Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
The above noted mini volcano is no more than four stories tall.
Above, the lake of midges, noted bird paradise and film location.
The young Torontonian in the picture above climbs everything. I wouldn’t have climbed that for beans, the Dark Forest is full of cracked piles of rock. He climbed the last waterfall we went to and the damned things 192 metres.
Where I got heartburn.
It’sa Me Fumarole. That’s the noise it made. The stench is best left undescribed.
going over the day
got to the hotel at 10 PM last night after a long day of brutal driving and sitting around doing nothing…. I didn’t go on the glacier hike, and it was delayed by an hour. The wind and rain were just south of what would cause the guides to cancel, so you can imagine how Allegra would have felt about it. Also, my parents already paid for the glacier expedition of a lifetime, and I knew that my sadness at the cold and wind would have been piqued by knowing how fast the ice is coming off. So a two hour hike accompanied by ass freezing cold and me all cry face over climate change yeah, no.
Now, going forwards through the day
The dark spot is the hole I put in the sensor trying to get a pic of the fallstreak clouds. Mike can sigh with disappointment later, I plan on buying the camera off him. The damned bus jumped when I was taking a pic and there ya go.
Anyway that spire of ice, which is in the Vatnajökull lagoon, is six stories tall. Just in case you wanted to know. Weather conditions at this point were offshore wind steady at 50kph gusting to 80kph bearing sleet mixed with rain. Hecate Strait weather fer sure.
The blurriness is my fault, the wind was incredible.
Then we went to Diamond Beach, where pure ice on black sand is wonderful, and would be even more wonnerful if I hadn’t been as miserable as a chimp in a rainstorm at the time.
spots are rain of course. Pictures by an amateur don’t give the brilliance.
Then I ate a $25 bowl of lamb goulash in the Vatnajokull visitor center and then I sat on the tour bus and waited for folks to come back from the walk, and then we went to have supper at the only pizza parlour on this part of the island. It was okay. I kept half for noshes today.
No other pics from yesterday. I know I sound disappointed but honestly I was relieved, and I had wifi and Egils soda to keep me company, also scored the last McVitties Dark Chocolate Digestives at the gas station.
Jesus, what a buttload o’ driving we did that day. Back really took a beating.
Anyway, after a fucking brutal amount of driving we were in a Martian landscape with fumaroles. Pics including video when wifi stops barfing. Stench appalling, colours weird – off kilter. Don’t know how else to describe it really.
Then a briefer but still brutal regime of driving and we were at a waterfall or foss as they say in these parts. Pics to follow. I can’t remember what the hell it was called, and I don’t have to, we’ll all get a map with a pronunciation guide at the end, so I’ve been told. It was big, it had multiple parts, I bought stamps to go with the postcards I acquired from the night before and jesus that reminds me I should post those two I wrote out and stamped. Wonder if I’ll remember, I doubt it. Anyways it was compared to Niagara Falls and all of us who have seen Niagara Falls laughed our asses off because Niagara Falls would pick it up and love on it for being so goshdarned cute.
Trip to north of ghastly WC, avoided spending any more tourist money cept for stamps.
Then we went to a farm to table restaurant and I paid forty fucking dollars for a very small fraction of a humanely slaughtered and lovingly raised cow nestled in a tasty goulash that gave me an eyewatering case of heartburn. Or maybe it was before the fumaroles. Only the roll of digital pics will give me the gooooddddammned timeline here. I’m just trying to move it along here so I have a minute to repack.
In the middle there somewhere or who knows really it’s all the most excellent blur, we saw FALSE VOLCANOES. These are formations which happen when a certain viscosity/composition/density of lava rolls out over wetlands. You get these miniature cones which are … well, miniature. I loved them. Pics later, relax.
Okay I’ll try.
Nope, barfed again.
Then we went to a real forest. Some enterprising farming family planted trees on their property overlooking The Lake of Midges for the best part of half a century and when the old lady died she deeded it to Iceland. FUCK I LOVE ICELAND. Short hill, nice view, incredibly tame birds and there will be pics, yeah whatever.
Then. The Darkwood.
I had a really really really bad feeling the entire time I was there. The landscape is effin’ creepy. I took pics, including one I think is the jewel so far, but anyway, it’s not a wood. It’s crumbling towers of evil looking stone, as if ogres and trolls had really been frozen in place and then were subject to ten thousand years of weathering. Another kind of formation from lava on wetland. I could not fucking wait to get out of there and felt much better the second I was gone. The equivalent of Santa lives there but in Iceland the Santa’s Mom will eat you if you’re naughty so I guess…. well anyway things are a little less scary in Iceland now since the government asked people nicely to stop telling stories that made their kids not want to leave the house in December. Wish I was kidding.
Then another foss, including a closeup of a piece of ice melt the size of a school bus, long freaking walk in the wind, unpleasant trek to a WC which the guide said was the worst rest stop in Iceland (ten portapotties, five a side back to back ) – cheerfully – and after viewing the digestive output of a hundred strangers at much closer range than would made any but the most scatologically devoted happy, I was forced to experience something I’ve never had to before; the sensation that some mofo was trying to tip the loo over. I was so terrified I braced my hand against the wall, always the worst possible idea in a port a potty, but it proved that the violent rocking motion which so disturbed my attempt to commune with nature was merely what happened when a two hundred fifty pound man bounded up onto the wooden walkway surrounding the loos.
Imagine that despite my description…. there was virtually no smell. THAT WAS HOW HARD THE WIND WAS BLOWING.
I slunk back onto the tour bus last, kinda wishing I could be hosed down in Dettol first.
Then a long long long long longass drive and we climbed a mountain and took pics and we saw a thousand migrating birds and then came down the other side good god my tummy and came to the city of Elves and saw puffins. SLEEP.
Anyway it was a long day, long driving, much walking and many definitive Experiences.
Honestly it’s been two very very busy days. Today will be slacker since I’m not going on no fricking glacier hike.
Going backwards over yesterday:
spent 2 hours laughing my ass off in the hot tub(s) at the Glacier World hotel… it was a very convivial group
Spent 1.5 hours on an amazing meal. Imagine looking at a plate with ten lobster tails (nephrops norvegicus) and then devouring it. They weren’t boiled, they were oven cooked. Delicious and beautifully served. Then Guinness chocolate cake for dessert. There was salad.
Spent hours on the road… the scenery in Iceland is amazing, but this part of the trip made me want to renounce atheism and take up Ãsatrú.
We got to the top of a fjord (once again large chunks of the road, with stomach churning drops, have no parapets or railings, or they’re ‘fitful’), Saga put on Icelandic death metal, AND WE WENT INTO THE VALLEY BELOW while row after row of weathered green and gray faces (in my imaginings) looked down on us. AND A FALLSTREAK CLOUD TOOK SHAPE — I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE, AND THEN
there was another
and another
and another
And I tried to get pictures but I thought my camera battery died and shooting out a bus window sucks especially if you’re doing it more or less into the sun and I couldn’t get the professional grade photographers on my side of the bus to pay attention to the fact the sky was doing something very very unusual. aw fuck em
So I do have one pic of the first one on my phone and here’s the best I could do when I realized the camera had been charging on the bus’s two to a seat USB charger long enough to work, so here is my apologetic potato pic.
AAAAND THE HOTEL WIFI BARFED
fml
anyway believe me it’s weird
but that whole drive was amazing; one kind of layered weathered lava was replaced by something completely different, like worn battlements coming out of the turf.
We went to a town where the city parents put up signs thanking tourists for shitting in the right place. also where some guy sculpted the eggs of most of the common birds of Iceland and stuck them on pillars on the outskirts of town. (let’s just say that Julia Finsbury would NOT have approved, they were so…. big…. and so…. you know.) There was a man with a dog and two whale skeletons in his front yard that we were supposed to see but he was away for the first time evar. Took no pictures of any of those things.
Before that we drove along a rushing river with dozens of small falls. Before that we saw the tallest waterfall in Iceland, which involved 2.5 k hike straight up and down and I said screw it as did the only person on the tour my age and we had a lovely conversation in the BRILLIANT warm sunshine, out of the wind and close to the bus and the very nice bathroom and ate lunch instead.
Before that I spent 80 dollars for two pairs of socks and I don’t know how much on a couple of beers (to drink in the hot tub later) and I don’t know how much on a fantastic truck stop sandwich (this is to make Jeff laugh, but it’s true; I don’t think it was sentient) and a choccky bar and another one of those damned Egils sodas because I love them with a fierce unholy love now.
Before that a lot of driving past Icelandic forests and leaving the town of elves. We climbed the hill of the queen of the elves. We were advised in very flat terms to do nothing disrespectful as it might impact the rest of our trip. Given that two enormous ravens circled the hill crying continuously (couples noise, not like their usual harsh croak, much more friendly and musical) you can bet your ass I didn’t spit like the fucking American did on one trip and then they got stuck for three hours and missed connections etc. If Huginn and Muninn are showing up I ain’t arguing.
We saw the turf house and the tiny church in the Town of the Elves, and I have pics of the view from my window. Day started rainy, but oatmeal in mah belleh (indifferent brekky totherwise) was good. And, of course the day started with somebunny having about ten minutes of percussive mattress joy right through the wall into my right ear. No vocalizations, just bang.bang.bang… bangity… bang you get the idea.
THAT WAS A SINGLE DAY The day before was BUSIER. Can I get back to you on that?