The Furthest We've Gone...

Yesterday we reached the geographic zenith of the trip.  This bridge - crossed in the far reaches of Lappish Norway, on our way from one part of Finland to another - sits at 70°198947 N. The name of this place is Tana Bru.  There were a few low buildings, a store, leafless trees, grey skies, the swift Tana river and a small, wet pull off where we could park.  From there, our road turned back down towards the equator.
The experience had us thinking about the other extreme points of the trip, where we'd been the furthest east, west and south.  Here's our little cartography project.

It seems that we always reach these geographic extremes during cloudy, dismal weather.  It was a cold, windy day on the southern coast of Cyprus when we walked the Limassol shoreline, at 34°664911 N.  There were stacks of unused beach chairs and faded signs for "ombrellas," a few fishermen, rocky sand, strip clubs and blank holiday apartments.  Cyprus certain can feel like the sunny south, but in those earliest days of March we had no desire to swim.  From the beach, it's about two hundred and forty miles south to Port Fuad, Egypt.

Looking for lighthouses and glaciers, we rounded the western tip of Iceland's Snæfellsnes Peninsula, which is the furthest west we reached in our westernmost country (-23°973541 E).  The Azores are more westerly, but we don't intend to go.
The land out on the Snæfellsnes was dominated by volcanic rock and bright-green grass.  The waterside cliffs were full of bird nests, the air was full of mist.  It's a land of myth, and the local volcano was chosen by Jules Verne as the entry point into the center of the earth.

More than three thousand miles east, on the polluted shores of the Caspian sea, Baku was our other longitudinal extreme.  Oil derricks and harbor cranes hung in the sky, the city was gnawing itself to pieces.  Azerbaijan isn't a pretty place, and the Caspian was tar black in the January light.
The culture there is as much Asian as European, a mixture of Islam, Russia and its own independent fire.  Taking a night train overland through the dessert from Georgia, we awoke to grey scrub and brown earth.  The sea and the city, when we got there, seemed like the last place on earth.
As nearly as we can figure it, we reached 49°887371 E.

So, if these were our poles, where was the middle?  After some quick calculations, it seems that the east-west, north-south midpoint of our trip lands at 52°431929 N, 12°956915 E, which is about ten miles west of Berlin.
We've actually been to one (dubiously accurate) geographic center of Europe, in the Belarusian town of Polotsk.  It didn't feel like the middle, though.  Berlin seems much more accurate, even if our methods are a little unscientific.

Things Icelandic People Like

Saying "No, Thanks!" to European Union Membership.  Within an hour of arriving in Iceland, we spotted a billboard that said "ESB - NEI TAKK!"  Our quick airplane study session had taught us that "nei takk" means "no, thank you" and the European Union flag keyed us into the meaning of "ESB."  We saw hay bails wrapped in branded plastic with the same message throughout the countryside.  Even though membership talks successfully began between Iceland and the EU in 2010, 56% of Icelanders polled this February were against them moving forward.  The main causes for concern have to do with agriculture and fisheries.  Basically, the enormous subsidies currently provided to sheep farmers would be cut drastically, the import tax currently on imported meat and produce would be lifted and the local farmers would get competition that they simply couldn't win. As for the fisheries, once EU member states get access to Icelandic waters, there's no telling what would happen.  Both of these things would, undoubtedly, affect the island's environment (on top of its ability to be self-sufficient, a vital skill for an island nation).

Coca-Cola Products.  Icelanders consume more Coca-Cola product per capita than any country in the world.  It's true.  The upside to such a depressing statistic is that they are the only European country to sell my very favorite soda, Fresca, a product of the Coca-Cola Company.  Aside from Iceland, it is distributed only to North and South America.  So, thank you, Iceland.  (Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite and Sprite Zero were the other products regularly on hand).
When buying a soda like a true Icelander, one needn't have any available cash.  Because, another thing that Icelandic people like is...

Using a Credit Card for Everything.  Absolutely everything.  Even the vending machines have card swipers.

Cairns.  Some marked trails, some stood lonely and tall in the middle of fields - ancient leftovers from a trail long since disappeared.  At Skálabrekka, on the drive toward Þingvellir National Park, we saw dozens of tourists buildings cairns in a field just chock full of them.  A different sort of marking, just saying that they were there.  This cairn was spotted on the way up the Strandir Coast of the Westfjords.

Saga Museums.  The Sagas of Icelanders are the best known and most loved pieces in Icelandic literature.  Written in the 13th and 14th century by unknown authors, they tell the stories of the 10th and 11th, when the descendents of the original settlers began to navigate their way through life in this new world.  This involved lots of murder, as far as I can tell, as almost every saga details one killing after another.  Of course, this makes for great entertainment.  So, museums telling the stories have popped up around Iceland.  Most are in the location of the actual saga.  Let's just say, we saw a lot of violence reenacted by wooden statues and grotesque dummies.  Above, at the Saga Museum in Borgarnes, a tavern full of men listen to the very first poem recited by young Egil of Egil's Saga.  Spoiler alert: Egil grew up to become quite the murderer.

Self-Service Soup Stations.  In tourist information centers, gas stations, bakeries, museum gift shops and restaurants, there was always a big cauldron of soup sitting in the corner.  The soup of the day was always self-serve, inexpensive and offered up with slices of complimentary bread.  Cauliflower soup popped up twice, but usually mushroom soup and kjötsúpa, Icelandic lamb soup, were the ones on hand. 
Usually, a self-serve water station was also stationed somewhere in any room.  Icelandic tap water is excellent and having big pitchers on counters and bars across the country was excellent.  No waiting to ask your waiter for a refill, here!

Sod Roofs.  This architectural feature dates all the way back to the Vikings.  Covering log cabins with birch bark was the roofing method of choices throughout Icelandic history - and since birch bark so easily curls or blows away, the pieces were weighed down with think pieces of sod.  The process was labor intensive, but basically free, so it continued on in rural areas for centuries.  Recently, people have begun using sod roofs again.  The birch is waterproof, the sod is a great insulator and the weight of it all compresses the logs beneath to make the walls more draught-proof.  The sod roof above seems to be mostly chosen for look.

Icelandic Food

An old woman at the Reykjavik flea market snipped us samples of harðfiskur with heavy shears.  Before her, many kilos of the dried fish were arranged on a table.  She told us the differences between the varieties in an unintelligible language that might partly have been English. Some types were dry enough to flake and powder around the edges.  Others were almost moist, and smelled of docks and brackish water.  Harðfiskur is no delicate treat - the flesh needs to be worked in the teeth before it softened.
Like so many Icelandic foods, harðfiskur - dried cod, arctic char, haddock or ocean catfish, usually eaten smeared with salted butter - is very simple and very much a part of the environment.  In the old days, before grains were imported, it often served as a kind of bread for the hearty islanders.

On a cool night in the northern fishing village of Hólmavík, we wandered into the local pub for dinner. It was misty outside, the sea was grey and empty, the town had been battened-down for bad weather.  The few people who were out in the elements walked briskly, heads down, their chins tucked into raincoats.
But the pub - called Café Riis - was bright, warm and almost full.  A harried, red-cheeked waitress informed us that they only had a buffet that night, which seemed disappointing until she began pointing out dishes.  In addition to hearty mainstays - breaded lamb chops and potato salad, pink shrimp in garlic, flatbreads, various mayonnaise concoctions, fish balls - there was a whole array of Icelandic specialties.  Smoked salmon, of course, but also smoked lamb.  Fried cod cheeks with onion: voluptuously oily and tender.  Cured puffin: chewy, meaty and deep purple.  Marinated minke whale: soft, fatty and coated in strong rosemary.  We drank lots of Gull beer, refilled our plates and forgot about the worsening gale.
(A note: whale meat is pushed on tourists as though it's a longstanding tradition.  Really, it's not, and Icelanders don't eat much of it - the new whaling industry mostly exists to satisfy foreign curiosity about eating these animals.  We tried it, but don't feel terrific about it.)

Ships from distant Europe used to sail for Iceland's waters in all weather, spending months on the sea in search of one, specific fish.  From Brittany, Spain, Portugal and England, arriving in creaking fleets loaded with salt and brave men, the ships came for cod.  It's still the king of the North Atlantic fish, even if the catches are smaller, the cuts are more diminutive and people have begun worrying about mercury.
Heavy metals and overfishing aside, cod is absolutely delicious.  In Iceland, we ate it crusted in curry, stewed in soups, salted, smoked,  baked in hot earth and sautéed - ever so simply - in a pan. At the Hotel Djúpavík, as we sat to dinner with other wind-burned travelers, the smell of the cooking fish was intoxicating.  The plates were simple, the meal was perfect.

Cod may be king, but Iceland has plenty of other fish in its seas. Plokkfiskur, a dish of mashed haddock and potatoes, is one of the more basic and popular seafood dishes in the country, especially as the days grow shorter and August begins to feel like autumn.
Plokkfiskur can be made a variety of ways, with anything - cheese, butter, cream or (even) mayonnaise.  It's great piping hot; a filling and fishy lunch between hikes or a fisherman's dinner after a day on the waves.

At Fjöruborðið Restaurant, in Stokkseyri, Rebecca was given almost more langoustine than she could eat.  They were slid onto the table in a copper pot, cooked in butter and oil with new potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper and otherwise unadulterated.  At the end of the lunch, a translucent pile of rosy shells sat beside her plate.
Northern pink shrimp also pop up often on menus. Spider crabs, sea cucumbers and urchins too, but more rarely.

At the Sorcery & Witchcraft Museum, in Hólmavík, the exhibits were scant but the mussels were plump.  "From the bay outside," our chef (and sorcerer) said, presenting us with bright orange creatures cooked in saffron, celery and hot pepper.  Another museum goer asked about the intense coloring; "the orange ones are girls," our host said.

We came to associate open-faced sandwiches with ports.  At the Stykkishólmur ferry office, just feet from the nodding fleet, we ate shrimp sandwiches, clingwrapped and presented in an artful tableau.  These little delights are like still-lifes, arranged just-so to highlight each ingredient (mayo, salad, cluster of crustacean).  Often, you can't even see the bread.
In another port town, on the island of Heimaey, we ate lunch at sunlit and sweet Café Varmó.  Here, my ham and egg sandwich sat on a spelt pancake.

Iceland's yogurt is called skyr, a term which has only recently become known in the United States. It's a thick, strained, less-tangy melody in the worldwide theme, but not hugely different from Greek goat's yogurt.  Icelander's eat their skyr with added cream to moisten it, or drink it pre-packaged, in watered-down form.
We liked ours with fresh krækiber: "crowberry," when it exists in English.  We saw old women and young children picking these pithy, sour berries on the wastes around the south coast.  They look something like blueberries, but have only a little sweetness.  With skyr, they taste perfectly of Iceland - rocky, windswept, grassy and wet.

In the Land of the Puffins

The Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands), off the southwestern coast of Iceland, are home to the world's largest puffin colony.  Anyone taking a ferry ride from the mainland to Heimaey - the largest and only inhabited island in the archipelago - is at least somewhat drawn to it by the promise of puffins.  Us included.  The front deck of the boat was closed off. So, standing outside meant approaching backwards.  We saw the mainland move away into a silhouetted sliver and then disappear entirely.  Then, it was just sea until islands began to pop up, out of nowhere, on either side of the ferry.  Cliff side streaks of white bird poo were our first signs that we had arrived in the land of the puffins.

Some of the islands look like the little round scraps that would confetti a tabletop if you hole punched a photo of the alps.   A grassy peak with a lone sheep on top of it smack dab in the center of a body of water.  We had no idea how Lamb Chop got up there.  At least two of Vestmannayer's uninhabited islands have a single building set atop or nestled into the side of a hill.  That white dot on the left side of the island above is one.  We thought, initially, that these were maybe the homes of the world's most romantic loners - or possibly its devoutest monks.  But they are actually puffin hunting cabins which are rented out to groups of dedicated huntsmen within the six week season each year. Needless to say, they have to pack reserves. 

The main island of Heimaey has 4,000 inhabitants who receive around 6 million visiting puffins per year. This used to be quite the boon for residents, a food source arriving in bulk. Puffins were the diversity in an islander's diet of fish, fish and more fish. There was a period at the end of the 19th century when the birds were harvested for their down, too, which was then sent off to Denmark to use in bedding. While lucrative, this put a big strain on the Atlantic puffin population and the practice was banned. All hunting was called off for 30 years. Today, the Atlantic puffin's conservation status is ruled as "least concern," meaning they are far from endangered.

Still, like so much wildlife in the world today, the puffin population have been showing some signs of decline and, as a result, hunting the birds has been prohibited for the last two summers.  Most people chalk the dwindling breeding numbers up to changes in the eco system, over-fishing of the puffins' food sources (small fish), and the introduction of new predators such as domestic pets.  Whether hunting plays a role or not, it's better to just err on the side of caution and cancel the season for a few years.  Or maybe for good?
Any hunting that does take place is done using a method borrowed from the Faroe Islands.  "Sky fishing," involves grabbing a puffin right out of the sky with "fledges," a kind of oversized lacrosse stick.  Their neck is then broken by hand.  It's actually very humane - and only non-breeding puffins are caught.  You can see a huntsman in action in the above Heimaey building art.

Puffin art adorns plenty of buildings on Heimaey.  The people of Vestmannaeyjar have a special relationship with their birds.  The yearly arrival of the millions-strong colony is an event, a tradition and a cause for celebration.  This is the only time in a puffin's life that they set foot on land.  Aside from this breeding period, their entire existence is spent at sea.  As they arrive in Vestmannaeyjar, the birds meet up with their mates.  Some are known to meet midflight and go right at it.  Honey, I haven't seen you in so long!  Puffins are monogamous, except in the rare case that no eggs are produced for a few seasons. Then, the puff daddy goes out and finds himself a new puff mommy.  (Ever think the problem may be with you, bub? Look at him, so smug in that tophat.)

The domestic life of a puffin is undeniably endearing.  Aside from the whole swoon-worthy mating-for-life thing, they also act as true partners in their time together on land.  The male puffin is mainly responsible for building their nest, burrowing a hole into the side of a cliff or finding a rabbit hole to repurpose. The female lines the spot with grass and leaves to make it more comfortable.  Then, once the single egg is laid, the couple share incubating responsibilities - and, once hatched, feeding duty.  Then, the little puffling is mostly on its own, braving the world outside its nest for the very first time during the night.  Its natural instinct is to use the moon to guide its flight, but some get confused by the bright orb streetlights of Heimaey.  So, every year, a "Puffin Patrol" goes out onto the streets and finds the confused little pufflings, bringing them back to the water's edge and sets them free by hand.

Breeding season was just coming to an end as we arrived on the island, but we still got a glimpse of a few stragglers.  After seeing their image on just about every souvenir possible throughout Iceland and in street murals and pub signs in Heimaey, it was both more and less exciting to see them in person.  It's a lot like seeing a rainbow.  You know exactly what one looks like, you know what environment you're most likely to see one pop up, but it's something so attached to drawings, symbols, cartoons, iconography that spotting a true one in nature feels predictable, but lucky somehow. 

"Do you hate it when people order puffin?" Merlin asked... after ordering puffin.  "No, no," the young waitress answered, shaking her head on top of which about a mile of blonde hair was piled.  "When they are young, they are cute.  But when they get big..." she scrunched her nose.  Four deep brown puffin breasts were served alongside a candied pear and some roasted potatoes.  They looked like beef liver, even more so when one was cut open to reveal an intense pink.  It definitely didn't shout "poultry," but then again neither does duck.  The texture was also similar to liver, but the taste was a cross between duck and venison.  You know, in case you were wondering.

Fiskisúpa

The menu at Fjöruborðið restaurant proclaims that "people risk their lives in bad weather en route to the village of Stokkseyri for just a few spoonfuls" of their lobster soup.  I would.
Fish soup, or fiskisúpa, in dozens of permutations, is one of the Icelandic staples.  Served in waterside restaurants and mountain inns, with curry or tomato, langoustine or cod, buttered bread or cous-cous, fiskisúpa could be called the national dish (if the actual national dish wasn't, unfortunately, hákarl).
The version at Fjöruborðið is probably the island's most decadent.  Chock full of tiny "lobster" tails (really, northern langoustines) and butter, it's fishy, extravagantly creamy and about the best thing I could imagine eating.  We sat in awe as the North Atlantic crashed against the southern coast, seabirds wheeled and the steam rose from our bowls.

At Fimm Fiskar, in Stykkishólmur, I got my first taste of modern fiskisúpa.  Fragrant with citrus, spiced with curry, sweetened with coconut milk, their version of the soup was a surprise.  It turns out that Icelanders love curry; we have no idea how this happened, but cumin and curry are in everything, fish soup included.
Fimm Fiskar, a small and tidy bistro on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, stocks their broth with bell pepper,* shrimp, lobster and cod.  It's rich without being creamy.  The spices give off a heady vapor that smells as much of the south seas as the north.
*Another unexpected but common fiskisúpa ingredient.

The town of Rif, further out on Snæfellsnes, doesn't have much.  There are some fishing docks, a few corrugated-tin buildings and a tiny cafe, Gamla Rif.  The cafe was opened by two women whose husbands fished for cod on the open seas.  The fish soup is the only savory dish on a cake-filled menu.  It's full of toothsome bits of cod - "the only fish we have in Rif," our waitress said.  Also, lots of curry, fish stock, tomato and pepper.
Also, fascinatingly, canned peach.  "We use it to sweeten," the young woman said.  "We also put in some of the syrup."  The soup wasn't overly sweet, and had a raw seashore smell, something like kelp mixed with onions.  Served with coarse, homemade bread, followed by a slice of rhubarb-outmeal tart, it was one of the best lunches we've had.

My first experience with icelandic fish soup was also the simplest.  At the traditional-food bastion Búðarklettur, in the town of Borgarnes, we sat by big windows in a crowded dining room.  The soup was uncomplicated cod and tomato; rich with sea salt, safron and herbs; only slightly spiced and hot enough to scald the lips.  The fish was chewy and flaky at the same time - the perfect cod texture.  We had landed at Keflavik airport only a few hours earlier and were still agog at the island's crags and bays.  To my airplane-dulled tongue, this bowl of soup tasted more like the ocean than sea-water itself.

On a wind-whipped evening by Lake Laugarvatn, I had the most elegant fiskisúpa of our stay.  Lindin restaurant is a genteel place in an unlikely locale.  The food is delicate and far-reaching (minke whale on the same menu as reindeer burger), their fish bisque uses a broth of arctic char from the lake and dollhouse-tiny, tender shrimp.  The dish owed as much to Lyon as to Reykjavik, and was served with a caraway-flecked roll.

Forty-Eight People

Pan in from a birdseye view of Iceland to its northwestern appendage, the Westfjords.  The inkblot lobster shaped collection of fjords reaches up and over toward Greenland.   Zoom closer to the eastern coast of the Westfjords, a coast so full of inlets and bay that its name (Strandir) literally translates to "coasts."  This is a land that was once chock full of sorcerers, witch hunts and spells cast.   It was also a haven for criminals, so remote that you could be sure to escape the authorities' clutches for good.  At the northern tip of this wild and woolly Strandir Coast is Árneshreppur.  For the most intrepid tourists, it is the very last bit of civilization before heading into uninhabited Hornstrandir for subarctic hiking.  Zoom in, finally, to this dock at dusk and down beside it, to a dead jellyfish.   Its translucence was so perfect that it acted like a gooey, rimless magnifying glass.  The stones below it were smooth, black and shining.  Árneshreppur is not just the end of the world, although the moniker wouldn't be too much of an overstatement.   It is a world unto itself.

That dock and this one both stuck out into Reykjarfjörður, the fjord into which Djúpavík is nestled.  As Eva and Ási's laundry billowed and snapped violently in one of the oft-occurring bouts of heavy wind, this line of drying, headless cod held strong.  "The young people don't like to eat it like that anymore," Eva said of the age-old preservation method.  Once the 15 - 20 day process is completed, the harðfiskur (wind-dried fish) is eaten in strips, dipped into butter.   Nor do the young people like to stay in Árneshreppur anymore.   Population decline is nearly an epidemic throughout the Westfjords, with a 20% average decline in the last 80 years.  The largest rate of decline has happened right here.  50% of the population has disappeared since the 1920s.  Kind rounding places the population of Árneshreppur at 50 people.  Accurate data says 48.  This is the least populous municipality in Iceland, the least densely populated country in Europe.

The whole "there are more sheep than people," thing is very, very literal here.   Approaching Árneshreppur from further down on the Strandir coast, at just about the last house we'd see for two hours before reaching Djúpavík, we saw sheep down by the water, nibbling at kelp.   There was something bizarre about the scene to me. My brain just couldn't marry the images, the atmospheres, the feelings that are usually attached to "oceanside" and "grazing sheep."   It was like two icons of isolation, the lone sheep in the mountainside and the waves that lap with no one around to hear them had met and decided to go it together for a while.  Our guidebook reports that its not uncommon to taste a hint of seaweed in the local lamb.  Oceangrassfed.

The residents of Árneshreppur are proud, resilient, welcoming.  Appropriately, the heart of their municipality is its northernmost point, the village of Norðurfjörður, less than 5km from where the road just... ends.  Its cafe is one of the northernmost in Iceland, its store (the Steingrimsfjordur Coop) is lovingly stocked with the expected canned and dried goods and the delightfully surprising ripe bananas.  Three women with identical, unflattering bowl cuts, stood and talked near the door. Most likely the work of the one 'hairdresser' for miles.  We walked into the Bank to get more cash and found a man sitting behind a desk among piles of papers and folders.  Just north of town, right near the last steps we could possibly take, was the geothermal swimming pool at Krossness.   This nearby spigot shot the scalding water out.  The spray and steam was cast into the cold air like a rippling flag marking the spot - the furthest north I have ever been in my life.

The landscape is just gob-smacking everywhere you look. This is a wilderness made of clean lines and somber hues.   We thought that the big, rusted ship on the shore in front of Djúpavík was perfectly picturesque.  The boat docked here in the 1940s, brought in as extra housing for workers in the Herring Meal Factory's heyday.   Eva saw the rusty ruin differently, as a blight on the scenery.  Its deterioration saddens her.  The corrosion is weighted in meaning.  Next to the factory is an old, unremarkable car similarly rusting away.  Its windows are covered in garbage bags.  Her neighbor refuses to remove it or store it away inside the factory with Árneshreppur's other dead cars.   "It is part of the landscape!" the neighbor argues.  They are rarely around to have to look at it.

The wider sections of Árneshreppur's shores are covered in driftwood, settling here after a journey all the way from Siberia.  As we marveled at the Siberian wood at our feet, at our place on the earth, one rainbow and then another appeared in the sky.   Sometimes our brains can do nothing but incredulously ask, "Where are we?"

A cleverly drawn map of Árneshreppur was given to us upon arrival at Djúpavík.   Each settlement up the coast was given a rectangle of promotional space on the back.  Their presence on the map itself was so accurate that if one little red house and two blue ones were drawn next to the name of one of the more populated villages we would find exactly one red house and two blues ones upon arrival.   There is Árnes, whose farmers make eiderdown pillows, blankets, etc, gathering the materials from the eiderduck community on Árnes island right offshore.  There is the old meat freezing plant turned hostel in Norðurfjörður.   There's the couple, Badda and Bjorn, who offer a very small scale summer camp experience for children 5 - 12 at their farm in Melar.   An immersion experience if there ever was one.  This old shed was in Gjögur just up from the coastal air landing strip.

It is impossible to get around in the winter, harder still to reach the rest of Iceland. The airstrip at Gjögur and the landing dock at Norðurfjörður become the only options.  When Ási and Eva moved to Djúpavík, there wasn't yet a road connecting Árneshreppur to the rest of the country.  So, they got a motorboat.  Amazingly, they were only people in the region to have one.  The lifelong residents of Árneshreppur were just used to moving slower, staying put, living off of the sea - fishing, hunting seals, using driftwood to build houses.   The people that remain here are content. Some site the fact that this part of the Westfjords has the lowest unemployment rate in Iceland as a sign of promise.   One could just as easily say 'there are only as many jobs as people.'

There is nothing easy about life in Árneshreppur aside from the simplicity of it all.   Eva believes her children have a self-sufficiency from growing up here, moving from Reykjavik at ages 4, 5 and 12.   She told us that they love it at Djúpavík and come back every summer.   It makes me feel like that corner of Árneshreppur is safe for at least another generation, it is protected by an attachment and a love.   Hornstrandir, that hikers' netherworld in the center of the Westfjords, was still inhabited as recently as the 1950s.   Once the last people left, Iceland put the area under national protection as a Nature Reserve.   An uninhabited wilderness.   Forty-eight people keep Árneshreppur from a similar fate.

Geothermal Iceland!

If you can believe it, all geysers on earth get their name from one Icelandic steam feature – the original Geysir, in south-western Iceland.  It sends up a few high plumes daily, but is rather irregular and infrequent.  A minute’s walk away, though, is this one, Strokkur, which gushes every ten minutes.  It’s still surprising, even when you’re expecting it – even in a country full of geysers.
Iceland is the most volcanic island on earth.  Over one quarter of the country is an active volcano zone.  This is somewhat frightening, and has its numerous downsides.  But there are also benefits to living where the earth’s crust is so thin and fractured.  For one thing, there’s no shortage of energy – heat from the earth’s core is readily accessible, and used for everything from producing electricity to growing exotic flowers.  Then there are all the hot springs and vents, which have myriad uses.  We’ve discovered that the Icelandic people have turned steam and geologic heat into a kind of magic.

“And back here,” the guide said with perfect nonchalance, “we have our volcano.”  We were taking a short tour of the Hellisheiði power plant, some twenty miles outside of Reykjavik – it’s a new facility, with lots of brushed aluminum accents and billowing steam.   From pipes drilled several kilometers down into the heart of the volcano (“No danger, it erupts every five thousand years,” we were told), the plant extracts superheated steam and water.  The steam runs turbines that power the entire Reykjavik area - free of charge - with plenty of energy left over.  The hot liquid is used to heat up potable water, which is piped to the capital.  All the hot water in the city come from here.  “We only lose two degrees,” the woman said, with obvious pride.

Also, the hot water is used to heat the buildings in Reykjavik and is run through pipes beneath streets and sidewalks to keep them free of ice and snow.  “It’s very handy for heavy traffic points,” our guide told us.  It’s amazing – they have more heat and electricity than they know what to do with.
Iceland produces almost one hundred percent of its own energy, mostly from geothermal turbines (though there are some hydropower dams, too).  Almost all of it is provided to the population at zero cost, and the surplus is sold to industry.

Of course, the geothermal experience that most travelers in Iceland have is one on a far smaller scale.  Almost every town in the country has a hot spring bath.  The formality of these places varies from built-up, spa-like centers to simple holes in the ground.  As my cousin (and Iceland guidebook author) Evan Spring told me, “all you have to do is dig a hole in the ground and hot water comes up.”
The baths are generally cheap and friendly places, used more by locals than visitors.  This pool, at Krossnes, is one of the northernmost and most remote.  At the very end of a long, dirt, Westfjords road, it’s exposed to bitter wind and drizzle off the sea.  Still, the water is warm enough – a constant one hundred degrees Fahrenheit – that it doesn’t matter.  It always feels luxurious.

There are also wild hot springs and pools, steam holes and warm streams.  About a half hour hike into the mountain valley of Reykjadalur, the Klambragil “river” is a comfortable bathing temperature nearly year round.  The air was only about forty degrees Fahrenheit when we visited (in late August!), but the water was hot-tub temperature.  We spent half an hour soaking with a dozen or so other hikers.
Icelanders also use the geothermal hotspots for natural steam rooms, and many houses have their own “hotpots” - small, spring-fed tubs.  From these are derived the similar “mudpots,’ which are obviously much dirtier.

They grow bananas in Hveragerði, amazingly enough.  They also have a thriving tomato industry, and beautiful local roses.  Heated by water from deep within the core, lit by geothermal electricity, the town’s many greenhouses are almost completely self-sufficient, even with so many dark days in the winter.
From the roadside, as evening approaches, the orange grow-bulbs burn like firelight through the trees.  It’s a pretty sight – comforting, but also curiously alien.

Hveragerði has an unusual amount of geothermal activity, even for Iceland, and its residents have long taken advantage of the abundant steam-vents and bubbling water.  In 1930, a local dairy began pasteurizing all its milk using natural steam.  Before that, farmers baked their dark bread in the hot earth.  Some of the houses have used geothermal heat for centuries.
Kjöt og Kúnst – a bakery and café in town – prepares most of its food with steam and hot-earth ovens.  Everything on this plate was cooked with heat from the earth’s core: the steamed carrots, the bread and the pot of plokkfiskur (mashed cod and potato with cream and cheese).

Even simpler is hard-boiling eggs in one of the hot streams.  The Hveragerði geothermal park is free, but a local egg to cook is 100 kroner (about eighty cents).  The dangling mesh sack is provided free.  Here, a tourist lowers two eggs into a pot submerged in the steaming trickle.  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled her eggs up, fully cooked.  I asked her how they were.  “Perfect,” she said.  “Fudgy center, no rubberiness to the white, not a trace of grey.” *
An information board in the park tells of a (possibly mythical) “hot spring bird."  They are said to have dived and disappeared when people approached.  If caught, they were very strange to eat.
“…their meat does not become tender in boiling water,” we read, “but if they are immersed in cold water they become cooked and edible within one hour, but have a ‘chilly taste.’”

*Disclaimer: the tourist was Rebecca.