Trip to Iceland: Eruptions of Joy

When we started our journey eastward from Reykjavík, little did we know what secrets, sagas and history these mountains withhold. Vast stretches of mountains and volcanoes spread in every direction blanketed by a thick cover of snow that glistened uninhibitedly in the perfectly sunny weather. Frozen lakes, barren lands and lava fields but not a sign of vegetation. So what was it that brought people to this strange country in the first place?

Scintillating scenery on the way to Thingvellir

Blood feuds.

The norsemen who sought this land were largely outlaws escaping the tyrannous rule of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. Around the year 874 AD, a few vikings decided they had had enough and fled on their boats westward to the barren island which would later be called Iceland. They brought with them women from the British Isles, mainly Ireland. Upon learning this, I’m taken back in time, imagining burly vikings unloading their boats as they are showered with the spray from the sea splashing over the little ice bergs — and I am awed by their determination to embrace this icy, hostile piece of land.

Soon, the guide announces that we would be reaching the Þingvellir National Park (pronounced as Thing-vethlir) and my attention is back on the serpentine black road that neatly divides the otherwise white landscape. In prehistoric times, Iceland was buried beneath the weight of a massive glacier and as the ice age ended, the glacier melted and the land began to emerge gradually from under the ocean. We see horizontal lines towards the flat tops of some mountains, and for all that could have passed as a random pattern of snow, we’re told that they are gradation marks as the islands emerged from water. So, it’s a little memorabilia from the ice age. Whoa!

Soon we get down at Þingvellir National Park, a site of great geological and historical importance. We are walking here in a massive fissure between two continental tectonic plates, the colossal, jagged, rocky formation rising majestically on our left is the American plate and beyond the frozen Lake Þingvellir in the far right is the Eurasian one.

Walking between the two tectonic plates

Volcanic and seismic activity in the region is pulling apart the two plates every year.

There’s a charming little waterfall to brighten things up and the fact that it was used to give people the “death by drowning” punishment doesn’t take away its beauty. The water here is somewhat a deep shade of prussian blue, foaming its way around tiny rocks.

The icy water of Lake Thingvellir

We’re shown the site of the Althing — the world’s first parliament and the institution founded to establish some order amidst the otherwise chaotic influx of settlers. I take a look at the enormity of the place and visions of hefty chieftains reading out laws from old scrolls of parchment float before my eyes. Everyone who was important would attend the Althing — it was like this modern day networking event where important people met for trading, asking betrothals and laying down ground rules for acceptable behaviour. It is here that that the stage for countless sagas was set that the world would cherish for eternity.

The flag is the site of the Althing, Vikings’ Parliament

The word saga is an Icelandic word and it is no secret that works like the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones were inspired by Icelandic sagas. While mainland Europe was writing fiction and romantic fairy tales, Icelanders were producing literature that was realistic — of love and honour, betrayal and revenge — elaborate tales that were fictional yet derived their essence from real stories.

Anyway, we hop back on to the bus and head for our next stop, the geyser. What catches my attention on the way is the uncountable frozen little rivulets emerging from nowhere and running beside us in the winter-petrified grasslands.

The earth spouting water seems pretty plain right? There’s no big deal, we read about it in school: lava makes the water hot and it ultimately erupts. So what? Well, I bet not even virtual reality goggles can do justice to the excitement of watching the water bubble and gradually come to a boil. We circumambulate the fenced area to find the best spot in the crowd, our eyes transfixed to the crater lest we should miss the eruption. Soon, the heat is just too much to bear and the crater develops a large, bright, cyan bubble.

The Strokkur geyser erupts!

But water’s not the only thing erupting here, everyone’s erupting with joy. Our collective appetite for watching this delight is not yet sated but we have to move on. And so we do, warming our frozen hands in the hot steam blown away by the winds and happily lapping up the strong smell of sulphur which wouldn’t have been half as welcome were it not from this rare place. The sulphur also imbues the terrain with a pale pink colour which we leave behind as we descend for a lunch of Icelandic hotdogs.

The site of the Strokkur Geyser

To complete our Golden Circle tour, we drive to Gullfoss Waterfall which has its own story to tell: a female environmentalist who threatened to jump into the torrent to protect it. We can feel the spray of the icy blue water from a distance and the cold winds mercilessly slash our face, forcing us to depart sooner than we’d like.

Gullfoss Waterfall

When night falls, we head out to the Reykjanes peninsula in search of the mysterious northern lights — hard to predict, exciting to hunt and simply breathtaking to behold. The sky is absolutely cloudless which is a boon, but the Iceland Met Department predicts the chances of an aurora today as “minimum”. Will we? Won’t we?

The thirty minute journey passes by quickly and we hear some interesting legends of what people in the past thought these lights were. Some believed it was their dead dancing in the sky, while others thought it was their enemies declaring war. In the midst of these legends, my mind repeatedly reassures me of all the amazing things we’ve seen today, in case we don’t get lucky tonight.

We get off the bus and look up to be dazed by a moonless black umbrella of a sky, arching over us from horizon to horizon. It is studded with stars so many, they look like glitter. Some of them shoot across the sky and we jump up with joy. My husband points out a few rare constellations. We all huddle around the guide who points out to a faint grey ribbon, curved like a wide rainbow and says, “That’s the Aurora”. About a hundred pairs of dilated pupils are staring at the pitch, black, dotted sky with all the energy they can muster. We see it, but they are nothing like we imagined they would be.

About an hour or so of struggling in the biting cold, the ribbon acquires a tinge of green. The lights are getting darker and they look somewhat like 3D columns or curtains just hanging from the sky.

S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R.

They even oblige us with a little dance while we frantically take pictures to keep this one of a kind experience with us forever. We ride back on to the bus, and the emerald aurora follows us outside the window on the way back to the hotel. It has been a truly good night. Alhamdulillah. 

Want to experience more of Iceland? Or know what the northern lights look like? You may like  Emerald Auroras or Be Warned: Trolls & Elves Dwell in the Land of Fire & Ice