19,000 Feet Under the Fjord*

April 3, 2018

“Ready?” Bjorn asked. 

“What? You said 9 a.m., it’s only 8:30,” Astrid protested. She had just settled onto the couch with a steaming cup of instant coffee and a notebook, ready to jot down some caffeine-fueled thoughts before starting the day.

“I said I wanted to leave by nine, at the latest,” Bjorn explained. "If you're ready, we'll leave now."

“Oh, alright,” she sighed. She would have to catch up on the narrative in the car and hope writing didn’t induce carsickness. 

Before leaving, they filled their water bottles with tap water, which Snorri and Astrid adored, being some of the most pure, best tasting tap water they had ever encountered. It seemed a strange habit, contrasted to the refrigerator-filtered water they used at home. 

Once in the car, out of the icy air, they drove two minutes down a gravel lane to the lake for a picture. The door window on the Viking Toe had frozen shut in the night, so Astrid  had to open the door and get out into the cold to take a picture.

Then they headed onto the highway again, this time for a long drive to a snowy, windswept western part of the island nation. Half-way through their journey, they came to the Hvalfjörður Tunnel, a 19,000 feet long tunnel under the Hvalfjörður fjord, which reaches a depth of 541 feet. It had been constructed by private company, so there was a toll to pay each way.  The first part of the tunnel sloped down, then the car went up-grade to the end. It shortens the route around the fjord by about 50 minutes and is a fascinating experience to drive through. 

The landscape passing on both sides of the car consisted mostly of bleak, black bare stone mountains accented with snow, expanses of icy blue water, flat plains with wisps and patches of dormant brown grass peaking through, small herds of stunted horses clumping together for warmth, and birch and willow trees doing the same. Signs of visible spring, the life-giving, green, vibrant season, were nowhere to be seen. Warm weather was a long way off, but there was still beauty in cold, sleeping nature. As they approached their first destination, the wind started to gain strength, whipping sheets of dry snow across the road in front of the Viking Toe, nudging the vehicle this way and that. 

After navigating snowy roads and crunching, frozen lanes around grand rocky mountains, they arrived at Búðakirkja, a lonesome, simple raven-black church standing guard over its stone-walled cemetery, basking in the sun despite the frozen landscape around it.  

Bjorn went through his usual routine of getting out of the car, leaving the car door open (despite hefty winds), Astrid reaching over to shut it because she was freezing, then Bjorn opening the hatch in the back and filling the car with -3 degree Celsius air, while picking out his camera equipment as the car occupants shivered. 

Astrid eventually extricated herself from her heated seat, got out and walked around the church, but not before a bus full of tourists pulled up and, much to the dismay of the photographers there, peopled the church’s pristine landscape with bodies. It was cold but sunny, the light reflected off the snow and lit up the air around them. It was windy, the gusts pushed through Astrid’s coat as she walked around the cemetery. One man tried to fly a drone, only to be frustrated by the frigid gusts. 

Bárður Snæfellsás monument

They drove around the vast countryside, along roads that thread through white, snowy mountains, along icy deserted plains, on roads bisecting small frigid towns to Arnarstapi Sea Arch area. At the cafe there, Bjorn gave in to bodily and vendor demands and paid three dollars (300 kronur) to use the bathrooms, which is a common occurrence in Iceland. 

A little off the parking lot stood a stone structure that at first Astrid thought was a tribute to the stone arch, but later found out that it is a statue-like representation of a legendary Icelander (half titan, half human) and the monument stands as protector of Iceland. 

The family unwittingly walked past the stone monument without noticing the giant man Bárður, camouflaged in stone, up a packed, icy trail to the edge of the ocean and stood resisting the strong winds as they watched the bird-be-speckled ocean cliffs below. 

They marveled at the roundness of the sea arch  and at the various perfect shapes nature constructed in her geology. But the wind was the foremost force that acted on Astrid at this site. She enjoyed a brisk breeze in the summer, warm air  that whisked over her skin and thread through her hair. It was pleasant to let the earth affect her in that way, with gentle nudges and caresses as it outlined the boundaries of her physical self on the planet. But there, at the demarcation of earth and ocean, the cruel, cold wind buffeted and bullied, it pushed and prodded warm-bodied animals and humans to take cover and get out of its way. 

“There’s a Jules Vernes memorial somewhere around here,” he suggested when they got back into the car. 

“It’s okay, I don’t need to go. Jules Verne was French, it would mean more if we were in France. In his Journey to the Center of the Earth, he had his adventurers arrive to Iceland at Reykjavik and descend into the Snæfellsnes volcano to start their subterranean journey. I’m not too interested.” Later, she would have a hard time confirming whether Verne actually visited Iceland or not.    

Kirkjufell Mountain

They drove to a dead end overlooking the coast, then leisurely made their way to waterfalls that lie in the shadow of the towering Kirkjufell Mountain. The parking lot was small and packed, so that the family had to wait for a parking spot, hovering until someone left the place. It reminded Astrid of the over crowded parking places in Scotland.

The icy walking path made a u-shaped trail around the Kirkjufellsfoss (waterfalls). There were plenty of tourists, slipping, hanging onto an unsubstantial peg-and-rope fence as they made their way up the hill. 

Bjorn was there for sunset pictures, so they stood shivering, waiting for the sun to bow out for the day. A couple who either just got married or were going to a formal dance were there in fancy clothes with a photography crew. 

 After shivering in the shadow of the Kirkjufell Mountain peak, GPS lead them to a restaurant called Bjargarsteinn in the nearby town, set in an old house by the sea, with an outrageously stunning view of the mountain. Bjorn ordered the fish, Snorri the lamb, and Astrid a seafood medley and tea. The tea came with chocolate and was mostly to warm her hands and body. 

On the way back to their cabin, Bjorn stopped the car a few times along the snow-blown highways to catch photos of the landscape bathed in the evening sun–the best sun, supposedly, in which to take pictures. 

At one pull off, a large raven sat on a bench and when Bjorn stopped the  Viking Toe, the bird started acting out what it wanted. It picked at the ground and hopped cautiously around the car. It had not been doing that until the family stopped nearby. Bjorn threw it a few almonds in exchange for taking its picture, then it flew off. 

“Horses win,” Astrid said as they passed yet another snow covered pasture with a bunch of horses crowded around a feeding rack. “We’ve seen two sheep and possibly hundreds of horses … horses win.” 

“We even saw more churches than sheep,” Snorri added. 

"More ravens than churches," Astrid said.

*Just a literary FYI: Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea refers not to the depth Captain Nemo's (the main character) submarine sank, but to the distance (length) it traveled while under the sea. The Saga Family traveled 19000 feet in distance under the fjord, which is about one (1) measley league.

** Apologies if the geographical names and places in this blog are not accurate. As discovered in recalling the Hawaiian adventure, the beautiful native names of places and towns on this island do not stick in the author's Anglicized speech and memory as well as she'd like, but she has worked to be as accurate as possible, post-adventure.