As we continue our circumnavigation of Iceland-or maybe not, it all looks about the same…kinda like the islands in The Caribbean. Tall rough glacier or volcanos carved mountains, not a lot of trees, deep narrowing fjords that cut to the interior, temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s, foggy, and not much sunshine. The various mountains farms are dotted with sheep and black wrapped round hay bales. Black so they can find them in the snow. The only variation is the small town where the sea meets the rising dark mountain. Each of the small towns have long hard to pronounce names featuring lots of vowels, similar random consonants and a couple of accent marks for good measure. These towns have roughly 750 people residents..thinking H-E-B on Saturday. So, when two(yes, two)Viking ships moor off your banks, the town size at least triples. We have been shadowed by the Viking Star our entire trip. Not sure how their trip varies from this one. Most on Neptune are headed on to Norway after this. We are disembarking in Reykjavik. Whatever the case, the locals have been tasked with showing us a good time. I guess that crazy team from Viking decided to create journey and destinations in Iceland kinda like Princess did in Alaska in the 1980’s. Like I said before, glad to be on the front end of the creation process.
Yesterday, we went to the Voks Bath on Lake Urrioavatan (yeah, told you there were lots of vowels) which was up and over a very steep Mountain from where our ship was moored. (Yes, yet another tendered stop…which I will have to say Viking does well with their ship design). This is a combination of man made geothermal filled hots tubs from the hot springs below and two lake based infinity pools that are geothermally heated and warmer than the two land based ones. For those with a wild streak, there is the lake itself that is a crisp 40 degrees. While this is similar to the famed Blue Lagoon it does not have the mineral content…the guides claim the water is so pure you can drink it. The big difference is that August brings a summer algae bloom in all four of the warmed pools. The employees insist that it is healthy for you and your skin. Eddie gave me one of those looks, like “Yeah, right”. Okay, You have two bus loads of older people, in swim suits, with slick algae bottom-what could go wrong? Oh yeah, forgot to add the part about you are given a drink-beer, wine, blue raspberry or cherry slushie with vodka…by the time the soup and bread were served, their were lots of folks doing cannonballs off the decking into the lake, lots of wet iPhones. Wonder if this will be feature on PBS Masterpiece’s Viking commercial. Looked more like a movie scene from the 1985 movie Cocoon than 80 mature travelers from a cruise ship.
We all survived, no broken bones, no fountain of youth like in the movie Cocoon…looks more like a nap was in order for most of us than anything else. While the ship was here until 11:00 PM, there are only three restaurants with a total of 15 tables in town…not seeing this group staying around. Oh yeah, in the Karma department. The evening before our trip to the Voks Baths, our room steward thoughtfully placed two beach towels on our bed for our trip to the baths. You see the little red phones that they all carry have extensive information about everything about you-kinda creepy if you ask me, but glad for the towels. I reminded Eddie to pack his backpack for the trip…towel, bathing suit-check. Jacket for tender, bus ride, and walk about-no reminder, no Karen pack…subtitle, but effective. Eddie was just a few degrees cooler than his fellow cruisers. Score one for Karma Karen, previously known at Covid Karen.
Speaking of Covid on ship board. Other ships usually have a reference to it in the Daily activity sheet (either numbers or percentage of passengers). Not on Viking, only the red phones know. But with the number of coughs of denial, dawning of masks, room service trays, and Red Do Not Disturb signs on cabin doors, I suspect the numbers are up. That and I have seen the ship’s Men in Black Team on our floor frequently. The ship’s protocol for Covid (or any quarantined illness) is to completely fumigate and disinfect your cabin. A different cleaning crew is tasked with that function. They wear total black outfits, black masks and black utility supply carriers. It is not subtitle…the Scarlett letter sewn on your outfit was only slightly more noticeable.
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