DAY 21 – REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2012 (day 20 at sea)

As you know by now, I'm a country counter and proud of it. A couple places I never thought I would get to are Iceland and Greenland, and they are part of the reason I selected this cruise. So now I have been to Iceland and will describe that adventure here, but when we got back to the ship we received bad news: the call at Greenland has been cancelled! Oh, no! And for no particular reason, other than expected 21 foot waves, 40 knot winds, and icebergs in the area. What a bunch of wusses! (Says the traveler who was mildly seasick two days ago in less stormy seas.)

They have substituted two ports of call, St. Johns, Newfoundland and Saint John, New Brunswick. Big deal! I've been to Canada, eh? But I haven't been to those provinces, so maybe I'll start counting provinces. I've been to all 50 states but to only three provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. But this trip will end with my country count at 42 instead of 43. Dang! So, anyway, back to Iceland visit yesterday.

I had no idea what to expect as we began our tour, as I had done almost no research on Iceland. I'm betting most of you don't know much either. Here's a very short version: picture Yellowstone without any trees. Reykjavik (if you ignore the letter J, it's easy to pronounce) is a really nice, clean and somewhat colorful city of about 180,000 inhabitants, or just a little larger than Parma, I think! The entire country of Iceland has only 400,000 residents, less than the city of Cleveland. Our tour took us out into the countryside and we spent no time in Reykjavik other than to have some key sights pointed out to us as we drove through.

Even before we left the outskirts of the city, we began to observe the lava fields, vast areas of what appeared to be giant gray sponges that stretched for miles. Some had no vegetation, but most had some mosses, lichens, and at times grasses growing on them, but no trees whatsoever. It seemed like a moonscape. As the elevation increased we began to see steam coming out of various places on the hillsides. We stopped at a bubbling mudpot area where wooden pathways had been built over the hot areas. Our guide said, “Stay on the pathways. Tourists can be soft-boiled in four minutes!”

We also drove past lakes in the mountains that have no inlet and no outlet, but are fed from springs. Since Iceland was formed “only” a few million years ago, virtually all the land is basaltic rock. They have no granite or sandstone, for example, so almost everything is black or brown. It is a fascinating landscape. We did go through farming areas, where the rock has broken down to form soil. They have an abundance (relative to the human population) of sheep and cattle, and crops are mostly vegetables and hay.

Icelandic horses are very interesting. They are not much larger than ponies, but are truly horses. They have stubby noses and long fur. Our guide said they are the only horses in the world with five gaits. Besides the normal walk, trot, canter and pace, they have a unique gait where only one hoof is on the ground at any point in time. She said the ride with this gait (which can be as fast as needed) is so smooth you could drink a cup of tea while riding without spilling a drop.

We stopped for lunch at a little town called Stokkeyn, where we were served very efficiently in a family style with lots of veggies, salad, potatoes, and.... langustini (sp?). They are similar in size to prawns but taste like lobster, and they were delicious! They came well-cooked in wooden bowls with loads of garlic butter. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. We threw politeness and gentility to the winds and tore into them with our hands, pulling out the meat, gobbling it down, then reaching for more. I don't know how many I ate, but surely you would have to count in dozens. Yet with eight of us sharing that bowl, and most as greedy as I, there were still three of the little critters left in the bottom of the bowlwhen we left. Also wonderful was the bread, which we dipped in the garlic butter in the bowl. Best meal of the entire trip, and there have been some great ones.

This town was within sight of Eyjafjallajokull (easy for them to say), the volcano that erupted in 2011 and caused all air traffic in Europe to be canceled for several days. Also, we could see the Myrdalsjokull glacier. Glaciers cover about 10% of Iceland (so, despite the name, it's 90% ice-free!). The lowlands near the coast are green in their summer, but the highlands that cover most of the island are pretty much barren. The climate, at least in the inhabited coastal lowlands, are surprisingly temperate, despite being further north than most of the rest of the world land areas. She said Reykjavik rarely gets below 20 degrees F in the winter, actually more moderate than Cleveland in January. However in the summer, if the temperature gets to 70, it is a major heat wave. (It was in the 40's but sunny on our day there, comfortable with layers of clothing.) They benefit from being in the Gulf Stream flow, of course.

Like all the other Scandinavian countries we visited, it is very much a high tax country with high levels of government provided services for education, medicine, and other benefits. Despite their recent financial troubles, almost entirely due to the banks, they are a very prosperous nation (4% unemployment) with the average income at about $36,000 per year. The first $12,000 is tax-free and the rest is taxed at 27 to 47%. They have no army, but are members of NATO. They have not joined the European Union for a number of reasons, principally because of EU restrictions on fishing, which is Iceland's largest industry.

One of the most interesting aspects of Iceland is that geothermal resources are their primary source of energy and heat. They drill down 1,000 feet and are supplied with extremely hot water or steam which they can convert to electricity or use to heat their homes and businesses at very low cost, perhaps 20% of our costs. It is so cheap that a major Australian aluminum manufacturer ships its bauxite ore all the way to Iceland to be smelted, which has a major energy requirement. Despite the cost of shipping ore halfway around the world, then shipping the finished product to market from Iceland, it is cheaper than producing it in Australia!

Hope I didn't bore you with a bunch of facts and figures. I'm an information junkie. But you can understand from all this, perhaps, that Iceland is like no other place on earth. It's worth a visit, and I learned that if you fly to Europe for vacation, you can make a stop in Iceland, stay up to seven days before continuing, and it is still the same flight, i.e. it does not add cost. A great idea, and one way to alleviate jet lag.

Well, now it's three days at sea before we see land again, as we cross the Atlantic to North America, so you probably won't hear from me until after Newfoundland, unless I begin to suffer from blogging withdrawal. Nothing that exciting on bored, I mean, on board, except for round 2 of the Princess Pop Choir, coming up tonight. Oh, What a Night! No, you misunderstand. That's the name of our first song.

Jim