered why Icelandic playgrounds are better than American playgrounds. On the edge of the playground was a small zip line with a disk to si

difficulties solved!, happy birthday tatum! Due to technical difficulties - no wifi in Vatnajokull National Park - I can´t post my actual blog entries for the last couple of days or pictures. I did get my parents to buy some internet access on the park´s computer though, so I hope you have a very Happy Birthday Tatum! I will post the picture of your card next time there is wifi!

You wouldn't believe how long it took us to get here! We left our hostel after eating breakfast in the morning to go see the waterfalls. We stopped by the bakery to get some more kleina (twisted donuts) and then headed for Detifoss. We drove for a while, and then my parents said we were going to have to go another way, because our rental car couldn’t make it over the large rock piles. So we turned around and drove for a couple more hours, following the same route we had taken on our first day, and looking at the sights we’d seen. This is Selfoss We finally reached Detifoss and decided to go see Selfoss, the smaller waterfall first. We walked a bit, and then, after crossing a small river, we saw it. It was not very small, and it sort of curved in a half-circle of water. It looked a bit like Godafoss, the waterfall we’d seen the first day. There were four waterfalls at the place, but my parents told me that if we were going to make it to Seydisfjordur at all we only had

We got up early and my dad got a rental car. Then we drove to Husavik to go on a whale watch. When we were almost there, we saw an entire mountain and the entire hillside around it- covered in bluebonnets, so that from a distance, the mountain looked purple. We dropped off our stuff and then headed to the whale museum. It was very nice. They described a lot of baleen and toothed whales, and upstairs they had large whale skeletons. Each skeleton had the story of the whale and a description. In one of the other rooms, there was the story of Keiko, the orca. They had his toys and a biography of his life. One large gallery had windows filled with broken glass! We left and went to a bistro, where I had hot chocolate served in a puffin cup. It was really good hot chocolate. Then we went to the bakery next door and I got one of the Icelandic twisted donuts. It was pretty good. Then we wandered around and went into a church. They had a nice organ and on display they had a really cool w

The next day, breakfast was nutella on top of pita bread. We went to wait for our bus that would take us to the ferry. We were there on time, but we waited for a long time. A grey bus passed and the driver stared at us before driving away. 20 minutes later, we discovered that was the bus that was supposed to take us there; we called and they told him to come back and get us. There was only one ferry a day to go to Grimsey. The whole bus was going to hate us if we missed it. We made it to the ferry with just minutes to spare and 3 hours later, we got to Grimsey. So, how was the Arctic Circle, you ask? Thanks for asking; it was really cold. We walked for a while and saw so many puffins that in some places they covered the rocks. They were really cute, and they were flying everywhere. They perched all along the cliff sides next to their little burrows. We also saw tons of other birds. We were repeatedly attacked by Arctic terns. They came in droves and swooped down to stab us with t

When we first got to Reykjavík, it was midnight. It also looked like it was 8:00 in the morning. We took a bus to the bus station so we could get to the other airport. We waited for a long time, and then decided it was time to walk over. On the way, we saw some Icelandic trees. A word of advice- if you’re ever lost in an Icelandic forest, stand up. The smallest trees were at my knees; the taller ones came up to my shoulders. We got to the other airport to find that it was closed. We hoped it would open in 30 minutes, but a while later, the airport still wasn’t open. We decided to go to a gas station with a convenience store and a Subway sandwich place connected. We stayed there for about 30 minutes, eating cinnamon rolls. We went back to the airport, but it still wasn’t open. We then waited 45 minutes before people started rushing in to get to work. One woman drove into a parking space sideways, and we prayed that she wasn’t the pilot. 15 minutes later, they opened the doors and we wa