April 12th: Walking on glaciers and carting with dogs

This series of posts will chronicle, as faithfully as possible, our recent trip to Iceland and Andalusia. Comments and thoughts are most welcome! Photos from Iceland are courtesy Gireesh, Anchal and Janani and the ones from Andalusia courtesy Gireesh. :)

Another day of being able to predict the weather! You could see what was coming your way over the next few minutes or even the next few hours – hail, snow, winds, cornflower blue. At one point today, we drove with curtains of rain falling down parallel to us as we basked in the sunshine. We could literally see clouds opening up to display their wares.

Clouds opening up -- this pic is from the previous day,
but rainy curtains stayed with us throughout today too

The morning started with a short, guided glacier walk on Svinafellsjokull, the first such experience for all of us. Weather was the usual mixed bag and I was a bit nervous about trying crampons on for the first time -- imagine walking on pointy nails on top of slippery, melting ice -- but walking was a breeze. We walked from the moraines surrounding the glacier right onto the tongue itself, a transition from black to blue white. We had a good chatty guide who was pointing out various formations on the field and describing the geology around the general area. Quite a few movies have been shot around this area, including Batman Returns with Christian Bale, so we also have some movies to revisit now. :) Unfortunately, glaciers of Vatnajokull, like all the others around the world, are receding at such an alarming rate that the whole area we tromped around would become a shallow lagoon by summer next year. We had an open debate about whether global warming was the sole villain here and no one really knows the answer, but it is still a very sobering thought. Overall, our first glacier walk was a very good experience but we all agreed that it got a bit repetitive towards the end and we could have tried a longer, more challenging walk which, I am sure, would introduce us to even more diverse features around the glacier. None of the other tours were open yet though (one of the downsides of visiting places in fringe months), so we had to make do with what was available.

Happy glacier walkers

After the walk, we were on the road again, retracing our route all the way back to Hotel Ranga, our pit stop for the night again, and heading off a bit further on for what we thought was an evening of dog sledding. We had been quite disappointed when our first booking was cancelled a couple of days ago due to the weather, but we were able to find a slot for this evening and couldn’t be more excited. So after a longish drive, with the typical rocks/moss/waterfalls/rainbows for company, we arrived at Holmasel at the headquarters of dogsledding.is. The place is run by an ex-policeman and a French lady, both of whom were quite chatty and seemed to love running the enterprise, the only one of its kind in Iceland I think. This was the first time in the trip so far that we got to interact with local residents at leisure, and it gave us an interesting insight into their daily chores, caring for the dogs, managing a business and living on a ranch away from the nearest village. However, we soon found out they only do sled tours in the summers and this would be a doggie cart ride around their farm and not a glacier run as we had expected. Initial disappointment apart, it was still great fun. We got to harness the dogs (10 Greenlandics – my favorite was a cute shy bloke who ran  hiding into his little house as we approached him and kept waving his paws at us in welcome), drive the cart around and even feed them horse meat at the end of it (ok, I didn’t volunteer for this one!). We even got to see a beautiful full rainbow, the first one of the trip so far. Tannu is an ardent dog lover, so she went completely gaga over our team of carters as well as the puppies we met later on.  

Dog carting

After a couple of roller coaster days on the ground, where our adrenaline charged emotions went up and down, today was a plateau, the day to soak it all in – the initial euphoria over the landscape had been overcome, a few activities ticked off, quite a few miles added to the odometer – and we just basked in the glory of how far we had come and what a great decision it was to be here.

The wait for northern lights continued another day – it was our last hope before we head westwards and into forecasts of heavier rains. We were keeping our fingers crossed and hoping the skies stay clear. All our gear in place, arranged and ready, we slept uneasily, just waiting for the good people at Ranga to call us as soon as they saw the elusive show started.