ICELAND - There’s Always a Way

semester@sea.wldy

by ALEX BUDAK, staff columnist

Tevye, of “Fiddler on the Roof,” measured his life in sunrises and sunsets.

It’s a good thing he didn’t live in Iceland, or his internal clock would have been way off. While in Iceland I saw both the most spectacular sunrise, and the most spectacular sunset of my life – all within a matter of 30 minutes. Since Iceland is so far north -- right outside of the Arctic Circle – and we were visiting right at the summer solstice, the sun dipped below the horizon for just a fleeting second, only to reappear seconds later, now performing a midnight sunrise. Luckily for me, the 24 hours of sunlight gave me the time I needed to explore all that Iceland had to offer.

On my first day in Iceland, I took an “Icelandic Super Jeep” (read: a van tricked out with 44” wheels, and other goodies) on an 11-hour tour to the barren center of Iceland. After about a 60 KM drive on paved road, our super jeep took a sharp right turn off of the path of civilization and into a world that felt as untapped as the day the Vikings arrived. In the course of half of a day (by Arctic-sun standards) we would see waterfalls, valleys, ridges, geysers, glaciers, and tundra that can only be described as lunar.

Somewhere between seeing a 140m high waterfall (where our guide told us to follow directly behind him, lest we make a false step and fall off the cliff to the Icelandic ground below,) and the original Geysir (after which all the others are named,) our jeep pulled up to a remote campsite nestled at the base of two huge volcanoes. Thanks to the geothermal activity below, hot springs warmed the water that flowed down a small waterfall into a pond of crystal clear water below.

We changed into our bathing suits (unfortunately, the many Europeans at the campsite took swimsuit to mean Speedo) and walked down a long series of wooden planks that were laid down over some marshy grass. We descended into the pond, which at the entrance, was as cold as a Northern California beach. However, as we surged forward towards the warm water that entered at the front end, we felt underwater currents carrying streams of the magma-heated water our way.

After a few shrieks from the cold, and some splashes to get acclimated, we settled down in front of the waterfall as the warm and cool water oscillated all around us – one moment too hot, the next too cold, but for the majority of the time, just right. Natural springs like this one become a social place to unwind for Icelanders – which is not unlike a pub in Britain, or a coffee shop in America – even in the dead of winter, when their hair freezes while they soak their bodies in the warm water below.

This doesn’t surprise me, however, as I saw firsthand how connected Icelanders feel to their natural environment. The glaciers, lava fields and geysers are a part of both their national and personal identities. As such, they painstakingly care for the environment that they feel lucky to call part of their country. Except for the cars that run on petrol, all of the other energy sources in the country are geothermal or hydroelectrically formed, creating a country that literally has no pollution.

During a hike, our leader got out his water bottle, dipped it in a stream as it filled up with the water, and offered it to us. He told us that the water is as fresh, if not fresher than, our filtered tap water in the States. He was right – even right out a stream, it was not only healthy to drink; it was delicious.

Even more than their connection with nature, what struck me most about Iceland is their optimistic spirit in the face of what most of us would call difficult living conditions. It’s the most expensive in the world to live, with the worst levels of purchasing power parity on the globe. That, however, doesn’t stop thousands of Icelanders from heading out on Friday and Saturday night to party, despite beers that cost upward of $10 US per. In the dead of winter they receive only a couple of hours of sunlight per day. When I asked our Jeep driver Alf – yes, like the furry brown TV alien with the big schnoz – how Icelanders deal with hardly any light for months at a time, he responded “we turn on a light.”

In Iceland, many homes each year are destroyed due to the volcanic and tectonic plate activity (they average 180 small earthquakes a DAY). How do Icelanders deal with the loss of homes? Their government takes 1% of each person’s taxes for a fund to give each unlucky family a completely rebuilt home.

Perhaps no other story conveys the sense of how Icelanders deal with their surroundings than what happened after our Icelandic Super Jeep made the turn from the “middle of nowhere” to just “nowhere.”

We heard a large clank, followed by a couple smaller clanks, and then felt the jeep halt to a hard stop.

“Don’t worry,” our driver Alf said, “we won’t be stuck long.” He climbs out of the jeep, only to reappear a few moments later his hands black from grease, holding the drive shaft of our car. “Looks like this fell off,” he says with a furtive grin. The Americans in the jeep start to think we may be out here in “Nowhere, Iceland” for quite a while. Someone even proposes ordering pizza, until I remind him that if they deliver us pizza we should probably ask for them to deliver us back to Reykjavik, as well.

Within moments a large Toyota pick-up truck pulls up, and out steps Thor the mechanic, with the body of a human, but the face and hair of a 12th century Viking. He and Alf exchange Icelandic pleasantries while they screw the drive shaft back into place.

Within minutes of the Viking mechanic’s arrival, Alf hops back in his super jeep, which is now back to full strength after having met its kryptonite (a loose drive shaft.) He says to us, “You were worried huh? No reason to,” he tells us, “In Iceland, there’s always a way.”

All photographs taken by and property of Alex Budak