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| the view over Heimaey |
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| 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 more than half the population. She also told us about the eruption that happened 1973 that almost destroyed the town. All of the residents escaped on fishing boats and the people came back and used fire hoses to cool the lava and divert its flow. The mountain created by the volcano is about 660 feet high. Then we arrived at said volcano which is called Eldfell which means “mountain of fire” in Icelandic. We walked in the crater and looked at red rocks for a bit. It was very cool. Then we boarded the bus for our last stop, “Pompeii of the North”. We got out and almost immediately saw the ruins of a house. Our guide told us it was buried by the eruption. Archaeologists are excavating the area to make a museum about the eruption. She said that the owner of this partially excavated house had crawled through the windows and found some of her stuff that wasn’t ruined, so she grabbed her things and crawled back out. Then we saw houses that looked exactly the same right next to each other. The guide said that these two identical houses belonged to two sisters. All that you could see of the houses were the corners and some rusty metal. The rocks in the area were awesome. They were sparkly silver, gold, blue, and I even found a pink one. They were beautiful. Our tour ended in time for us to get on the boat after I got some “Cool American” Doritos, apparently the equivalent of “Cool Ranch” Doritos. Still no orcas showed up to be photogenic. We then drove back to our hostel.
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| This rock is younger than my parents! |
More pictures from Heimaey will be here after August 1:
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