Last Day of Falleg Friður

Took a cab to Grindavik, the nearest town, yesterday. It’s just seven-ish kilometers/ four-ish miles away – we could have walked that easy. Right? Wrong. It was rainy and very windy. There are no trees or buildings to break that swift blowing, biting breeze either – so yeah, we wussed out. Good thing too.
Had we challenged ourselves and braved the wind and rain we would’ve been cursing our efforts. Ya see, there ain’t nothin’ in Grindavik but the harbor.

Sure, there’s Arctic Horses, a “horse rental” concern (they do tours on horseback too), Volcano Tours, who also do a Golden Circle route and a Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis photography tour. There’s Hopsnes Lighthouse and Brimketill – a small, naturally carved pool. There’s the supposedly haunted ruins of Selatangar which, in its day was a big, BIG fishing village. All this sounds utterly awesome!

Why then am I saying there’s nada but fishing goin' on in Grindevik? Because what Jen and I dearly wished for, after a morning spent floating and becoming all happily boneless, was this – shops filled with sweaters made by Icelanders from Icelandic sheep, crazy cool pottery and glassware made by locals and, ya know, other hand made odd bits. Art galleries filled with jawdropping work would've hit the sweet spot too.

Failing that, a bookstore AND a coffeeshop with Icelandic pasteries. Nope – there was none of that. I did see a chip shop and, after unleashing the Google Fu, I learned there were other restaurats in the area but they seemed…dunno…hidden.

We made the taxi ride a round trip. If we'd gotten out to wander about, stare at the harbor and shit, we would've been stuck walking back to our Silica Arcadia. We weren't up for that.

Here’s the very wild, fun thing – Jen and the elderly cabbie got to talking. The brill moss covered lava fields? They weren’t all mossy until relatively recently. Way back in the ‘60s, astronauts were in the area to train. The rough, not moss covered, lava fields around Grindavik were thought to be good training for traversing the lunar landscape. Huh. I’m trying to imagine these vast fields of black rock without their beautiful, cozy green blanket. Freaky and cool!

What ignited the moss invasion? Our driver says it’s due to Global Warming – that Iceland’s much wamrer now than he remembers it ever being. He said that summers are lasting much, much longer – that there always used to be snow by mid/late September. No more.

Now then, I can’t find anything online about the moss beyond the fact that it’s beautiful and delicate (don’t step on it!). Also, it’s the first greenery to come in after deforestation. I must find out more, dammit!

Today will be our last float and final stroll through the lava fields. Our flight leaves late this afternoon. We’ll def come back next year but, quite possibly, later in autumn. There’s just something utterly magical about swimming in the great warm lagoon as snow silently falls.