Earth, Venus, Mars, Iceland

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• July 4, 2016

Post vacation blues still linger as I continue to scroll through the pictures over and over.  The pictures are incredible, and yet, do Iceland little justice, and so, I’m not foolish enough to believe that any words I put together could possibly explain the both earthly and unearthly place that is Iceland.

Some years ago, a friend of mine returned from Iceland, and showed me a video of a geyser, followed by pictures of the most amazing waterfalls I’d ever seen.  Now, I’m a beach bum, and my heart yearns for warm waters and palm trees, so I’m inclined to travel south for my escapes. But the more I researched Iceland, the more I felt I had to go there.  The place looks like a real life fairy tale, and slowly, more people I knew returned from Iceland with awe inspiring pictures, and they always said the same thing: “You just have to go there.”

I second that.  You just have to go there.  New York City may be the center of the universe, but when you leave and go to the edges of the world, you’ll find reality is bent, and you’re unsure if you’re on Earth, Venus, or Mars.

This is Iceland.

Our Crew: Bobby (Brittany’s husband), Katie, Me, and my cousin Brittany.

Day 1: Glymur Climbers

We took a red eye flight out of New York to Iceland.  The flight is just under six hours, and cost just over six hundred dollars.  I properly drugged myself into a sleep, and was out cold before the plane even took off.  I often fantasize that I’m a hero in ridiculous Michael Bay scenarios, that if some shit went down, I’d rise in an act of valor in said airplane disaster scene.  Alas, if a plane ride is longer than four hours, you can almost guarantee that I’m drugged out, and would be useless in any situation needing a hero.  I’d just be high, and mumbling.

I woke in Iceland, away from warm, sunny New York (that sounds weird to say), in an overcast and a bit chilly Iceland.  We picked up our bags, and got our rental car, and headed to Reykjavik.  It was still morning when we got there.  We dropped our bags and got breakfast and quickly learned how expensive the food is in Iceland.  Luckily, we packed lots of protein bars, and granola, which would substitute for meals for me, as I was traveling on a shoe string budget, and had to be careful to not spend my rent money for July when I returned.  We were full of energy.  We were in Iceland!  So we hiked to Glymur, Iceland’s second tallest waterfall.

To get there, one must go through a cave…

Cross a river on a log (Bobby pictured)…

Hold onto the rope so you don’t slip and die (Brittany pictured).

You have to understand that every time we went to a waterfall, we said, “this is the best thing I’ve ever seen.”  While it might be impossible to pick just one favorite, the hike to Glymur was strenuous and dangerous, making it my favorite hike.  There were times where it was so vertical, there was a rope where you had to use more upper body strength than legs. We hiked through a cave.  A cave!  Always watching your step, careful not to fall down a fatal drop, we turn a corner, and there it is, Glymur!  You hear nothing but the sound of rushing water, and birds flying around.  The waterfall is complete with a rainbow, and we climbed as far as we could go, the danger being part of the fun, and we sat there, for a moment, the only people on Earth witnessing such beauty.  We were all smiles.  Not a care in the world.

Day 2: The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is probably the more touristy part of Iceland, but there’s a reason for that.  It’s fucking awesome.  Basically, you stay on one road and hit a few mind blowing places in the same day (and we added some off the beaten path stuff too).

Here, we saw where the tectonic plates separate, and hiked through them, and climbed up them.

I climbed the plate, and took a picture of my cousin, looking so small from the top.

This waterfall was a bit hard to find.  We knew we were in the area, but we had no idea where it was or really, where we were.  Being in Iceland means getting lost a lot, but getting lost in Iceland is like getting lost in Wonderland.  There was always something amazing to look at.  We asked this Icelandic woman in a van if she knew where it was.
“There’s some little waterfall over there,” she seemed confused as to why we would want to go there.  While it wasn’t huge, it had the bluest water I’ve ever seen.  Fresh, glacier water, I drank right from the water like a primitive mammal.  This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, we all agreed, until our next stop, the geyser.

Iceland is actually the newest island on Earth (a mere 20 million years young).  Geysers are pretty rare on Earth, but Iceland’s unique geothermic land and volcano’s is the reason why this one is called “the great geyser.” Erupting every seven to ten minutes, the Earth spews up boiling water.  I did get pretty wet getting an up and close video of it.  It was worth it.

Moments later, we were here, at Gulfoss:

Followed by this crater:

All in the same fucking day.

Day 3: South Road Trip

Sleeping wasn’t easy.  Even though we hiked miles every day, the sun doesn’t really go down.  It does, but it never gets dark.  We put up couch cushions, towels, parts of cereal boxes to try to drown out the light and get rest in our room that wasn’t equipped with black out curtains.  Our bodies were ever tricked.  We were tired, but weren’t.

Driving around Iceland is a treat in itself.  Iceland is home to 320,000 people (more people live on my block in Queens), most of which, live in the city of Reykjavik.  But as soon as you leave the city, you rarely see people.  Just goats and horses.  Goats and horses every where.  Occasionally, a donkey.  But not people.  A lot of abandoned farms, and livestock, grazing.  We spent a lot of time in the car, but the landscape changes drastically, even after only a few minutes.  From green mountains, to Helka, the volcano in the distance, covered with snow, to the glacier, to black volcanic ridges, to desolate rocks, to mossy plains that look like something out of a fairy tale.  It’s never boring.  It’s never not stunning.

We took a little vacation from our vacation, to stay in a cottage on the south east corner of the Island, with plenty to see on the way there.

Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss (I don’t know how to pronounce it either), where one can walk behind the waterfall.  If you continue to walk down, there are two more waterfalls, and we climbed up the second one, going beyond a wire fence, perhaps there was a “danger” sign, I don’t recall.  We saw any sign of caution just that, a sign of caution.  We carried on anyway.  There were lots of people stopping at the waterfall to walk behind it, but no one else dared to climb it.  In the States, you would not be able to do this.  But there is really no regulation there.  Iceland is the greatest playground I’ve had the joy to explore.  We, of course, climbed up a slippery and muddy fall to get to the top.

From the top.

Those little specs are people walking behind the waterfall.  The picture above is taken on top of this fall.

Not far from there was another epic waterfall, Skogafoss:

Skogafoss is huge.  And it’s right off the road.  This is where I climbed on a ledge, with only a couple inches of footing to take a selfie.  When I got off that ledge, my knees felt weak.  Oh how I love to tempt death.

We had to get to Gunner’s cottage before nine, so we wouldn’t be locked out of our tiny cabin for the night.  Gunner was an old man, who, if this were a horror movie, would have tried (and likely succeeded) in killing us.  We arrived slightly before nine, though the sun was still high in the sky, and it felt like 3pm.  We asked Gunner where were could get some food, and he looked at us, confused, as if that were the most bizarre question a traveler might ask a host.

He pointed, and said, “farm.”

“Farm?” Katie asked, and I had to contain my laughter.  Were we to slaughter a goat?  I already had protein bars for lunch, and was dying for a meal.  We were burning a ton of calories hiking up waterfalls. But Gunner hadn’t steered us wrong.  We got a fine meal (lobster soup) before heading to the Glacier Lagoon for the midnight sun.

As I said before, it is impossible to say one single thing was my favorite, but the midnight sun at the Glacier Lagoon on the eve of June 16th was absolute perfection.  You don’t get a lot of moments of perfection in your life time.  You just don’t.  They’re as fleeting as a laugh, or wave.  Perfect moments aren’t supposed to last, because they’re almost impossible.  But this was an absolute perfect moment in time, worth every cent I paid for the trip, and worth every moment of my life I’ve felt pained or wrong.  I think, perhaps, I was a great person in another life.  Because I’ve done nothing in life to deserve such magnificence.

The sky was painted with pinks, blues, and purples, reflected in the still water, as the turquoise blue pieces of ice gracefully moved down the channel.  Like a scene from a painting, had I not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.  In this dream like landscape, I felt such a deep feeling of serenity, I did not think of New York.  I did not miss my family.  I did not worry about my struggling comedy career.  I did not fret over finances.  Any stresses I carried with me were not with me there.  Any anxiety about the future, or ghosts from the past had left me. There, at the Glacier Lagoon, I simply was.

Being there with my cousin, whom I’ve such a close bond with made an already extraordinary scene more special.  We didn’t talk much, except for remarking how beautiful it was, taking it all in, as if we could ever forget, even if we tried.

We returned to Gunner’s tiny cabin, well past midnight, the sky not even a little dark, snow covered mountains in the distance.  All of our clothes were covered in dirt, and we kept throwing out our mud stained and smelly socks.  I passed out quickly that night, despite the light, dreaming of the lagoon.

Day 4: No Puffin Way

Gunner’s cabin, inside and out.

I woke, abruptly, from a dream,  the cabin was bright as hell, in the wee hours of the morning.  The only thing I missed about home was the dark.  The constant light gave you extra energy, but you were still exhausted.  My body and mind were confused, and it made you feel like you weren’t sober, which I didn’t mind most of the time.  It’s fair to say I was stoked the entire trip.  But I was especially stoked to see Skaftafell.

Skaftafell wasn’t nearly the biggest waterfall we’d seen, but the way the rocks formed made it look like something engineered by man, not nature.  It’s a bizarre beauty, and if you looked at it long enough, it could trip you out, thinking it moved.  When we got there, other tourists stopped about 50 feet away from the fall where there was a plateau, behind a rope.  But I didn’t hike this way to stop 50 feet away.  I hopped the rope, and jumped on rocks across the river.  I took my shirt off as I was sweating at this point, and went right up the Skaftafell, the mist of the water refreshing my body.  I was grinning ear to ear.  The more we saw in Iceland, the more everything just seemed impossible, like a weird dream.

On the way back to Reykjavik, there was still much to see.  We went to the black sand beach in Vik.

Dyrholaey is a puffin spot, but alas, we never did see the cute little birds.  We looked.  Oh yes, we looked.  But we were never disappointed.  We explored and climbed and threw rocks off cliffs, and felt as though we’ve traveled through different universes in the last 48 hours.

No puffins here.

Or here. Though we did climb over that archway there.

That night (if you could call it that), the midnight sun was so epic.  I couldn’t stop staring directly at it, despite what damage it might’ve caused my eyes.  It was so fucking beautiful.  I went down to the harbor, while my travel mates packed it in. It was just incredible.

Day 5: Foosball

This was the first and last day we all really slept a full nights sleep.  When we returned from our trip from the South East, we were all probably pooped, and planned a day to take it easy.  Just one day.  We slept in.  Our room was equipped with a washer and dryer, which we took advantage of.  Iceland can get cold, but then you’ll be sweating hot the next minute from hiking and being out of the wind.  Plus, we kept ditching the trails and getting full of mud.

On our rest day, we went to the museum, where we read about Iceland’s history with vikings and norse gods, and how their population never really could get started because of polio and volcanic eruptions.  Quite sad, actually.  Iceland, until recently, had been the poorest European country.

A drink called “black death” in Iceland.  A bit absinthe like.

Then, we got drunk, as one does in a foreign city.  We found an Irish pub which had decent prices on booze (drinking there was quite expensive).  The pub was equipped with a foosball table, where I showed off my skills (we had a foosball table in our basement growing up, so I’m pretty fucking good at it).  I kicked this drunk Icelandic dude’s arse, and he was not happy about it.  Not happy at all.

Day 6: Kids Died Here and It’s Cursed

You never tire of seeing waterfalls in Iceland, because they’re all so unique.  Hraunfossar, unlike other waterfalls, looks like the water is coming out of the sides of the river.  The water is actually flowing through a lava field from the glacier.

Somewhere in this vicinity, there were more waterways and falls.  There were numerous arches in Iceland that were “cursed” by mothers who lost their children because they died trying to get across.  I’m not sure if any of that is true or just legend, either way, it’s a cautionary tale to the curious traveler such as myself, who desperately wanted to cross the shallow arch over the freezing cold rapids.

Sometimes, we would just pull over the side of the road and run over to a random waterfall.  Like this one:

This one here scared the shit out of me, because as I was walking behind, eyes and horns gleamed at me.  It was a fucking mountain goat.  Just chilling behind the waterfall.

We concluded this day in Kirkdufell, which had been my background on my computer at work, a background one of my co-workers swore was photoshopped.

Day 7: Roller Coaster

As honorary vikings, we had opted out of tours and rented the car to freely explore, as we didn’t want to be tied to schedule, and I in particular hate being around other people, which is partly why I traveled to a less traveled island.  Save for one tour.  The ATV/buggy tour.  We booked a four person buggy for six hours.  Forever a thrill seeker, a surfing, rock climbing, need for speed, adrenaline junky, I was psyched for this.  We had a tour guide who drove an ATV.  It was raining this morning, (it only rained this day, and our day in Reykjavik. We were extremely fortunate with good weather.) but it was forecasted to clear in the afternoon.  We were equipped with orange, water proof suits, and I was to drive the buggy first.

If you’ve ever played Halo, I felt like we were in that video game.  Helmets on, it was as though we were driving around a foreign planet.  I drove fast, going 80 kilometers at points (though I’m not actually sure how fast that is since I’m an American).  We skidded out on turns, scaring me even, thinking we’d tip.  We alternated drivers.  Driving up mountains, and racing back down, like being on the world’s greatest roller coaster.  We stopped at geothermal fields where steam rose from the ground like scenes from a nightmare.  We stopped at volcanic beaches, where the waves were actually pretty nice, and I fantasized riding them.

Amusement parks are places I’ve always looked forward to going to (actually, I had gone to Universal Studios with Brittany and Bobby last year) but hours of flooring a buggy around Iceland makes a 60 second coaster seem pretty lame.  We stopped for some lobster soup at this food shack in the harbor where people mistook us for fishermen, because of our outfits, and then continued to drive around for another three hours.  The rain stopped after lunch, but there were plenty of large puddles, which seemed to appear only when I was driving.  When there was a puddle, I put the peddle to the metal, and soaked myself.  My face was caked in mud when we were done.  When it was over, I believe my quote was, “Iceland really gets my dick hard,” because I’m a proper lady.

From there, we went to the Blue Lagoon, perhaps Iceland’s biggest tourist attraction.  The naturally heated lagoon is supposed to be great for your skin, making it feel and appear younger.  But the lagoon was probably our least favorite part of the trip.  It was still cool, but they had strict rules, and in the locker room, you felt like cattle being shuffled into showers, but instead of cattle, it was mostly old, naked, Asian women, and I could go my entire life without seeing another naked Asian woman over 50 years old again.

Day 8: The Last Day Before We Leave

Usually, when on holiday, after a week I’m ready to return home to New York.  The only place I felt tempted to never leave was Hawaii.  But I didn’t want to leave Iceland so soon either.  I could never live there, as I’m a warm weather bird, but there was so much more I wanted to explore in Iceland.  One could spend months there.  Since it never really got dark, and we slept very little, and saw so much, the days blurred together, like one intoxicating daydream.

The finale of Iceland would not disappoint.  Haifoss.

Haifoss is a bit off the road, and the directions weren’t exactly clear (though this was the case for a few of the places we went to). We were never dismayed.  Though I was little help with the map, Brittany and Katie had that shit on lock down.  To get to Haifoss, one must travel down a dirt road. Haifoss is the tallest waterfall in Iceland.

When the clouds let the sunshine through, a vibrant rainbow would appear, as if the fabled gold at the end of the rainbow wasn’t gold at all, it was this place.  All you could hear was the sound of the water pounding on the rocks.  The mist from the fall created ghosts, dancing around one another, to the melody of the power and beauty of nature.  A more religious person would call the feeling “God,” though that’s not the right word, as it so rarely is.  Few explorers came and went, leaving the four of us the only people actually seeing this at this point in time, feeling small, yet significant, on this bewitching island, on the most exquisite planet known to mankind.

Day 9: Goodbye

We rose early, and it was bright out, as usual.  We were all tired, but none cranky.  Not one of us wanted to depart from this place.  Not yet, anyway.  It was noon in New York when we landed, and it was gorgeous and sunny, and packed with people and traffic, and the air wasn’t crisp, and the streets filled with litter.

One of my co-workers said, “I think a part of you is still in Iceland,” but he’s wrong.  My footprints on the paths in Iceland are already washed away. I suspect I will try to recreate how I felt there, though I know it impossible.  I wouldn’t say a part of Iceland is with me, but one can’t see such divinity without being forever affected by it.  The best of Earth is densely packed on one island.

You just have to go there.