One of the very first real trips
I had when I arrived in Europe was not at all where I had planned to go. Amidst
so many list of cities I had in mind, I had never thought Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland) would be
worth visiting (in fact, I never knew about Reykjavik, or anything much about
Iceland for that matter). In the end, I decided to join abroad the Iceland trip
with my friends to give a shot at enlightening myself about the island country
to the northwest of Denmark. It was on the 17th of November, 2016 that
I set my foot in Iceland, and I’m writing about this almost a year later
because, to simply put it, of many failed attempts to describe about my trip.
Every time I sat down trying to write about Iceland, I couldn’t express what I
saw because I wasn’t visiting any historical monuments, landmarks, or taking
cultural tours, or going to restaurants or visiting museums. All I did when I
was in Iceland was explore nature, and it’s often that nature doesn’t have a
story behind it, it’s just there, and all you can say about it is that it is
beautiful. The first time in my life I was lost for words, and the words I
finally conjured up were not doing justice to what I saw and felt at that
moment of courtesy of the enthralling landscape and breathtaking scenery.
I wouldn’t say winter in Iceland
was particularly a good idea, because of its close proximity to the northern
pole, leading to harsh temperatures below zero and very short days. But the
only thing that made me make the trip there was the possibility to see the
famous Aurora Borealis, better known as the northern lights, and I had no idea
that Iceland had so much more in store.
Arrival
I remember the moment I stepped
out of the plane in Jomsom (a small town located above 2500 meters above sea
level in the west of Kathmandu which is particularly known to be very windy) when
I was heading towards Muktinath (a religious destination a few hundred meters
above Jomsom). Yes, I had a pleasant surprise when the wind hit me and I had to
clutch on to my jacket in my hands a bit harder. The winds in Iceland, however,
were in a different league altogether. Anybody who had been there would always
say that Iceland would blow you away. But I didn’t know that what they said had
a very literal sense. The winds were so strong that, yeah, it could actually
blow you away. At the airport, me and my friends were in the middle of a
discussion on how we could reach our Airbnb apartment when we were walking out
of the main entrance, completely unaware that the winds outside were as high as
50 km/h. After stepping out, I couldn’t mutter a single word, and I looked at
my friend who was having the same trouble. With narrowed eyes, he could finally
mutter, which I think was “shit!” I had a hard time gripping on to my mini
duffle because the wind was so strong that it was constantly pushing it against
my clutches and it was difficult to even breathe. It was pretty much the same
all the time for the five days I was there. The most you could stand outside in
the freezing winds was probably like, 5 minutes, before your hands would feel
numb and you eventually had to go back inside a car or a building. But it was
quite an experience. Needless to say Iceland figuratively blew me away, it
almost literally blew me away as well.
The Golden Circle Route
We had four days to travel
around, and although Reykjavik was a cool place to hang, there were better
things to see outside of the city. So, we rented out two cars and went to
several destinations close-by the city. We made our way through various stops
in the golden circle route, the first stop to which was the Thingvellir National Park, whose main attraction
was that it was the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic
plates.
 |
| Thingvellir National Park (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Thingvellir National Park (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Thingvellir National Park |
 |
| Thingvellir National Park, where the tectonic plates are diverging |
The next stop was a hot spring Geyser which was also just five minutes away
from the Golden Circle Route. Like other Geysers, the one we saw had a vent in
the earth’s surface and every once in a while (like five minutes or so), hot
boiling water would rush out of the vent up to several meters (check the video below). The shooting
water would then be guided into the direction of the wind and the resulting
phenomenon would look astonishing. Apart from this, another great location we
went to was a geothermal area called Gunnuhver where you could see steam coming
out from the surface everywhere (we walked through the steam and there's a video below). It looked like the whole area was covered in a
thick mist. The steam was slightly acidic as it contained some amount of
Hydrogen Sulfide, and sure enough, it wasn’t very pleasant to the nose (rotten
eggs!!).
 |
| Acidic Steam coming out from Gunnuhver (Picture by Nadin Brunnhofer) |
We also made it to Gullfoss waterfalls, which is by far the best waterfall
I’ve seen. It wasn’t very huge, but because the surrounding
snow-clad hills and spectacular skies in the background gave a majestic,
fairy-tailish façade to the waterfall which was ridiculously bewitching.
 |
| Gullfoss Waterfall (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| A selfie from the top of Gullfoss |
Our last trip in the Golden Circle Route was the Kerid Crater Lake. So,
basically, it’s a lake that is inside a volcanic crater. Nothing could be
cooler than that. Except if the water is neon blue, and yes, it was. We reached
there right when it was time for sunset, and walked around the whole crater, then
climbed down towards the lake. I got so excited that I dropped my friend’s
camera into the lake while I was taking pictures (I hurriedly took it out and
we put it in a bowl of rice for three weeks or so and it started working again,
so it wasn’t an unhappy ending). But I get to say that I dropped a camera in a
Crater lake once in Iceland, which is pretty cool.
 |
| The Kerid Crater Lake (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Kerid Crater Lake (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
The Black Sands and Seljalandsfoss Waterfall
The Black Sands beach is a very rare beach in the southern coasts of
Iceland, and as the name suggests, the sands are pitch black (even the
pebbles). The reason the sands are black is because of volcanic lava flowing
into the ocean, solidifying and then washing up to the shore. We woke up early
the next day to go to this place and catch the sunrise there, which turned out
to be a very good decision. Out of all the places we visited in Iceland, this was the best. The sunrise was downright mesmerizing, as you could see the first few
rays of the sun approach the beach and reveal the enchanting and exceptional beauty
of the black sands. The skies were a mixture of yellow, orange and blue, which
was also being reflected by the surface of the sea, and the blackness of the
beach provided a unique contrast to the whole landscape, and such a blend I
believe could probably not be found anywhere in the world. We were so captivated
that we spend around three hours there not doing anything, enjoying the sun and
looking into the horizon. Some of my friends and I conjured up our strength to
open our shoes and walk in the shores, which probably lasted for a minute
because the water was ice cold. We walked further down the shores to
find huge columns of basalt, which was also caused by lava flowing. If there is
one place I could go again out of all the different places I’ve visited
recently, I would choose the black sands beach.
 |
| Sunrise in the Black Sands beach (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Black Sands Beach (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| The column formations (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Black Sands beach (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
We finally said goodbye to the Black Sands beach and headed to
Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. It wasn’t as spectacular as Gullfoss waterfall that
we saw the previous day, but the best thing about this waterfall was that the
pool it made was frozen, and it was thick enough to walk in it. Also, you could
see a spectacular rainbow forming right in front of it, and the frozen surface
below would reflect the rainbow so that you could actually see a full circular
rainbow, and it was amazing (check the video out below).
 |
| Seljalandsfoss Waterfall (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
 |
| Seljalandsfoss Waterfall (Picture by Madhu Gotety) |
We had some other places in our list but we spent a lot of time in the
black sands and therefore couldn’t go. But it was a time well spent in the
black sands, and we decided it was all worth it.
The northern Lights
Yeah, we didn’t get to see them.
We went for northern lights hunting three
nights for hours by checking out some website about its activity and probability
of occurrence, but we weren’t lucky enough to find it. We drove through gravel and
earthen roads, got stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch black and the
freezing cold just to see if we could find the lights but we didn’t get to see
anything. It was kind of disappointing because that was the whole reason I
jumped aboard the trip, but I saw so many other things that in the end it didn’t
matter at all. I guess seeing the northern lights will probably be an excuse for me to
visit Iceland again.
In a nutshell
No comments:
Post a Comment