I was at Newark airport, waiting for my flight to Düsseldorf (First Time in Germany). The adjacent gate had Icelandair showing on its display. I took a guess that it must be flying to that city with all j’s and k’s in it – Jack-rock-vicky? I recalled seeing something like that in some airport. “Aah, Reyk-j-avik” I said to myself as “Destination: Reykjavik” flashed, with the departure time and status. I was disappointed to later find out that it was actually pronounced Reyk-ya-vik. It was kind of fun stressing on that ‘j’. Anyway through the powers vested to me by the internet, I learnt about how much more Iceland has to offer than just ice – glaciers, waterfalls, hot springs and of course, the Aurora Borealis!

Fast forward 2 years, same city – I was catching up with my childhood friend after several years, when she told me about her plans to visit Iceland with her friend, later that year. We were adults now, so protocol dictates that I should have expressed my happiness in a dignified manner. “Whaaaaaaat!”, I squealed, “I am so jealous. I want to go!”. I was immediately given an offer to join the trip.

Fast forward 3 months and there I was at Reykjavik airport, waiting for my two trip buddies to land.  Seasons literally changed outside, during my wait. It was supposed to be normal for Iceland. We were blown off as we stepped outside, again literally! It was pretty gusty.

The rental car agent showed us our car, a beaming white 4×4 Fiat 500X.  We carefully scrutinized each scratch. Every blog we had read about Iceland had warned about the country’s notorious car rental scene. After signing what seemed like a nuclear deal, we were finally out in the open.

Open was perhaps the most literal description of what it was after exiting the airport area. The terrain was kind of mossy-green all around with some hills far in the horizon. There were no trees for us to gauge the degree of windiness but the drive was pretty turbulent. We decided to make a stop to get our first pictures of this exotic island. As I turned off the ignition, the sound of the wind was distinctly audible. I opened my door. It shut back on me. I tried again, this time it felt like the gust was going to take the door along with it to infinity and beyond. We explored wherever the winds took us, because walking against it was impossible. Turns out that the mossy green was actually due to moss –  acres and acres of moss. I remembered an internet meme about how Iceland was green and Greenland was icy.

We had our first activity planned for the same evening. The famous Blue Lagoon was pretty close to the airport. It made sense to check that off the list before moving on along the Southern coast. But little did we know about the wind-chill factor. It took a while to gather the courage to step outside. But Oh, once we were inside that steaming therapeutic light blue water, everything was all right with the world again. The body was warm but my exposed head was freezing. If Titanic sank here, Rose would have happily let Jack have that door. We spent about 2 hours there before setting off for Seljaland, for our accommodation.

We stocked up on groceries to avoid Iceland’s exorbitantly high-priced restaurants. After a long sleepy drive through a dark byway snaking and banking in every allowable degree of freedom, we made it to our hostel called Nice Hostel. All we could think of was to crash into our bunk beds. However, with 13 more residents in the room, all in rem sleep, we had to virtually float into the beds like ghosts. The hostel was nice though – living up to its name

Day 1: West to East on the South Coast

We woke up early to dark clouds hanging over the giant mountain behind the hostel as we set off for our 4-hour eastbound drive.  As we hit Iceland’s famous ring road, a bi-lane highway that circles the entire island, there was a terrible realization. We had pre-loaded the maps but somehow forgot about songs. The three of us, combined, had only a handful. Road trips with limited songs is a virtual-abort-criteria for my generation. But it was what it was. The drive commenced with my favorite song – “Cake” by Flo-ri-da. Sue me!

Activity of the day – Kayaking on a Glacier lagoon. Per the website, there were no scary ledges, no inhuman G-forces, only the biting cold to survive – which meant I was somewhat looking forward to this. With hardly any buffer time, we decided to leave all the roadside sightseeing stops for the return journey. We had just crossed the quaint town of Vik, when the rain seceded and the mossy panorama started glowing against the oblique and diffuse morning sun rays. Nature won! We stopped.

 

It was green everywhere – right from the Atlantic Ocean peaking at us in the horizon to the mountains on the other side of the road. Yes, even the mountains were covered with moss. Two hours passed by in what seemed like minutes. But the backdrop seemed to suggest we had been driving for days if not months. Somehow we had made it to a different planet. It was black all around. The asphalt road was camouflaged. Only the white lane marks and the tire tracks from off-roading vehicles stood out. The blackness was due volcanic rocks. It looked like a coal mine.

Another hour on, a tinge of greenery was visible again. Still no trees! But in the distance hiding behind the low-hanging cloud were a couple of greenish mountains. Nested in between them was a little glacier, like a child squeezing in between his parents. We stopped again. While I utilized both the photography modes in my newly acquired iPhone 7 plus (normal & portrait), my friends did the professional version of that with their DSLRs. In the interim, another guest had popped in to add some more colors to our journey, literally! It was a fully arched rainbow which seemed within touching distance. With no buffer time left, we had to resist the temptation to stop at Jökulsárlón.

 

It was pouring by the time we made it to the agency – a sketchy looking warehouse which was reeking with a smell of cow-dung. The probability of it being unicorn-dung was higher as cows seemed too down market for such kind of scenery. Of course I would later find out that cows thrived in this country and also produced some creamy milk which made for delicious yogurt and ice cream. Anyway, we wrapped ourselves up from ear to toe and walked in, all set to row, row, row our kayaks. You didn’t get our email?”, the receptionist asked us. The chances of her following this up with – “You get to walk the glaciers and win a million dollars” were low. As feared, kayaking was cancelled for the next few days due to bad weather.

Disheartened and aimless now, we drove back towards Jökulsárlón.  The agency had told us about a company that may still be running tours. They operated from a truck and we were just on time for the last tour. They gave us waterproof suits, evidently designed for the Icelandic race. I felt like Snowy in his St. Bernard space suit from Tintin’s Destination Moon comic. The suits were soaked from previous trips – doubling the cold. Our eyes, though, were soaked with astonishing views of icebergs which had a blue-ish glow to them. And the tour guide’s jovial nature and larger than life stories soaked our ears. Apparently he had once seen the sunset at 3 am at one side of the sky and the northern lights on the other side. There were no anecdotes about elves (which Icelandic folks believe in), so this was still plausible.

 

We saw a portion of the Jökulsárlón glacier and a baby seal on one of the small icebergs from the boat. After that we went across the road to see a plethora of shimmering crystal like ice chunks on the Diamond beach, before calling it a day. Our accommodation was in a cozy cottage at Hofn. With the relentless rain ruling out any possibility of green northern lights that night, I settled for red in the wine glass.

Day 2: East to West on the South Coast

It was still rainy and gloomy, the following morning. Gigantic mountains hidden behind the low hanging clouds, with waterfalls lined up like milestones continuously dazed us as we drove back westwards. As we stopped and crossed the single lane bridges, it was alarming to see all the rivers gushing and on the brink of overflowing. For the next mile or so, the left side of the road was flooded. Our mini-SUV waded past it like a hover-boat.

We stopped and hiked for about an hour to and fro the outlet of the Vatnajökull glacier. Finally, there were some trees in sight – thus snapping us out of what seemed like a dream. Post the hike, the officials asked us if we were headed east as that side was now cut-off due to flooding. I smiled and thanked the travel gods that we made it in the nick of time.

We were behind schedule to make it to Reynisvjara black sand beach before sun down. But the dark and gloomy day gave us no motivation to make it by sunset. Instead, it was more soothing to stop by the gushing streams in the foothills of the enormous hills. Dotted on them were herds of wooly sheep and horses with rather chic hairdos.

 

We continued to circulate through our limited playlist, as we ambled along the ring road. The soothing acoustic guitar of “Here comes the sun” by The Beatles had just started strumming, when it happened. Somebody had cranked up the brightness knob of the sky. The integrity of the cloud walls had been compromised and bright sun rays spouted out leading to a golden deluge. If moss can look so magical under the evening sunshine, what would the black sand beach be like? Only one way to find out – 1 hour to official sunset and more 100 kms to go – in short, almost impossible.

 

We made it in time. For legal purposes, I will not divulge how we managed that. We did debunk the myth spread by several forums about the Ring Road being rife with speed guns. Shhh!

The sand was black, as the name of the beach would suggest and the sky had a golden-violet shade to it with the silhouette of the Dyrhólaey cliff in the horizon on one side and the 3 apostles on the other. The sea was to our left and on our right side, the Eyjafjallajökull glacier stood in all its glory. It was hard to imagine that this tongue-twisting giant dollop of vanilla ice cream had once brought all of Northern Europe’s air traffic to a standstill. I had to pose against the peculiar basalt lava columns where Shahrukh Khan & Kajol in her flaming yellow saree with a fluttering pallu, shot the Gerua song from Dilwale. The movie itself was cringe-worthy but this dreamy song sequence had a big hand in bringing Iceland to the map for Indian tourists. For the next 24 hours, Bollywood was going to be a prominent part of this journey. We hung around in the beach till the color of the sky matched the color of the sand.

 

 

Now, a clear sky meant that the probability of spotting the Northern lights were high. The locals told us that we had to wait for it to get even darker. After checking into Nice Hostel for one more stay, we walked out every 5 mins but to no avail. Suddenly, the hostel manager’s child called us out in excitement. Apparently it was visible now. Like Rachel’s embryo episode from Friends, we nodded along and feigned excitement as we saw some vague greyish streaks in the sky. “That is Aurora Borealis” he told us in his Nordic accent. He went on “Only long exposure photographs gave the greenish color, not naked eyes”. It was difficult for 3 engineers to believe the 12-year old. So we drove out to a darker spot along the coast to see try our luck. There were traces of green but nothing worth writing home. The professional cameras did exaggerate the effects. Was the kiddo right? A sense of pessimism had started creeping in. Only 3 more days remaining.

Will we have any luck?

To be continued…