Modern legend has it that Icelanders are world-class hedonists, burning with a strain of cabin fever that only 20+ hours of daily blackout during winter can breed. For a number of hungry bachelors, this rumor alone is reason enough to fly to an island in the middle of the North Atlantic. But the truth is that unless you're in the business of wholesale fish buying, few others give a second thought to visiting Iceland.
I took care of this trip for you, slurping black coffee at high speeds over a three day Icelandic crash-course, to share some sober observations.
For starters, the locals are rather suspicious of Americans.
As opposed to standbys like Paris and London, the idea of a fly-by-night trip to Iceland had an implicit, "why the hell?" cachet to it. In a word: Cheap. In a country whose lunarscapes are complimented by astronomical prices, Icelandair's Midweek Madness, three day/two-night air and hotel package -- priced at $299* per person -- is a very cool deal.
With sunlight as scarce as truth in Washington, my enlisted friend and I agreed beforehand that sleep was a luxury we could not afford. Just as well. The few hours of R&R we had counted on during our flight out of Baltimore were spoiled by a pack of liquored I-bankers, who no doubt had based their journey on a series of articles some idiots wrote in Details magazine touting Iceland as the "Bangkok of the North", crawling with supermodels desperate for foreign suitors.
As they stumbled out of the plane at 7 on a Monday morning to the relief of some skittish flight attendants, we figured we'd better move fast before they further justified the growing distrust Icelanders have for American men.
Ride and Seek
You are now entering the no-light zone. The coach ride from Keflavik Airport to the bayside capital, Reykjavik, feels like a space odyssey through a limitless desert of lava until a KFC sign pops up at the fringe of town. White street lights sparkle like Christmas trimming draped over the rolling skyline, even though the workday is already in full swing.
Built on an airfield at the edge of the city, our base of operations, Hotel Loftleidir, looked like a presto Ikea concept hotel -- all shiny, squared and sterile -- but not unpleasant. In the lobby I find a lighter some pilot must have forgotten, a souvenir from one Café Rudolf in Nuuk, Greenland -- Iceland's deadbeat neighbor. It hits me that we are next to nowhere. Now what? We rent a car to look for answers.
Determined to experience the "earth, wind, and fire" of Iceland's virgin backcountry, we bolt out of Reykjavik to the Zen voice of our audio guide on a three-hour tour known as the "Golden Circle" that boasted an array of hot springs, volcanic craters, glaciers, geysers and other natural oddities. Not giving two-cents about "the first roadside restaurant ever built," we turn off the narrative and look out onto a bleak plateau of mustard grasses and rocky outcroppings, traced by the long shadow of our car against a low sun shyly beginning to cast its five hours of daylight.
Peaks glisten like sharks' teeth on the horizon. Not a tree in sight. If you get lost in an Icelandic forest, the old joke goes, you stand up.
Cruising along a slick knife of a road, the weight of the massive sky above feels as if it could split our car in half; sudden gusts of wind that whip us from side to side make the routine act of passing oncoming traffic a game of chicken. Little wonder half of the country's 280,000 residents choose to live in the arms of its modern capital.
Our first stop is Geysir, the "original" hot spring after which the term was coined. We stand between a couple of steaming vents and stomp around hoping to incite some kind of cataclysmic eruption. Not to be bullied, the springs burp a couple of times and fall silent, filling the air with enough sulfur to send us coughing on our way.
Finding Gullfoss waterfall is another matter. Expecting the usual pomp and snack bar that accompanies a major point of interest, we drive past Europe's largest waterfall without seeing so much as a sign. When we do finally locate the falls after a series of U-turns, the crush of water over two-tiers of rock is a thundering reminder of the natural forces both cruel and essential to Iceland's existence.
The rest of the drive is serene as a still life. Canoes moored on mercury lakes and the Lilliputian-sized cabins nearby are a preview of summer's coming distractions (though I still can't fathom how an Icelander could ever get inside one without a bucket of grease). Further beyond, glaciers mark the frontier of the backcountry, which has become a mecca for adrenaline junkies. With air this pure, all you really need to do is breathe and the rush comes.
At over $1 a liter, perhaps it is the ridiculously high gas prices that have kept things so clean. The Peugeot compact we hired cost $50 USD a day. To our disbelief, the full tank of gas required before returning the car to the rental agency after our loop was $60 USD. It's a shame solar transport is out of the question in Iceland.
Do Not Go Gentle...
Back in Reykjavik with a slim bankroll and a fat appetite, we are lucky to find Café Victor, a downtown fixture for Icelandic soul food. A lack of sleep and human contact leave us in an existential funk, until two hot plates of highland lamb smack down in front of us and spark a revival.
Afterwards, we plot our next move over another double shot of espresso and await a second wind. It has been dark for hours now, but the night is still young.
Famously owned by Brit rocker Damon Albarn, Kaffibarinn is filled with a heavily-stubbled crowd of students and denim-clad beatniks bathing in a haze of Prince Cigarettes.Feeding the cloud of smoke, we are glad to be warm and inside amongst the regulars. Mugs are slammed on mahogany; laughs all around. We play poker with an airline deck I had stashed in my pocket.
Later, a man bellies up to our table and asks in the perfect English commonly spoken here, if he can see me do a magic trick.
Doing the trick is futile because the guy is too drunk to remember his card. It is 2 a.m. on a Monday morning; he is an accountant who starts work in six hours. This is the Viking spirit alive today: Working tirelessly through the week to support the high cost of living, warming up at night and exploding on the weekends.
"What else is happening in town?" I ask our waitress, after making a Pippi Longstocking reference to her pigtails that went sour.
"Nothing
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