Black coffee, blue sea

The wind blew all night. I heard the whistling whenever I stirred, not in darkness but in soft light. We rose early, simply because that was when the light intensified. We marveled that the laundry on the line next to the farmhouse didn't take flight, as the wind blew so hard the sheets and shirts flew parallel to the ground, like beagles straining at the leash. We went up to the big house for breakfast. The food wasn't as bad as I feared, and it certainly filled us up. Tina told us it was too windy to take the horses out. They would be spooked by the wind, she said, and it would be no more pleasant for the riders. That was too bad, since it was something all of us had been looking forward to. Wind in Iceland can be treacherous. It will rip the door off a car when it is opened, flip the car over, then use the blowing volcanic sand to strip it of its paint. Don't mess with the gray areas on the map in Iceland, and don't mess with the wind either.

We checked out of Lýsuhóll and drove down the peninsula toward the white domed glacier. At the cutoff to Budir, we instead turned right. The peninsula narrows here, and the sharp ascent skirts the eastern flank of Snæfellsjökull toward Breiðafjörður, the large bay to the north and gateway to much of the Westfjords. We gained the summit and drove a bit before turning around and heading back down. Our goal was Arnarstapi, a small fishing village with a monumental piled rock sculpture of Bárður, who was part human and part ogre. Bárður stands sentinel, gazing out to the sea.

Bárður's story is told in the Saga of Bárður Snæfells. He was descended from giants and men. Bárður was the son of a king from Northern Hellaland in Scandinavia. He staked claim to the land of Laugabrekka by the Glacier at the end of the 9th century. Later in the life Bárður's giant-nature became ever more apparent. In the end, he disappeared into Snæfell Glacier, but did not die. Bárður became a nature spirit and the local folk around the Glacier petitioned him in matters large and small. (From plaque at "Bárður Snæfells, Deity of Mt. Bárður Snæfell" by Ragnar Kjartansson)

We were leery of the arctic terns, or what Icelanders call kria. They nest by the thousands here and are aggressive in protecting their young, dive bombing and pecking at the heads of intruders with their sharp pointed beaks. Today they are quiet, however, and simply screech and swoop. We stood at the rail of a wooden bridge crossing a stream and watch the kria play in the water. Periodically, one or two would dip into the water and let the current carry them downstream toward us, dipping their heads in the water and fluffing their wings, before rising up again and taking flight. They took great joy in entertaining us on the little glacial rivulets.

We found a path snaking through the lava field and hiked westward along the coast for two and a half kilometers, past gray wooden signs for Draugalag, Bolholar, Natthagi, and Einbui. I've poked around a little since, and I am still not sure what the signs mean. My best guess is that they indicate the names of ancient family farmsteads or place names from a millennium ago. The area had been settled 1,100 years ago, and its history is chronicled and maybe even embellished in some of the sagas. [See Maria Roff's explanation of the names in the comment to the post.]

The trail leads along the edge of a cliff formed mostly by jagged lava, but some of the rock are basalt pillars that seem to have shot straight up from the earth, puncturing the surface. To our left the Atlantic was impossibly blue. It was easy to see in the lava sculptures surrounded by the seawater images of people, of animals, of other creatures. On our right, the glacier (Snaefellsjökull) and the mountain (Stapafell) watched our progress. We marveled at our luck with the weather. It was a good 70 degrees (or 21 in Icelandspeak) and sunny. The cold and wet weather gear we had shipped out was superfluous.

After several easy kilometers, we found our destination in Kaffihús Hellnum, gray cement and burnt red steel roof. It was once a tiny, one-room fishing bungalow. Now it is a restaurant with a few tables inside and an attached wooden deck facing the ocean, where one can watch the waves tease the rocks. We were too heated to sit outside, so we sipped our espresso and shared a chocolate cake at one of the tables inside. The whitewashed interior walls are bare. The last time we were here, the work of Icelandic artist Adalheidur Skarphedinsdottir hung there. After that trip, Darien surprised me by giving me an ink print of Adalheidur's for my birthday. It now hangs in our living room.

We hiked back to our car quickly and began the drive to Reykjavik, but this time we stayed on the asphalt. We passed Lýsuhóll and saw the wind had settled enough that the horse riders were out. We do not stop. In Borgarnes, we call our friend Thor and ask him where we can buy the national dish pylsur (or hot dogs made from lamb), which for some reason Darien and Antonia really seem to want. The pylsur has a tough casing and is smeared with mayonnaise and sweet mustard, which one can tolerate by flushing with water after every bite. We cut almost an hour off our trip by paying a few kroner and taking the tunnel that burrows under the Hvalfjörður fjord. It is almost six kilometers long and 165 meters below the surface. We pray for the skill and knowledge of Iceland engineers.

It was getting late by the time we returned to Reykjavik. We still had shopping to do, so we went straight downtown. Antonia and Darien followed their gathering instinct by poking around in a wool shop and a bookstore, while I amused myself on the street. I sat on a bench outside the wool shop. Next to me sat a pile of yarn and needles, with a sign inviting passersby to stop and knit a bit. Several did while I sat there. A small record store on a hill, which looked no different from the houses surrounding it, had a band playing in its backyard. I stopped in. A half dozen other people watched. The band sang in English, but after each song addressed the crowd in Icelandic. They complained about the economic conditions and sang American songs of protest. The music was decent. Darien and Antonia wanted to make a hat trick of it and go to a hot pot for our final day in Iceland, so I went to the third floor of one of the larger bookstores and drank coffee and wrote and daydreamed. Evening was approaching, so I returned to The Three Sisters to take up residence again, but this time we were in a different building closer to the docks. The two ladies showed up shortly after.

We met Thor downtown for dinner. He wanted to dine somewhere nice, but that meant he had to leave his wheelchair below and struggle up a flight of steps, which he was happy to do. I again passed up the horse meat on the menu (here called foal, an appellation I'm not sure is better or worse) and stayed with the tried and true fish. Thor works as an editor and translator for scientific works, so we talked about his work, and living in Iceland, and literature, and culture, and Italy. He told us his daughter was sensitive to certain types of psychic influences, and that Iceland is crisscrossed with ley lines believed to have certain powerful, mystical qualities. The hidden folk of Iceland are often found around these centers, and Thor told us several true accounts, worthy of being written in the newspaper and retold over and over. One of the most powerful centers is out at Snaefellsnis, where we had just been. I am not certain if Thor really believes in the ley lines and huldufólk, or if this is what all tourists are told to make certain we come back. If that is magic, it works.