Iceland: Day 8

08 January 2016

When our alarms started ringing at 08:30, the sun was still deep below the horizon; it seemed that the rest of the world was asleep. The snow had stopped falling and the only sounds that could be heard were a quiet snore from upstairs and the not so occasional hum of a car that slipped by outside. The warm and familiar yellow hue of a street light flooded in through the window between Joey’s and Ryan’s beds and cast long lines across the ceiling and walls. With tedium, Ryan rolled out of bed first and began grinding beans, the sound of which forced Joey out of bed to start on the oatmeal. It was the smell of those grounds under boiling water that pulled me from my sleepy haze and into the kitchen to set out three plates, spoons, and cups.

But while we were quietly enjoying breakfast and sharing in cold toes on the tile floor under a pale fold-out table that had been teeming with life the night before, the guesthouse owner threw open the front door and haphazardly kicked snow across the mudroom and down the hallway. With an unwelcome trepidation and an unfamiliar frown, he handed us his phone, on which he had pulled up the weather radar. “You have twenty minutes before another blizzard,” he said, “and if you do not leave by then, you must stay here until it passes.” Joey asked, “How long will it last?”

“Three days.”

We shoveled in the rest of our breakfast while he explained that lodging owners in Iceland have the authority and responsibility to detain their patrons if traveling through imminent inclement weather would put their lives at risk. “If you die, I am responsible,” he said as he moved for the door. With one foot in the snow, he told us he would be back in twenty minutes, and if we were still there, he would not let us leave. Fifteen frantic minutes later, we were out the door and loading the car. Joey wiped off a fresh foot of snow from the windshield while I blasted the heat and Ryan double-checked the map. And with that, the calm-to-quick morning was over and our time in Egilsstaðir had come to an end.

Our journey shifted as H1 doglegged to the northwest, through the heart of the Icelandic hinterland, and towards the Arctic Circle. This portion of the drive was the worst yet—not because of dangerous mountain passes or five-foot deep trenches, but because it was unexciting and uneventful. The middle country was less aggressive than the coast; the drive did not consist of the winding turns of the fjords or the great tectonic cliffs of Þingvellir. Instead, the only view we had was of snowflakes that fell into the line of fire of the high beams. The darkness was consuming; it hid away the mountains lingering in the distance. But their existence we began to doubt, for the wind was too strong and the road too straight for mountains. It was as if we were driving on a treadmill going nowhere. The blue light that had once illumed the dash with time was just a clock that blinked eights.

Plows must have been out before us, we thought, for the roads were relatively clear. But, for what must have been hours, we drove on into nothingness without passing another car. And when the sun had finally broken from the horizon, we could see why this part of the drive was less tumultuous: the wide-open space of the Icelandic interior left the wind unimpeded, which had blown all the fresh snow from the road and onto the mammoth expanse. Other than the obscurities of faraway mountains that were darkened by dumps of snow from lingering clouds and the lack of sunrise this close to the north pole, nothing distinguished grey sky from grey earth.

We kept driving until the expanse was disrupted by a range of volcanos. The road rose into the range and spit us out overlooking some stinking geysers, a few steaming lagoons, and the death-star-esque crater of Krafla. A nearby viewing platform granted us an opportunity to stop and take in the smell of sulpher, but the icy wind burnt too much, so we looked to the basin below. At the foot of Krafla, we stopped at the small town of Reykjahlíð, which was destroyed by the volcano over the course of an eruption that lasted from 1975 to 1984. The only building to survive the flow of Krafla’s lava was a small Lutheran church that sat on a ridge towards the back of town. A few homes and small shoppes have since been resurrected, built upon the rubble of the past.

Although the Reykjahlíð visitor centre was closed, one side of the building was painted with a map of the local area. So, we outlined our route and headed towards one end of Krafla’s shadow, where the largest lake in Iceland simultaneously froze and boiled. Mývatn has been a shallow, eutrophic lake for more than two thousand years, formed by an earlier Krafla eruption. Portions of the lake still filled the frozen air with clouds of sulphur heated by magma that bubbled just 2.1 km below the surface. Its edges, though, had frozen over. We walked across the still sheet of ice and let it crack below our boots. Even though the lake teemed with life during the summer months, winter left it barren with the rest of the island—how could anything live here?

The lake sat over Krafla’s eldhraun and boiled where shepherds once tended their sheep. Now, shores of blackened plutonic rock serve as a grotesque reminder of the earth’s temper. With the wind still slapping our cheeks red, we looked out across the lake to the beast under the mountain: the terrible crater of Krafla. The early Viking settlers believed Krafla to be the portal to the netherworld, and appropriately referred to her crater as Víti (“hell”). The perpetual flow of lava that spilled out from her gate and the plethora of lava pillars, steam craters, boiling mudpools, and smoking fumaroles blurred the line between fact and fiction, between truth and tale. Something sinister breathed fire and shadow below our feet, for this was a place unlike any other. It was the home of the lord of darkness. Was it eruptions that were known to light up the Reykjavík sky over 200 miles away? Or was it the Lord’s bane screaming fire into the air as he escaped from the nether realm to torment the lives of those living on the island? The Vikings were right: this was hell on earth. And as we stood overlooking a landscape of the likes of Mordor, we realized that the caldera of the volcano wasn’t the Víti crater, but the 10 km-wide basin in which we were standing. We weren’t standing at the foot of Krafla; we were sitting in her belly.

With chills not just from the cold, we clambered back into the car and made our way down Mývatn’s eastern shoreline. Snow drifts forced us off the road a few times, but with some serrated maneuvering, we kept close to the main road. Along the way, we approached a harras of horses grazing on some frozen grass. A silver mare stood watch over the others, stout and sovereign. I watched his mane quiver in the wind while he eyed me steadily. With only a short fence separating the two of us, I approached slowly and whispered gently as if he could understand me. I got an arm’s reach away before he exhaled strongly to declare that we had overstayed our welcome. Back to the car and onward we went.

Our next stop in the Krafla caldera was a place known as Dimmuborgir, or “Dark Castles.” Long ago, a lake of lava bubbled up over a body of water, which created geysers of vapour that rose around the lava. Now what remains are cooled, blackened, saw-toothed lava pillars that tower over the surrounding landscape. Some are small enough to house krummi, the Icelandic raven; others are large enough to house humans. In all, the ruins are reminiscent of a destroyed citadel, much like Harrenhal from Game of Thrones. (In fact, Dimmuborgir was used as Mance Rayder’s wilding camp in season three.) In Nordic Christian folklore, this place was where Satan landed after being exiled from the heavenly realm. Many still speak of the place with horror, referring to it as “Helvetes katakomber”—the Catacombs of Hell.

On the other end of tradition, the thirteen Yule Lads call Dimmuborgir home. Yes, that’s right: there are thirteen Icelandic Santa Clauses. Legend tells that there was originally a nasty, bloodthirsty troll named Grýla and her Yule Cat, and they would devour naughty children, or those that did not receive new clothes on Christmas Eve. However, Grýla fell in love with Leppalúði, a sluggish, bed-ridden half-breed of ogre and human, and the two of them married (Grýla’s third husband). Together, they tamed the Yule Cat for their thirteen mischievous children, who loved to wreak havoc across the island. Occasionally, if a child was bad enough, the Yule Lads would release the Yule Cat, but only in serious cases. Typically, the Yule Lads, whose names include Spoon-Licker, Door-Slammer, Skyr-Gobbler, Sausage-Swiper, and Window-Peeper, are content with their favourite activities, which include licking spoons, slamming doors, gobbling skyr, swiping sausages, and peeping through windows. They begin arriving, one per day, thirteen days before Christmas. Then, when all thirteen are causing a ruckus on the Yuletide, they begin to file out, one per day, until the sixth of January. It is proper to celebrate their departure with fireworks, which are only legal during these twenty-six days of the year. Oh, and don’t forget to leave a shoe out on the window sill—if you have been good, they will be full of sweets by the morning! But if you have been bad, expect a raw potato!

With spirits lifted knowing the last Yule Lad had just returned home and would be too exhausted from his pranking to bother us, we hiked through white, waist-deep snow around the blackened pillars of lava. Some of the pillars had crumbled into caves; others had formed archways. Working our way through the maze without any clear sign of a trail meant that we had to watch our steps and our heads. But with the little bit of sunlight already starting to diminish, we didn’t spend too long in what we came to call “Dinkleburg” in another episode of uncontrollable laughter.

Our last stop in the Krafla caldera was a group of rootless craters, each about the size of a two-story home. These were created when steam built up under the lava lake and, instead of forming geysers like at Dimmuborgir, exploded like bubbles. This was the shortest visit yet, because the wind was so piercing that when we opened our eyes, immediately tears formed and froze.

Mývatn was now in the rearview mirror. Northwards we headed towards Akureyri, our destination for the night. Although we thought our next stop would be the Airbnb in which we were staying, we were pleasantly surprised to find that H1 intersected with Goðafoss, one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland. In the icy mist of “the waterfall of the gods,” we had lunch and watched as the last fingers of sunlight let go of the horizon and dipped below the earth. But as we slipped our way towards the car, Tinn, the man from both Höfn and Egilsstaðir, stepped out of his truck and met our surprised faces with delight. Having now crossed paths three days in a row, the four of us quickly exchanged information and planned to have dinner together once we had checked into our Akureyri lodgings.

The rest of the drive was the same monotony of the morning—that is, until a beautiful and somewhat terrifying descent from the highlands down into the fjords along the Iceland Sea. While traversing north, we had not realized how much we had climbed; what we thought was a knoll turned out to be the peak of a mountain overlooking Akureyri, which glowed far down below us in the elbow of the fjord. H1 bent around the peak and descended like an arrow towards the town. It felt more like landing a plane than driving a car.

Our first task was to find the home of Ketill, our Airbnb host. Three times around the block and an expensive phone call later and we found it: the white house between the two blue ones at the bottom of the first road over the town centre. We were greeted at the door by a boy of about eight, dressed in pajamas and an ear-to-ear smile. While we were kicking the snow from our boots and kicking boots from our feet, a short and exhausted-looking man of about thirty rounded the corner with a sleepy “Hallo.”

Ketill was a father of four, but his girlfriend lived on the other side of Akureyri and only two of his kids were staying here for the night: the eight-year-old and a toddler, who wobbled from the couch with a thumb in mouth, an arm outstretched towards Pabbi, and a stuffed Olaf from Frozen clutched in the bend of her arm as we rounded the corner into a living room sporting a well-loved couch, an oversized television, and a bookshelf of trinkets that seemed to be from a well-traveled, pre-child past.

Above all else, Ketill loved video games. While Joey and Ryan dropped our bags in the kids’ room—we would be sleeping in bunk beds tonight—Ketill told me all about the game he was playing before we arrived. More than the game itself, I found interesting how quickly he was willing to open himself (and his home) up to complete strangers. He was a lonely guy; his home was that of a bachelor’s: shambolic dishes were stacked in the kitchen sink glued together by last week’s lunches, unopened mail was stacked high on the dining room table and coated in some sticky leftovers, and video games were stacked on living room end table, scratch-free and cared for more than anything else in this man cave.

Before we left to explore town, we participated in the family ritual of feeding Rabbit, an apropos name for their fluffy, black-spotted white rabbit. The ceremony, as Ketill explained, was the exact same whenever his children were over for the night. It began with the family gathering around the cage. Then the youngest would hand off Olaf to her Pabbi and try to fill Rabbit’s bowl with food. Then she would reach for Olaf and the ceremony would end. Because she never quite filled the bowl enough, Ketill always snuck back to top it off when the kids had gone to bed. With this evening’s ceremony complete, we slipped our boots back on and went into town.

As the second largest city in Iceland (with 18,000 residents), Akureyri is a popular skiing town and home to a few breweries: Einstök Ölgerð, Thule, and Gull. But we were not here to ski or drink (bummer, I know); we were here just for the night, and we had to leave very early the next day. We walked up and down the streets surrounding Ketill’s, but because the town sits in a fjord, every road seemed to lean over the next as if the whole town was balancing on itself, so the exploring quickly turned into exercise.

We decided to take a pre-dinner snack break at Brynja, a local shoppe with “Iceland’s best ice cream.” I had a chocolate-strawberry swirl; and yes, it was the best ice cream I had in Iceland…and the only. We slowly made our way down towards the town square, where a handful of shoppe and restaurant lights fought against a heavy darkness that fogged in from the sea with an arctic wind. With dinnertime quickly approaching, we walked a kilometre back to Ketill’s for access to wifi, with which we contacted Tinn and made plans to meet at DJ Grill in the square. With the temperature plummeting, we decided to drive this time.

Over cheeseburgers, chili dogs, and fries, the four of us talked for a couple of hours about everything from his home in Thailand to his work as an architect in Tokyo, from Northern Lights to New Zealand, where the four of us might run into each other again. Just before the grill closed for the night, I downed two shots of free burger-joint espresso, and we parted ways. (While Joey was living in Japan the summer of 2016, he ran into Tinn in Tokyo!)

On another stroll around the town centre, we ran into a guy we shared popcorn with in Höfn. We couldn’t remember his name, but only knew that he was from Saskatchewan and properly referred to him as “Canada.” After a short chat, we did some window shopping, browsed the books in Eymundsson (the Icelandic equivalent to Barnes & Noble), and climbed a few flights of steep stairs to a church that overlooked the city. Before long, it was time for us to return to Ketill’s to call it a night.

The kids had gone to bed, but Ketill was still playing games in the living room, his butt glued to the sofa. The three of us brought Rabbit into the living room and listened as Ketill shared with us stories about the relics that rested on the bookcase. Although it was apparent that he loved his children, his reminiscence was shrouded in the bitterness of a freedom lost.

When time came for bed, we climbed into our bunks, set our alarms for 04:00, and fell asleep to the soft glow of blue Christmas lights hung just outside the window and the occasional sound of an explosion from the video game being playing in the living room just outside our bedroom door.