This last weekend saw us embark on our last ‘boys’ weekend with Rob before he heads back to Australia. With Rob being the chief organiser of these weekends, we might not be travelling on so many more of them in the future. I enjoyed the trip and was fascinated by the place so much that I wanted to write about it. Although I realise that this might read a little bit like a brochure for the place.
Given that we are generally quite well travelled to places within only a few hours of London; the list of possible destinations was not as long as it might seem. So wanting to experience something new and different, our destination this time was the northernmost capital city in the world; at 64 degrees above the equator, Reykjavík the capital of Iceland.
Iceland is certainly like no other place I have been. With two thirds of the country’s 250,000 population living in the capital, Reykjavík does not at all feel like a capital city. There are no tall buildings, the population density is low as far as European cities go, and there is a real small community feel about the place. The locals are very friendly and their spoken English is better than many native English speakers can manage. This should not really be of much surprise given that, with such a small number of people speaking Icelandic, they would be significantly more isolated from the rest of the world, were they not able to speak in another tongue. Icelandic however appears rather difficult to pronounce, so the fact that the locals had the ability and eagerness to use English was appreciated.
We arrived late on Thursday night, and even though it was after 11pm, the sun had not yet set behind the horizon. Iceland’s geographical position just below the Arctic Circle means that the country basks in more than 20 hours of sunlight per day in the summer months. This can wreak havoc with the body clocks of those of us used to latitudes closer to the equator, and we experienced this when attempting to find a restaurant for dinner the following night. Venturing out for a meal at 10pm, feeling like it was a few hours earlier than that, we were unable to find a restaurant still serving food, apart from the local Chinese. So our first sit down meal in Iceland was not traditional Icelandic cuisine, but sweet and sour prawns and kung pow chicken, (though it was actually quite nice.)
Traditional Icelandic cuisine however, isn’t really something to get enthusiastic about. Given that food sources have not been plentiful or readily available throughout the centuries, Icelanders have had to make the most of what was. This generally means that every part of the animal is used. Sheep heads, rams’ testicles, dried fish, and various sea birds including puffin, are all available to eat. Modern Icelanders however tend to eat these kinds of things as thorramatur (food of the Thorri) during the traditional Nordic month of Thorri (Jan/Feb) and less so at other times of year. We were not however, going to escape the place without trying something particularly disgusting, and this came in the form of Hakarl. Hakarl is putrified sharks meat. Shark meat contains high quantities of uric acid and is poisonous when raw. Now the sensible thing to do in this case is to cook it, but you have to do that straight away, and of course fridges are only a new invention and so food was not so easliy kept for any length of time. And so to get around this, Icelanders would bury the shark meat in the ground for a period of up to six months. The decomposed meat is then somewhat dried and picked and eventually served up in small cubes. We found ourself chatting to a young local chap on the bus on Saturday and he was more than happy to get some for us, though later he did say he was hoping that it would make us sick. We all managed to have a bite, and despite gagging a couple of times, I ate quite a bit. It has the texture of pickled fish, with a strong smell of a combination of amonia and urine, which stays on one’s fingers like garlic does for days! It was probably the single most disgusting thing I have ever eaten, though I am glad I did, and glad I had my old friend Jack Daniels on hand to help me wash it down.
Apart from consuming rotten shark meat, we spent much of our Friday at the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is a hot spring where the blue coloured water is heated geothermally – and nothign to do with a movie staring Brooke Shields. A small complex has been build around the spring to create a spa environment where people can enjoy relaxing in the lagoon. The water contains forms of algae, minerals and silica mud, which are supposed to have positive and healing effects on the skin and body. The lagoon however is not natural and was in fact created by run off from the nearby power plant which pumps up geothermally heated water from a mile below the surface. The water is used to generate heat and electricity and then the totally clean excess is ejected into the lagoon. Clever boffins decided to turn the area into a spa and a range of ludicrously expensive skin care products. Regardless however, spending time in the lagoons 40 degree water was extremely relaxing.
Hot springs are to be found all over Iceland; the landscape is dotted with clouds of steam rising from the ground where water has been boiled by magma from within the earth and has escaped the earth’s crust. In fact, when the first settlers arrived in Iceland, they initially thought these clouds of steam were smoke, thus Reykjavík actually means Smoky Bay. We experienced some more examples of this kind of activity on Saturday when we took a tour out to see some of Iceland’s natural beauty. We visited the Haukadalur valley where we saw Geysir, the oldest and one of the world’s most impressive geysers; as well as it’s little brother Strokkur. Although Geysir does not erupt particularly frequently, Strokkur was more reliable, erupting every 5 minutes or so, spewing boiling water 20 metres into the air; an impressive reminder of the earth’s power. Our trip to the Haukadalur valley also took us to the impressive waterfall Gullfoss, and from a distance, two of Iceland’s glaciers.
Geologically, Iceland is absolutely fascinating. The Island is only 16 million years old, which is geological terms is a very short time indeed. Formed entirely of volcanic rock, the earth’s crust is only one third as thick under Iceland as it is in most of the rest of the world. Eruptions in the area have continued through time; the Island of Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland was born in only a few days through volcanic eruptions in 1963. Iceland is situated right on top of the rift between the North American and European continental plates, literally, part of the country is located on the continent of North America, and the other part belongs to Europe. Our tour took us to the area known as “Allthing” or “Parliament” where the rift between the two places is about 5km wide. The land in between is in neither America nor Europe and is ‘pure Iceland.’ Further along the rift in different part of the island the plates are much closer together and you can actually stand with one foot in America and one in Europe!
On Saturday night we remembered not to leave it too late to go out for dinner and went to a local fish restaurant which had come highly recommended. However, while I did not actually eat any fish there, because as we all know I’m sure, whale is not a fish, but a mammal. Now, before anyone says I shouldn’t be eating that as a moral issue and that we should save the whales and all that crap; whales are killed legally in Iceland for scientific research, and instead of just wasting their meat, it is eaten. In any case, I didn’t ask where the meat came from and to be honest I didn’t really care; whale is not an uncommon dish in Iceland and considering it was probably going to be the only time I would ever eat it, I was keen to give it a try. I was glad I did, it was very tasty indeed. It is a red meat that was served as a steak with a pepper sauce, very succulent and tender and certainly a different taste to regular red meat, delicious. Prior to that we had all enjoyed smoked puffin; a pelagic sea bird which was also quite nice.
The entire young population of Reykjavik descends on the centre of town on Friday and Saturday nights. We had a big night out on Saturday night at a couple of clubs, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and there didn’t seem to be any levels of aggression from the locals that one can sometimes encounter when out drinking. Beer had been banned in Iceland up until 1989 and Icelanders are not known for being solid drinkers. Add that to the fact that beers will set you back £6 a pint and it is no wonder that locals were drunk early on in the evening; this can be the only explanation for the fact that they were dancing to the cheesiest music that is usually reserved for when everyone is well and truly hammered, quite early in the night. Though I must stress that the night doesn’t really start until midnight.
So the following morning we found a place that with English breakfasts and nursed our hangovers; while also nursing our wallets which had been severely damaged after a weekend in the most expensive place I have ever been. Despite that I very much recommend a visit to Iceland, it is a place like no other I have visited before. It really was an enjoyable time, made all the more possible by spending it with great friends, Duncan, James Mike, and Rob.
Cheers Guys and Cheers Iceland
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