Akureyri to Húsavík via Lake Myvatn, Iceland
The peace of the morning contradicted the real personality of this land. Barely a breeze stirred the water’s surface so that the reflected face of Akureyri seemed to encompass our sleeping ship. Above, snow streaked ridges plowed by glacial ice butted against sharp and jagged pyramidal mountain peaks. Variegated clouds were unsuccessful in hiding all the blue of the morning sky. To the north, truncated cliffs alternated with water eroded v-shaped valleys, a sharp contrast to the ice bulldozed u-shaped fjord the ship would sail upon.
We parted ways, the ship and guests and buses bore us inland where fire and water battle to create a mystical land. Magma, once solid rock, then fiery red and molten poured across the land in places cooling rapidly in ragged blocks and chunks. Towers and tunnels, caves and arches stood as silent sentinels to the violence of the past. Where fire met water, explosive events built pseudocraters that sat upon lake and shore appearing as infants below a true volcanic cinder cone. That molten pool still rests not far beneath our feet, energizing percolating water that bursts into sulfur smelling, steam rising in plumes from cracks and crevasses. Mud bubbles like a thick silvery sauce. Where molten basalt met confining ice the youthful emerging mountains were flattened like giant table tops and they stand today iced with winter’s snow.
Quietly Lake Myvatn rests amidst this rugged land, a mecca for breeding waterfowl. Midges filled the air, dancing and dimpling the water’s surface tension like gentle raindrops. Red-necked phalaropes darted here and there gobbling each tasty fly. Giant whooper swans winged their way past as grebes, ducks and loons drifted on the calm water. The stark white trunks of birch trees seemed out of place on the reddish black basalt but no more so than the lush pale green carpet of reindeer lichen or the fresh spring greens of bearberry and moss campion or the dark tones of crowberry bushes, all snatching a foothold on the land.
We rejoined the ship in Húsavík and set sail once again only to discover that the icy waters hold more surprises to be discovered. For dessert this evening, two blue whales decided to drop by. What else will we encounter before twilight arrives with the beginning of a new day?
