I have a confession to make: as of 4:00 this afternoon, the title of this blog was overtaken by events. The title will remain, but I believe in truthfulness (how quaint), so full disclosure is warranted. I’ll let the suspense build while I tell you about the rest of the day.
Sometimes the gods of nature smile on you and sometimes they laugh at you, often in quick succession. As of last night, the forecast for today was for wind-driven rain. Presumably having had a good night’s sleep, the gods gave us gray skies but dry weather, and the heavens cleared just in time for our first stop of the day, Seljansfoss.
Seljansfoss plummets from a cliff-top overhang, which means you can walk completely around it. There’s lots of spray, of course, but little risk of being drenched unless the gods, just for kicks, decide to heave a sudden gust your way. Say, for example, when you have made it past the right side of the falls, along the back, and are about to emerge from the left side. The result: I was solidly soaked over exactly half of my body. Perhaps TLC knew what they were singing about!
Don’t get me wrong: I found the experience exhilarating, and my hiking pants and windbreaker quickly dried in the tenacious wind and suddenly strong sun. Seljansfoss is great; just make sure you bring rain pants or quick-drying pants and a waterproof top layer. Wearing jeans would be a big mistake.
If you’ve seen one waterfall, you’ve seen one waterfall, as shown by our next stop, Skogafoss. Here’s where the “huffin’” in the title of this post comes in. If you’re willing and able to climb 585 steps, you’re rewarded with stirring views of the valley below and an up-close experience of the fury with which millions of gallons of water plunge over a cliff.
Even better, there’s a hiking path extending for many kilometers from the top of the falls, which offers glorious panoramas of the surrounding mountains, the ocean, and several other cascades.
The part of the trail we traversed isn’t strenuous; there are ups and downs but no steep grades or tricky footing.
The Skogafoss Hotel, just past the parking lot, offers lunch. I had a wonderful split pea soup but will refrain from posting a picture because split pea soup, no matter how delicious, is just not photogenic. For my entrée I had a bland piece of Arctic Char. Everyone else had the lamb, which they found very good.
After lunch, we drove a short way to Sólheimajökull, a tongue of the massive (though less so every year) Mýrdasjökull glacier. It’s set amidst barren hills and flat, sterile-seeming land, emptying onto a lagoon stained by volcanic ash – a backdrop almost alien in its starkness.
Since 2000, the glacier has receded by more than a kilometer, and it’s predicted to vanish within another century or so. Given the impressive height of its face and considerable breadth, these statistics offer potent proof of global warming’s power to alter landscapes and disrupt lives.
OK, I’ve left you suspense long enough. Or almost long enough: let me recount why I titled this blog PuffinlessTravel. In 2010, my brother and took a cruise that stopped, among other places, in Lerwick, one of the Shetland Islands. It’s a favored haunt of these cute, curious, comical birds. The ship offered a tour to one end of the island, but my brother and I rented a car and drove to the opposite end, where puffins supposedly were most likely to be found. We saw sheep, seagulls, sheep, West Highland Terriers, and sheep, but nary a puffin. Our tablemates at dinner that night, who took the ship’s tour, crowed about the flocks of puffins they’d seen. Since then, any time I’ve gone to places puffins supposedly frequent, the birds have had other plans.
With this track record, I was primed for the disappointment of (and the blame for) not seeing a single puffin in an area where they nest by the thousands. Our guide, Nick, however, must have puffin juju that outweighs my puffin-repelling energy. Upon reaching their windswept nesting ground at Dýrholæy, we were greeted by a passel of puffins: puffins resting, flying, sitting, and most of all looking at us just as inquisitively as we looked at them. Thank you, Nick, and thank you to the gods of nature for smiling on us twice in one day!
We’re staying tonight at the Hotel Katla in Vik on Iceland’s southern coast. (Katla is the volcano underneath the Mýrdasjökull glacier.) it’s unprepossessing from the outside, but the rooms are clean and comfortable and the restaurant serves a fine dinner.
Truthfulness and my desire to see puffins both fulfilled, gotta fly now.
PuffinlessTravel 