We had just confirmed that the professional cameras did exaggerate the grey-ish Northern lights to give a tinge of green, thus confirming kiddo’s statement. A sense of pessimism had started creeping in. Was that all? Were all the pictures on the internet actually like this in real life? With only 3 days remaining would we have any luck and get to see anything close to what the pictures show?

Continued from Planet Iceland…

As I tried to fall asleep that night, my dejected-yet-determined mind, started circulating through its image processing experience from work– if it is visible to a normally lit camera, it has to be visible to the eyes!

I was woken up at around 5 am and told to rush outside. After reluctantly putting on my jacket and boots, I walked out in the cold to see a small flickering green patch on one side of the sky (see cover pic). I pinched myself to make sure this was not a dream. My lips were smiling, teeth clattering as I witnessed this heavenly spectacle of solar activity. The mountains and Glaciers were a level apart from anything I had seen before, but this was a first in my life. A light in the sky – something I used to think was a figment of Picasso’s imagination, before Facebook taught me better. Why wasn’t this in our curriculum in school? Maybe because our teachers wanted to protect us from this biting cold. It lasted about 15 mins.

Day 3: Three falls and a plane-wreck

The following morning, we were back to planet earth in its current state.  It was bright, sunny and warm. I wasn’t prepared for this sartorially. All the travel sites had advised to be pack for rain, wind, ice, but not this. Nevertheless, I didn’t mind sweating a bit for a change.

We started the day by visiting two popular falls nearby – Seljalandsfoss and Gljúfrabúi. While the former was a gentle walk behind the falls, the latter was a challenge to pronounce and reach. It was inside a cave and took some arduously calculated steps on the shaky stones sticking out of the stream to get to it. Well, all that effort to stay dry was in vain as we got drenched under the falls anyway. Not my cup of tea. Although I could have done with a cup of tea at that point.

It did not take us long to dry off as the balmy sun absorbed the moisture. We spent another half an hour absorbing the beauty of the area – an endless grassy meadow with mountains in the backdrop, basking in sunlight.

As we set our socks to dry in the car’s air vents, the navigation was set for Sólheimasandur. This beach had a plane-wreck from 1973. Why was it important to see some molded steel and cables hanging out from it, you ask? Because Bollywood! Same movie and same song as last time. It was a deceptively long, 45 min walk to the site. All the sweating did not help. I regretted carrying that jacket. But the eerie sight of an ill-fated aircraft on miles of black gravel with a glacier just about fitting in the horizon was worth the entire endeavor.

 

Next in line was Dyrhólaey, the cliff we saw from Reynisfjara the previous day. The uphill drive was arduous but the views were amazing. On one side there was the Reynisfjara beach of course and on the other, Sólheimasandur. The vast open spaces skewed my sense of perspective because each of them looked like a stone throw away.

 

That evening we spent some time at Skogafoss, another site from Gerua, famous for a tall waterfall (of course by now you might have guessed foss translates to falls) amidst a dreamy Windows XP background-like grassland. The sun had just about gotten eclipsed by the hill adjacent the fall – hence depriving us of the prevalent rainbow there.

 

After an early dinner we started our drive for Reykjavik for our Northern lights bus tour. We were just about on schedule. However, mother nature had different ideas. It was as if she was testing our perseverance the night before and hence decided to reward us generously. We were an hour away from Reykjavik, minutes after total darkness when it happened. As if someone spilled some drops of green in a dish full of dark blue. The small disturbance in the horizon gradually proliferated and crawled across the sky like a giant snake. I hadn’t stopped thinking about her since catching that brief glimpse last night. Aurora Borealis had now come out of her room to the balcony, like Juliet –  with the pallu of her emerald green saree, fluttering in the solar winds. It was spookily beautiful.

I was driving, so I tried to control my excitement and hoped that the best would be saved for later that night. But that is not how nature works. The green was eventually accompanied by pink, a sign of extremely high solar activity. We stopped on a relatively empty street. What we witnessed next can best be described as a natural light & sound show – sans the sound of course. The snake, transformed into bands on the 45-degree latitude in the sphere of space – gigantic vertical bars of alternating green and pink that swept across the sky. My friends setup their tripods and captured every aspiring photographer’s dream. I, on the other hand, got what looked like a movie scene depicting the hallucinating effects of LSD. Anyway what mattered was that the lens of my eye had captured the image & it was saved to the hard drive of my mind.

We somehow managed to scrape through to the tour pick-up location on time. Only issue, there was no one there. As it turns out, the bus leaves 30 minutes prior to tour time – who reads the “terms & conditions” anyway. We still had hope as we saw several buses from the same operator a few blocks down. But each one of them pointed us to different locations for our specific tour. As we ran around desperately on the deserted streets of downtown Reykjavik, Ms. Borealis kept playing peek-a-boo with us – as if trying to wave at us in bewilderment.

The bus was gone. Blood pressure levels were high. We found out where the tour would have taken us and drove there. No lights though. It was disappointing, but we realized that it wasn’t as if the tour operators were going to pull out the lights from their hats. So in hindsight, we were lucky to have witnessed what we already did earlier that evening.

Day 4: Reykjavik

This was our chill out day. The plan was to just hang around and explore Reykjavik. We visited the National Museum of Iceland first and learnt about the history of this 330,000 strong island. We were at the northern most capital of the world – there was the caption for my next Instagram post! While Iceland remained neutral throughout WWII, Britain did occupy it and then transferred it to the United States. That would explain why the gas station stores had so much American goods and credit cards were accepted everywhere. Or maybe it was just lower trade tariffs. Who knows. I was too tired to think straight.

I got yet another opportunity to enjoy purposefully mispronouncing an Icelandic name as we walked towards the Hallgrímskirkja, a famous step structured Cathedral. The view of the city and the surrounding mountains was stunning. We spent the remainder of the day in the city’s famous shopping street. I had heard a lot about the Icelandic wool sweaters. One look at the price tag and I settled for a magnet instead. We called it a night after a cone of the rich and tasty Icelandic ice cream.

 

Final Day: The Golden Circle

I woke up feeling rather sick. The average human body can only withstand a certain amount of rain, wind and ice cream. Mine though, would often find its limit at a fraction of that average. Anyway that was not going to deter me from the mission for the day – The Golden Circle.

The terrain towards the north east of Reykjavik was a little more of this planet – normal mountains with shrubs on them. We entered the Þingvellir National park (pronounced ‘Thingvellir’ and not ‘Pingvellir’) and drove around a few miles enjoying the fall colors before making our first stop at the Kerið volcanic crater. This was now home to a lake inside it.

The next attraction were the famous Geysirs. The biggest among the lot, the Strokkur, was known to erupt once every 7 odd mins. Of course, like the northern lights, this natural phenomenon too, decided to play games with us. It subtly altered its schedule and went off twice within 30 seconds. Sly! I got normal videos, pictures, slow motion videos and time-lapses– not because I had to do a PhD on hot springs– but just because my phone had the features and I had to get my money worth. (Video links below)

The sun had passed its zenith as we visited Gulfoss, yet another waterfall. By now I was saturated with viewing the effects of gravity on flowing water, but this one was perhaps the most violent of all. The river narrowing down at the point of the fall made it look like a slice of cake. Or maybe it was just me and my obsession with cake – confectionary or music.

The continental divide between the American and the European plates was our final destination. It looked like any valley in Midwest US during fall– not the dramatic ridge that I was expecting, peeking into which would give you a glimpse of the earth’s magma. Never mind! It was time to leave. With a heavy heart I went to the restroom for my pre-long drive preparations. Hello there! The urinals were against a wall, almost entirely made of glass, with a stunning view of the entire valley. The problem was that the valley would also have stunning views of me. Anyway I did what I had to and we headed downhill towards the city, to stunning views of clouds below the road level and the evening sunshine bombarding the golden hills.

 

After another round of shopping (walking for me), we took a final walk along the Harpa concert hall and lakeshore. The end-of-a-trip syndrome had hit me. The only thing that could pick me up was one final glimpse of Aurora. This Romeo kept looking up to her balcony, only to see a curtain of cotton-like clouds, orange from the reflection of the city lights, shielding her room.

 

I was not going to give up easy. It was not all that late and the national forecast app showed clear skies over the Þingvellir National park. We decided to undertake the 45 min drive one more time. Halfway through our uphill drive, we had entered a cloud. Visibility was extremely low. I wanted to punch the car’s stereo when “Here comes the sun” started playing for the 37^th time. Now’s not a good time, Paul! With every covered mile, this seemed like an increasingly foolish idea. But what is love without a dash of craziness? We pushed on for another 20 mins or so after which it was hopeless with no signs of the clouds parting. This left us with only one way to go – back! “Oh Aury, why are you evading me like this?” (yes, I had a nickname for her now). Maybe this was her way of lessening the pain of parting with me. Sure, let’s go with that! Anyway, it was time to say Au Revoir.

The following morning my return flight took off into the grey clouds. It was hard for me to go through the mental pictures of Iceland during the flight, because it kept getting disrupted by my constant and violent sneezing. It took me about a week to recover from that cold and flu.

A year on and clearly I am yet to recover from the hangover of this magical land. The limited but fulfilling moments spent with Aury are still cherished and the hope for our paths to cross again remain ignited.