It was the end of January and I was sweating in a short sleeve T-shirt on a scorching sun, hot and humid air around me never giving me a break. Now it was beginning of August and there we were - walking on meters of snow, 4 or 5 layers proving just enough for the freezing temperatures around us. No - I did not make a mistake exchanging the dates. This year, I simply took some of the winter, and swapped it with some of the summer. The early summer was in Ghana, and the late winter in Iceland.
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| Typical early August |
Juro (always introducing himself as "Juro, like the currency") was silently walking next to me when he suddenly said: "when we come back, we'll go for a Big mac!". We were walking through the ridge between Eyjafjallajokull and Myrdalsjokull, two glaciers in the south of Iceland, almost at the end of our 120km four day journey. Not even Juro's awesome cooking skills or a phenomenal chocolate from Kaufland could make us stop thinking about the warm civilization with some hot tasty Mac Donnalds burger. We are however two intelligent guys and know that's not good for our health. So eventually, we went for all-you-can-eat pizzas and french fries.
But let us rewind back again a bit. We decided to go to Iceland after an awesome trip to Lofoten islands last year, which surprised us with 25 degrees and a shining sun, although it's located behind the polar circle. Longing for similar experience and a nice tan, we chose (almost) three weeks on Iceland. The planning ended with the purchase of the plane tickets and some latent agreement to do everything as low-cost as possible, although not as much as the guy Juro told me about (who would come to a restaurant, sit next to a stranger, observe her eating and halfway through would say "excuse me madame, is that sausage already free?")
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| Rygge airport and a friendly welcome from Norway |
The journey to Iceland itself was fun already, and for me, it started at midnight on 28th of July, with a ride in Polskibus to Katowice, from where I hitched a ride to Krakow airport. We met there with Juro and took a flight to Oslo Rygge. Then hitchhiking to Oslo, night spent at Martin's place, some morning shopping for amazing Devold thermo underwear (the main reason we survived the trip), train to the airport and finally the flight to Reykjavik. Hmm, "finally" - I must say I was a bit unwilling to leave the nice and shiny 25 degrees in Oslo for the cold and rain forecasted at our destination, especially since I was quite sick and cold that time. But eventually, on 30th of July, we observed the rainy desert as our flight descended down on Keflavik airport.
Peter told us that "the weather changes quickly on Iceland. If you don't like it, just wait half an hour, and it will change... To worse!" . Haha! Hmm.. Oh.
But it was not so bad and fortunately for us, it often worked in the reverse direction. And we decided to take advantage of our plans, i.e. no plans at all, to make the next step in the direction of good weather.
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| Queue to Dunkin Donuts in Reykjavik, one month after its opening. It was raining |
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| Icelandic air, I think for about 5e |
Our first stop was planned, however. In Reykjavik we spent a night at Peto's place, which I really appreciated as it helped to put me to a better shape, while Juro made a map of things worth to see. We started with obligatory Golden circle on a beautiful day and a great luck with hitchhiking. Touristy stuff and not too much fun (fun fun fun, Friday, Friday... It was really Friday btw) but this was just to warm up and since the forecast looked good, we decided to continue straight away with the Laugavegur - the most iconic and scenic hike on Iceland.
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| Funny buses for off-road journeys, e.g. to Landmannalaugar |
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| Our daily bread - kind of high protein thick joghurt |
The incredible changes in the scenery, wading through ice-cold rivers and making friends with fellow travelers makes it surely the highlight of our trip, and one of the best hikes I've ever done.
We did it, however, in two days instead of the usual four, which means we almost cried when we got finally to Thorsmork, close to midnight already. All broken, we decided to stay one more day in the camping's kitchen just chilling out, eating, using wi-fi and talking to fellow hikers. It almost got to the point that we made the kitchen our home, gradually taking over most of the space and power plugs.
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| On the way to Skogar |
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| Part of Myrdalsjokull |
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| Is it just enough, or just too much? |
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| Mee |
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| Our destination in Skogar |
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| Big waterfall |
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| Great waterfall |
After four days of hiking, we aimed to Vik, where we enjoyed a couple of days at Zuzka's place, who's a relative of our friend in Slovakia. Zuzka stays with an Icelandic guy Danny, who was not only very friendly, but also quite skillful with all kinds of machinery and heavy trucks he kept in the garage. Being a guy to-go-to in Vik and in the area in general, he's now helping out with his gear for filming on the glaciers, or even appears in some videos himself. I also liked his attitude to "summer", as they call the 10 degrees, strong wind and occasional rain around here - he'd simply put on a short shirt and respond to our confused looks with "what? It's summer".
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| With Zuzka and her shop, after we did the horrible thing, destroyed vegetation and put the balcony in place |
Danny also built a small wooden balcony for a souvenir shop that Zuzka runs here. We offered to help out putting it in place and spent a few hours shoveling the grass in front of the shop. Suddenly a car came to the parking lot and its crew went straight for the shop. A women leading the group asked me what are we doing. In a good will to satisfy the curiosity of a friendly customer, I half happily and half proudly replied "we're building a small balcony here".
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| Juro, doing the horrible thing |
Ice-cold look penetrated my soul, however. "Do you have permission to do this?!" She said and went on with even more brutal look and words "destroying vegetation is a horrible thing". I must say, at that moment, I was feeling as someone who's just maliciously cut down the last standing tree of Iceland. Luckily, that was not the case and Danny eventually handled the situation, but at times, I still wake up from my dreams..
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| Danny's trucks in Vik |
The unplanned plans came in handy again when we met three Spanish senoritas who aimed north of the country for few days. Hunting for good weather and things to see, it was our goal to get there and fortunately, when we asked them they replied with friendly "vamos". Thus we squeezed in a small Ford Focus for 600 kilometers and two rainy days, though at least we were warm together at the back seats. We slept sweetly most of the journey, happy to find shelter in the car and woke up often only for the numerous stops at numerous sites, mostly waterfalls. It all kind of blended together and at some points we found ourselves numbly getting out of the car, unaware of where we are, just following the three pairs of Spanish footsteps in front of us, wondering why are waterfalls so popular and how will they look from the different side. We dreamed about waterfalls, they even pushed the heavy "balcony" incident of our minds and we often woke up screaming "more waterfalls! More!" in the middle of the night.
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| Our three Spanish senoritas friends |
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| Godafoss - a very emmm, nice and big waterfall! |
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| Warm, but stinky - reminds me of the dressing room for our sports class on high school |
Ending up at the very north, we had now something over 4 days to get down to Reykjavik and thus we took it slow. As the weather was truly nice these days, there was no need to hunt for it. But other hunt was on the horizon - before the Detifoss-Asbyrgi hike, we were also in Akureyri and we
asked a local girl where is the Bryggjan restaurant. As it turned out, she was the waitress there and few days later, she greeted us at 11:30 as the first customers of the lunch buffet.
Yes, all-you-can-eat pizzas, the first pizza-hunt of this kind, and on Iceland! I didn't eat since previous day's dinner (very non-trivial for me) and so when the pizzas came, I jumped up on them.
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| Yep, we know what's healthy |
Hm, if I could sum it up with few adjectives, it would be "quite tasty and honest super cheesy semi American delivery pizza". Lets go one by one. Super cheesy. Oh yes, the main reason I was full after ten (small) slices was the amount of cheese. It might have formed almost half of the pizza volume and it simply was a bit too much. That is why I say "honest", but also only "quite" tasty. Another minus goes for the sauce, which tasted bit too much like tomatoes - I mean, that's a good basis, but not really the complete pizza sauce. Finally, the crust was thick, but rather weak and soft, thus the "delivery", and "semi American".
From the above, it sounds like not the best of pizzas, and unfortunately, it's true I expected more, given the reviews I had seen. However, there's a chance the non-buffet pizza is different, while the buffet-one is simply designed to make people full as quickly as possible. I did not investigate this (but got myself full).
All the same, Bryggjan is a very cozy and nice place, with trendy decorations and a friendly staff. And the all-you-can-eat for something like 11 euros was a very good deal anyway. It certainly did the job and after two hours, we slowly shuffled away to get our first beer in Iceland and enjoy it on the nearest piece of grass we could find.
That might feel like the end of the day, but was far from it! We were to meet Milka, Andrej, Marika and Tomas, who had a car and were heading to Grettislaug - a nice hot pot not so far away. We managed to hitch three rides to Saudarkrokur and then hopped on their Dacia Duster for the final off-road bit. Following was a lengthy decision how/if to enter/pay for the hot pot and the camping, that mostly we, people from post-communist countries, excel in. The decision materialized, finally, and soon we all sat in one of the pools - the less hot one, although still too hot to stay in for long. Me and Juro tried also a dip in the cold sea, while Marika and Tomas contemplated the probability of getting eaten there by a shark.
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| Milka, trying out playground in the camping |
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| Juro, after he tried out playground in the camping |
The next morning, we went for a hike, mainly to see some more waterfalls (haha). Steep mountains rising almost from the sea and a beautiful day made us feel for a day like we did on Lofoten islands last year.
There was only couple of days left now, and so we moved in direction of Reykjavik, to have bit of a back-up time. Few easily hitched rides, and few hours of pseudo-camping at the airport.
And that was it. Iceland is truly unique and beautiful country. But it can also be very rough and uninviting. Getting down there with no car and only backpacks for almost three weeks might not always pay off. Words from some Czech people we met on Lofoten islands were ringing in my ears before the trip: "it was raining for three weeks". And not only rain it is, cold and wind can add up to this and make for truly hellish conditions, especially for hitchhiking and camping. It worked out well for us. Perhaps too well, and I was a bit sad we did not get some heavy rain and wind battering us for once, just to get the whole proper Icelandic experience :-P
But I think I'll live with that :-)
PS:
Dough - 5
Ingredients - 5
Sauce - 4
Atmosphere - 8
Service - 9
From the above, it sounds like not the best of pizzas, and unfortunately, it's true I expected more, given the reviews I had seen. However, there's a chance the non-buffet pizza is different, while the buffet-one is simply designed to make people full as quickly as possible. I did not investigate this (but got myself full).
All the same, Bryggjan is a very cozy and nice place, with trendy decorations and a friendly staff. And the all-you-can-eat for something like 11 euros was a very good deal anyway. It certainly did the job and after two hours, we slowly shuffled away to get our first beer in Iceland and enjoy it on the nearest piece of grass we could find.
