The Capital you can barely pronounce
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2009
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Trip End
Aug 17, 2009
Reykjavík, Iceland
Thursday, July 30, 2009
In all my travels, I have very rarely come across a language so diffrent that even after 4 days here, the most simplest of word still eludes me. Now, by no means do I consider myself a linguist in any way, but Icelandic has so many new caracters with very unique pronunciation that it makes it very interesting to listen to and just a laugh when you try it out yourself!
Capital City
Reyka... Rek... Reykjavik :) is a beautiful town. All the old buildings are made of metal in a 1950 style which just makes everything look great! You need to understand that they don' t have a lot of woods here. One old man told us a joke that went "If you are ever lost in a forest in Iceland... just stand up".
Weather here determines greatly your itinerary. Also, for a lot of you guys know that during a reckless ultimate related stupidity I rolled my ankle pretty good, I had some problems walking. So because of this, we decided to take it easy and to put the 5 day trek on hold, and decided to go North instead. This would give me enough time to rest up...(Things never go as planned :)
Sulur
So, the next day we left and arrived at the Northest city in Iceland. The views were breathtaking and we arrived right on time for a 72hrs party! Considering that they almost have 24hrs of day light, Icelandic folks party from 6pm - 6am. The camp site was a mess of beers and human bodies unable to find theie beds. Cops roamed the sites and even a tent went up in flames....
But during the day, while they were all sleeping, Phil and I went out to trek around until we found Sulur... A 1144m mountain so beautiful and just begging to be climbed. Now, we came here to "rest" but if you know me, rest is not a word commonly used in my dictionary :)
The trek was awesome but very hard for me. Every step needed to be placed at the right spot. Trips to the growd were frequent as gravity seemed to like me more these past few days. But we made it to the summit and back in 7hrs, just long enough to go to the hot bath and relax the night away. We didn't even last 72hrs here, the town was way to crazy and we needed to move.
Seydisfjordur
We wanted to stop at myvatn, a huge lake with very unique rock formations, but Mother Nature had other plans. It rained non stop the entire day. Knowing that the day was a bust, we decided to make the most of it and to keep going to Seydisfjordur.
It's a small town of only 700 people, 20 cars and incredible views of fjords. We camped out the night and waited until morning to head out for some sea kayaking. After convincing the tour operator that we didn't need a guide and that we were more than "experienced" to handle this ourselves :) we were off towards the Atlantic! 19km in the fjord, 5hrs out on the waters with only me and phil as only human life. Weather wasn't great but it gave the canyon and all the abandoned houses a ghostly feeling that was pretty amazing to have. Sadly while I was looking left, and even before I could say a word, my camera decided to jump ship. Now not having thought this thing through and being unable to swim/float it ended up sinking like the Titanic to the bottom of the river. Now after a few good french swear words I realized that I had been talking for a while of getting a new camera and that this was in all likelyhood it's last trip, and considering it went all over the world with me, almost got stollen in Mexico, was forgotten in a temple in Thailand and climbed the roof of Africa, I figured that this might as well be a fitting burial place for such a great traveling companion, at the bottom of the Iceland fjord heading towards the sea...
So for this trip you will not see any pictures for a while. Phil has a camera but no wires to hook it up to the computer. He also has an extra camera that I will use for now and hopefully I won' t loose that one either :)
Well that's the trip so far. Soon we will be heading off for the highest mountain and the 5 day trek, so I will give you guys a good trip report when we come back!
Icy, Mr blinky (2006-2009 a short but memorable life!), Frosty
