There is a saying that we enter life as an helpless child and we leave life as the same...helpless children....so, we have a lot of helpless children when it comes to being on a ship of older folks and frankly, some 20-30 year olds chasing the GofT in the middle of the Greenland Sea/Iceland. Good Grief. While us Houston folks don’t know much about it, I remember from my childhood in North Alabama before Global Warming was a thing, bundling up. My mother would dress us to go out in snow or cold weather. After the scarves, tights, gloves, red (so she could spot us in a crowd) car coats, double pairs of corduroy pants had all been layered, we would announce that we had to go to the bathroom or decided not to go outside. Yup, it is kinda like that getting on and off the ship here in Iceland. Don’t even get me started about the need to have your Sea Pass card ready to scan. So, disembarking in really cold weather is a thing...be prepared for long waits, in your multiple layers...getting warm while waiting...BTW the Admiral is wearing a short sleeved tropical shirt, with his fleece jacket...he is freezing but won’t admit that I was right when we packed that he might want a couple of his turtlenecks. He did however buy a pair of gloves in Reykjavik...
Having done Alaska, Norway and the southern tip of South America, we thought we had seen it all when it came to cold climate natural beauty...until we arrived in Iceland. It is a volcanic island, with more than 30 still active volcanos. When the Vikings hit town in the 11th Century they used all the wood that was on the island (25% of the island coverage) to build houses and keep warm...cause, baby, it is cold outside. So, you have miles of volcanic rocks covered in moss, snow capped mountains, glaciers, clear air and not much vegetation. The country’s long range goal is to reforest 4% of the island...our guide said it is not near that number yet. It is a stark beauty for sure...which made this area perfect for the North Wall and home of the Wildings of Game of Thrones. While the actual scenery has some color to it, the show use a blue/gray/black filter to make it seem colder than it actual is...but stark, barren, they got that right. There are glacier fed water falls, lakes and geysers galore. As this island is volcanic, the geothermal energy is a major source of energy to heat...you see steam vents everywhere. With the abundance of water, hydroelectric power makes this a perfect place for inexpensive power...but that is it...everything else is imported. Yeah, they have some green houses for veggies, fishing, sheep but almost,everything else is tightly regulated as they do not want to introduce any pest or non organic to the mix. This is organic in the extreme as there are not pest, bugs, spiders, snakes or diseases on the Iceland...too dang cold. They are even fussy about the Icelandic horses—-they can be purchased here and taken off the island, never to return. They have 80,000 horses, which on an island with a total population of 350,000 (humans not horses) suggest that you will see lots of horses when driving about...we did.
Sometimes you have to work hard to figure out what to see and do in a port that is not looking at the City from a bus window. Reykjavik was simple...the Golden Circle. A 200 mile, 6 hour tour of the highlights of the region. I booked a small group tour, as everything here is expensive, private tour was kinda a Hamilton in NYC ticket price thing. As tourism is the number one industry here, (between bankruptcy, volcanos messing with European air traffic and cheap air fares from major cities) there are loads of small bus/vans along with tons of the big buses all marked with Golden Circle tours to choose from. The Admiral likes 12 instead of 48 when waiting to get on and off, go to bathroom or hear what the guide is saying....herding cats...old cats.
From early afternoon to 8:30 pm we drove through the country side...with spectacular right views of fire and ice...volcanic rocks, glaciers and such...freezing our undressed Texas butts off. Our last stop was the Tingvellir National Park...it reminded us of the volcanic landscape of The Canary Islands, but in a cold climate. The highlight was the split of the Tectonic plates...one of the two places in the world where there is a split between the two that you can see and walk on and between. The NorthAmerican plate and the Eurasia Plate run the length of the island, but the big split is here. The North American Plate face in the canyon is actual what was used for the North Wall on Game of Thrones.
By the time we returned to the ship, (repeat of disembark drill, only the water was down, calf stretches uphill and children looking for sea pass card-24 degrees and stiff wind) had a stiff drink to warm up and grabbed a bite to eat in the buffet, as the restaurants were no longer serving, we watched sundown at 11:30 pm. Yeah, we are almost at summer time, and 24 hours of sunlight this far north.
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