I Develop Arachnophobia, Experience an Overdose of Cuteness, See an Opera, and Go to a Toilet Far, Far Away

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 the evening to ourselves. While we were in our tent that night, I developed severe arachnophobia, due to the fact there was a spider in our tent and an even bigger one outside.

The next morning I figured out that to go to the bathroom, you had to walk a mile. I was not happy with that. Then my mom and I walked 2 miles to her viewpoint. We saw nothing. 6 hours later, we walked back down (another 2 miles) and to the bathroom again (1 mile) and then at night to the bathroom after dinner (1 mile). So I was doing 7 miles a day. We did this day after day, but during my mom’s watch, never saw anything. But at camp, we saw lots of cute foxes.

The last day, my mom told my dad he was coming with her on her watch and she was staying for his watch with him. I went along. For the first 6 hours we saw nothing. But then, we saw a fox. We tracked it until it disappeared. Then, after a while, we saw a second fox. It followed the trail with a bird in its mouth. It set the bird down and went to the cliff to get another one. The birds screeched and swooped at the fox. Then it came up behind us and went arm-length away from us. It sat down and screamed and barked loudly, right there in front of us. It was amazing. It sat there, licking itself and barking. There was an arctic fox, the only native land mammal in Iceland, was sitting less than 3 feet away from me. It’s hard to believe that people hate them. Apparently, during the summer, they eat the sheep. Arctic foxes are the size of small house cats. Even a baby lamb is protected by its mother, and the foxes couldn’t do much damage. Besides, the sheep are free to roam the entire country. How do you know what happened to it? We sat there, astounded, until finally the fox walked of, yowling and barking. Wow. That video is worth a look on YouTube. http://youtu.be/Xeaf6OHlhcA We hurried back to the camp to share with Josh and Suzanne our video of supreme awesomeness. Then, we went to bed, because tomorrow we were leaving for the Arctic Fox Centre.

Back to Civilization!

The next morning, we packed up and went to the shore to wait for our boat. We saw the boat, and finally it came over. We put all of the remaining food and gear on board, and then climbed in. Hours later, we reached Isafjordur. The first thing I did was drink a lot of milk. Then we waited for the car to take us to Sudavik. We meet Ester’s daughter, Fanney, and Sonja, who both worked at the Centre. When we got there, they gave us excellent waffles and soup. After the wonderful food my parents went to type the fox reports. I hung out and talked until it was time to feed the baby arctic foxes. They had been orphaned when people killed the parents and then brought the babies over. There were 2 baby foxes. I put on boots and got bags of food and a bottle of water, then went out. The foxes immediately started climbing up the fence when they saw. I distracted them so they didn’t get out, and my dad opened the gate. I filled up the water, and then squeezed food out. The foxes grabbed the plastic bag with the food, so mainly I was grabbing the food bag away from the foxes. They were really soft but really greedy. They sometimes grabbed the bag so hard you had to play tug of war to get it back. It was really fun, and I was sad when the food bags were empty. After putting up the boots and water bottle, we went to the local camping ground and put up our tent for the night.

Next morning, we had more waffles for breakfast and I went to feed the foxes again. This time, however, I got bitten while trying to get the plastic away! (This was deliberate because I wanted another story to tell about being mauled by and adorable animal like this one: http://bearsontheroad.blogspot.com/2008/07/white-island-to-wellington-and-pictures.html  ) Josh picked one of the foxes up, and the fox was not happy. After that, we packed up our tent and Fanney drove us to the airport in Isafjordur, where we said good-bye to Josh, Suzanne, and Fanney. Then, we headed to Reykjavik and on from there to Texas.