Hold your nose, and swallow, yes.” Damn, it’s no good, I can’t. Broadsided with an unexpected test of manliness, I was failing badly. I started to feel dizzy, a reaction to the sharp arctic air - or more likely the putrefied shark hacking its way back up my throat. I am weak, and the Viking knows it.
Land of fire, contrast, and clichés. Land of stylish weekend breaks and legendary expense, Iceland is a breathtaking destination in more ways than one. It’s only a three hour flight north of London, but you may as well be on the moon; hell NASA even came here to give their astronauts a try out before firing them skyward. The whole island reeks of sulphur and unfinished business, a semi-solidified lava blackhead squeezed out of Hades itself. Battered by the sea, colonised by Vikings, home to elves, trolls, the hidden people and sheep. And everyone truly, madly, deeply obsessed by fish.
Fresh, dried, fried, rotten. Catching, salting, packing, eating. The whole country is a picscophobic nightmare. Fishing is Iceland’s number one industry, and the only reason the original Vikings managed to survive on this barren rock when they colonised it back in the day.
The second, less scaly, industry is tourism. Hypnotised by a steady parade of glossy Sunday supplement features, more and more Brits are finding themselves soaking in geothermal waters and staring, gobsmacked, at the Reykjavik bar prices. They slip off for a romantic weekend only to get sucked into the Reykjavik triangle: an aircon glide around Thingvellir (the ancient parliament site), the original dodgy Geysir (hot water goes airborne), and Gullfoss (big waterfall). Ending with a swift plunge in the Blue Lagoon then straight back home before the credit card melts. Rather missing the point.
This is a country about adversity, not coach tours. It’s about untamed, in-yer-face Mother Nature. It’s about a total escape from people, crystal clean air, wide-open spaces and a pale arctic light. So the guidebook said anyway. Today it also seemed to be about icy nails of rain hammering into my pale face, and gagging on a mouthful of ammonia-flavoured rubber. Take me back to the Blue Lagoon.
Hakarl - Greenland shark, is buried for a few months to reduce the poisonous levels of uric acid, then dug up. It’s served as foul, glistening cubes - like the Devil’s very own feta cheese - and involuntary gagging is quite normal. Our local guide Arngrimur snorted at my failure, grabbed the greasy plastic tub, and started shovelling the cubes down like there was no tomorrow. My poison, obviously his delicacy.
The Icelanders are a breed apart from our pasty-faced, office-bellied nation of iPod-shufflers. This manly land was first colonised in the ninth century by Vikings from Norway and a smattering of Celts from Britain. The Icelanders are damn proud of speaking the language of the Vikings to this very day. Written Icelandic has hardly changed since the thirteenth century, and any geek off the street can still read the original sagas - prose histories describing the harsh life at the time. Living on an inhospitable rock, being good in a scrap and a fierce immigration policy have also resulted in one the purest gene pools in the world - giving lots of blonde hair, and three Miss World winners.
No Miss World for us, just sheep and the occasional blast of frigid rain here in the Deserted Inlets. Arngrimur had just ended play at a traditional Iceland picnic - ingredients: dried cod, smoked salmon, roe, shark (rotten), all washed down with Brennivin. Brennivin (Black Death) being the local firewater, and a few hundred years ago some bright Viking had the idea of using it to dull the taste of the Hakarl - or vice-versa. The locals neck it straight from the freezer – although outside this mountain hut seemed to work pretty well too.
No prizes for guessing how the Deserted Inlets (Víknaslóðir) got their name. Each inlet once harboured a small hill farm eking a living on what must have felt like the very edge of the world. Today the derelict buildings still remain but the last family packed up and quit for the warmth of the city in the sixties. Hacking an existence out here has always been hard; although rich in geothermal energy and lava, other natural resources are rather harder to come by. Trees are stunted and wind-beaten, a few inches of dirt the only thing standing between them and being blown into the Atlantic. In some places the winter wind is so strong it just blows all the topsoil into the sea anyway - and one year it took the road too. And that’s just the friendly coastal strip.
The interior of the island, the Highlands, takes inhospitable to a new level. Glaciers the size of English counties compete with lava deserts. Still-warm ash cones wisp ominously, testament to too-recent eruptions, and meltwater rivers carve a different path each season. It’s hardly surprising that the vast majority of the sub-three million population now choose to live in Reykjavik, well wrapped up and listening to Sigor Ros in happy little coffee shops. But until recently a latte wasn’t an option and most Icelanders were sheep farmers or fishermen. No doubt huddled in their damp turf homes necking Brennivin like it was going out of fashion.
Now Iceland’s second industry has moved in to take over the Inlets, one of the country’s prettiest and quietest areas. Northeast Iceland has been a well-kept secret of bird watchers for many years, but most visitors, seduced by the flashy charms of the central geothermal areas have overshot this corner. Which is rather good news - if you’re after great walking, no mobile reception, and no people.
In the nearby village of Bakkagerði, it looked like most of the 160 inhabitants had vanished. The memory of the Hakarl onslaught faded as we walked past the traditionally painted, turf-roofed cottages. Weird. No people, no shops open, no movement on the street. Yet what felt like a plague film set was just another day at work for the locals - the entire village was either rounding up sheep in the nearby hills, or having a great time salting up cod in a nearby facility. Arngrimur looked very excited about the cod, peering excitedly into various dubious containers. We kept a wary berth, and squinted greenly at Álfaborg (Elf Hill), a mound overlooking the town where the Elf Queen reputedly lives - elves are big in these parts.
New roads out of Reykjavik get diverted around elf dwellings. Builders hire elf-spotters to check the ground is free of spirits, and woe betide any who ignore the little people. It’s not just elves either - they’re just the tip of a whole mystical menagerie: gnomes, light-fairies, dwarves, lovelings, mountain spirits and Iceland’s special – the hidden people. These huldufolk are volatile human-sized beings who inhabit some sort of parallel universe. There are even 13 unfriendly Santas, the so-called Yuletide Lads, who skulk about the towns each Christmas. These original hoodies used to steal children for an Ogress’s pot but recently they’ve been rebranded as cute rascals.
Innoculated with British cynicism it’s easy to laugh, but ten percent of Icelanders are convinced that they share their island with other beings, and over half think that it’s merely probable. It’s all taken more seriously than the fish. And anyway, in a land where new islands appear off the coast overnight, the night sky shimmers like a magic crystal and boiling water is flung from the ground, is it really so much to ask to bend a road around an elf house?
Arngrimur was definitely in the ten percent. A day later, skulking in the shadow of Dyrfjöll, the Door Mountain, tales of trolls and elven battles from times past rumbled out of his giant frame. And as giant snowflakes fell on the alien boulder-strewn plain of Stórurð, home to Elf City itself, even us jaded city-dwelling Brits started to relax a little. Maybe this really was the realm of the little people. But quickly relaxation turned to chill, toes turned blue, and thoughts turned once more to the guilty pleasures of hot water.
No geothermal comforts today. Just a glacially torn wasteland, with eerie twisted blocks of long-cold lava sinking underneath their winters coat, and a bracing ascent up the Súlur ridge to Geldingafjall peak. But anyone can jump into a hot bath - not everyone gets to see this. The real deal: wide, ravaged vistas dusted with snow, magnified by a daunting sense of isolation. Face seared from the eye-wateringly cold wind, this felt like the proper, the Viking’s, version of Iceland. Hands buried in down, boots digging into the snow we stormed up the ridge. Hah, maybe I’m not so soft.
Arngrimur cruised past in his t-shirt. He looked to be chewing something. Miles from the sea I was suddenly hit by an unmistakable stench. My stomach heaved. It’s no good pretending - I am weak.
ICELAND INFO
Trekking
Iceland has a wealth of trekking between well-maintained mountain huts and campsites. The classic Landmannalaugar – Porsmork multi day trek is regarded as one of the top ten treks in the world.
Climbing
This recently formed lump needs a bit more time before it becomes a rock climbing Mecca. There’s virtually no quality rock in the Highlands, but on the coastal areas some reasonably solid crags can be found.
Mountaineering
Icelandic mountaineering is relatively new. Around 1940 a group of enthusiastic hill walkers and mountaineers formed a club, organising trips and building a few huts. This club became inactive around 1955, and the interest in mountaineering dropped off until 1977 when some alpine climbers woke up and founded the Icelandic Alpine Club - the backbone of the rapid development of the climbing scene ever since. With the largest ice caps in Europe (Vatnajökull is the size of Yorkshire), Iceland also offers fantastic ski mountaineering, and is a perennial favourite destination for character building youth trips.
Ice climbing
Iceland has some great ice climbing. The porous volcanic rock is handy here, with groundwater forcing its way out of the bedrock all over the place. Most of the action is pure water ice, although the number of mixed routes increases each year. The main season is usually December through March, but the main issue is the unpredictable climate – temperatures can swing dramatically.
More information
www.isalp.is
Icelandic Alpine Club
www.edinburghjmcs.org.uk/pdfs/iceland.pdf
A great summary of the Icelandic climbing scene.
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