We are in the Westfjord region of Iceland: If you look at a map of the country, it looks a bit like a jumping sheep, with the Westford region (top left) as it’s fluffy head, two legs sticking forward, and near the top right, a tail sticking out. (Apparently, the people who live in the south east do not like this analogy……).
Anyway, the “head” is “fluffy” because it is just a series of fjords, We are docked in its capital, Isafjordur, population 2700. It was settled early because of its natural harbor and was at a point considered to become the capital of Iceland, because of its “dense” population. It was 2700 then (hundreds of years ago), it has not grown at all. The town is at the end of the Fjord and until recently, its only industry was fishing - it still is its primary industry, with added fish farming, but tourism is rising fast. They are deepening the harbor so that more and bigger ships can dock.
The fjord sides are high and the town sits at the bottom of it. Until recently, there were areas of the town where you could only live in the summer because the danger from avalanches is just too high on some slopes. But now, they’ve built avalanche barriers (the horizontal lines on this picture).
The town has a University - which is remarkable for it’s size. It has only 80 students. Right now, none of them are from Iceland. Half are from Europe, the other half from Canada and the US. Our guide this morning- Brandon- was from San Antonio, Texas. He came for the adventure and because tuition is very low. The university specializes in small coastal town development and marine biology.
I went on a hike to a hidden waterfall, passing the smaller town of Sudavik: Population 250. It actually has school with 20 children. The entire town moved about 1 mile about 20 years ago, because a terrible avalanche killed 12 people, including 9 children in the old town. So they moved to a safer area. The new town is very colorful!
Our short drive along the fjord was made challenging by all the sheep and their babies crossing the road. They have priority, and if you kill one, not only will you feel bad, but the law says you have to identify it and go to the farmer to pay for it!
We arrived shortly to a stunning valley carved by glaciers long ago, where high waterfalls tumble down from the snow pack .
See picture at top of blog - this was the beginning of our hike - an easy 1.5 miles to a hidden fall. It was just beautiful!
There were of course also many flowers on the way (see bottom of blog: the first one is the “Icelandic Haven”, and the second one is Icelandic thyme.On our way back to town, we stopped at an arctic fox rescue, where we met two of the small creatures. They are the only native mammals in Iceland and have no predators other than man (it is legal to hunt them if they attack sheep- they are MUCH smaller then sheep-the biggest one ever found was about 15lbs- more commonly, they are under 10lbs- but they are fierce! Your best chance to see one is either here, or at the Reykjavik zoo because they are very elusive. They are not endangered and there are about 10,000 out there- mostly in some of the large preserves in the other areas of the Westfjords region.
Here you see a white morph (turns completely white in winter and lives in the mountains) and a blue morph (lives closer to the sea).
While I was hiking, Joe went to a fishing village, where he learned about the traditional way of living here, ate some fermented shark and listened to some folk songs in a pretty church. He too went to a nice waterfall (there are MANY waterfalls).
I took a walk on the black beach. It was low tide and the seaweed was making artsy designs on the rocks.
But there were also many ravens, ready to steal both.
In the afternoon, we had a lecture about the origin and basics of the Icelandic language. I can now say “hi” and “thank you” and “my name is”, etc, as well as pronounce the name of the volcano that erupted in 2010 and shut down airspace for a while, Eyjafjallajökull!
I have not talked much about food - although, this being a French ship, it has been really good. How do they make bread and butter so good????
But here are Joe and I enjoying some caviar, blinis, and champagne.....
Tomorrow morning will be lazy. We are not docking untill noon So we made it to the show for the first time The lead singer was spectacular the rest of the show was ok and fun. Ironically, it was about NYC.
Here are today's wildflowers:
No comments:
Post a Comment