A dispatch from Iceland
An indefinitive guide to the island's best dish, hair styles, fishing excursions, etc.
I have been on a traveling spree. L.A. in February. Paris in April. Puerto Rico in early May (to dig up iguana nests)! Iceland last week with my nephew Bert.
Though the tradition is still young, I plan on taking my godchildren—all six of ’em, one by one—on a big trip between middle and high school. It’s an awkward, delightfully corruptible age. Bert had proposed a helicopter hog hunting excursion in Texas, and I countered with fishing in Iceland. I knew I’d never visit Iceland with my husband, who prefers poolside comforts and art galleries to the outdoors, so I took a mostly charming 14 year old with whom I now share inside jokes about a doll named Larsson.
We did all the things: waterfalls, hikes, a lagoon spa day, Norse history. We watched a puffin in flight and went spelunking in a lava tunnel. From a gal who grew up on the flat and piney coastal plain of Georgia and who lives adjacent to the river of traffic that is 6th Avenue in New York City, here are a few of moments of wonder from a foreign land.
The Dish: Svartfugl
Yes, I ate an Icelandic hot dog, seven of them in fact, sometimes two in a day. Bert and I developed criteria by which we judged the country’s lamb-beef-pork pylsur. We evaluated snap, bun and onion ratios, and saucing, and gave bonus points for flare. Hot dogs are essential eating on the island.
However, I ate a single svartfugl, and in my lifetime there may never be another. I spotted the speckled turquoise eggs in a market the day we arrived in Reykjavik. In spring, foragers descend sea cliffs by rope to collect the eggs from the nests of the common murre, thick-billed murre, and other seabird species. The eggs’ conical shape prevents them from rolling from their rocky nests into the ocean. On the final night of the trip, we dined at Þrír Frakkar, whose chef happened to receive his first-of-the-season svartfugls that morning (oh, destiny!). The restaurant served them simply, soft-boiled with a little bowl of flaky sea salt on the side. The yolk was an amber custard that tasted of seaweed and ocean, of place. It was a perfect and decadent wild food.
Best Bangs: Icelandic Horses
Iceland’s original parliament, the Althingi, banned the importation of horses in 982 A.D., so there’s a single breed on the island, the hearty, somewhat diminutive Icelandic. I had not been on horse since the cattle drive in January and booked a ride at the Skálakot Manor Hotel and horse farm. I rode a sassy mare named Hilda across glacial creeks and to a waterfall. With coaching from our guide, I coaxed her into a tölt, a fifth gait that’s as fast a trot but incredibly smooth. Also: after stuffing my hair under a beanie for days, I found myself envious of the herd’s best-in-class bangs.
Who Knew: Cervidae Penises
My visit to the Icelandic Phallological Museum was a tad rushed. My travel companion had reluctantly consented to the visit but could not yet fully appreciate the world’s only dedicated penis museum. But, oh my, in our speed walk through the space, I encountered a sperm whale penis almost as tall as me, Icelandic horse penises, an elephant penis, molds of human penises, hooked boar penises, and the most delightful assortment of cervidae penises. Side by side cylinders held the penises of elk, red deer, white-tailed deer, and roe deer, illustrating the penile diversity of the cervidae family. As phalluses go, I’d rather be a red deer than a roe.
The Cover Up: Wooly Fringe Moss
We drove five hours from Reykjavik along the southern coast of Iceland, and for miles and miles at a time we passed through lava fields in varying states of aging. In June 1783, the Laki volcano erupted, spewing 42 billion tons of basalt lava for eight months. Plumes of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen fluoride killed 80 percent of the country’s sheep and 20 percent of Iceland’s human population. The sulfur dioxide dropped global temperatures by 1°C, triggering an extreme volcanic winter (and possibly the French Revolution).
We stood atop rocks in the Eldhraun lava field, Laki’s lasting monument, now blanketed with a shag rug of wooly fringe moss, plush and cool to the touch with the occasional cluster of tiny white flowers poking through. The moss softened the landscape and shrouded its violent past.
Can’t Unsee It: Glacier Freeze
We hiked Falljökull, an outlet of the Vatnajökull glacier. With crampons, we crunched through ice the texture of a hardened snow cone. We stepped over rivulets as they formed in the morning sun, delivering water from the largest glacier in Iceland—in Europe—to the sea. Ice axes in hand, we steadied ourselves, pierced the glacier, and ascended its slopes. This was the moment I traveled for. Standing atop that mass of ice, I felt the immensity of climate change and history, and the raw natural beauty of it all smacked me in the heart.
Far less profoundly, I noticed that glacial ice, at its densest, is the color of Gatorade Glacier Freeze. And I could not unsee it. Compressed over a hundred or more years, glacial ice absorbs all colors except for blue, which it scatters, and which is why I saw turquoise peaking out from below the thin and crunchy layer of ice on the glacier’s surface. It’s also why, in the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, where large hunks of ice break off each day and serve as day beds for seals, I felt as if I were floating on the headwaters of the world’s electrolyte supply.
Fishing for Idiots: Cod
Bert and I fly fished the tiny Lake Villingavatn an hour outside of Reykjavik. More accurately, Bert fished. After 20 minutes of tangled lines and poor wrist work, our guide mercifully cast for me the rest of the day. I simply waited for the fish to strike and bumbled from there. I reeled in a single slippery brown trout and lost two more hooked fish—at least one of which was a whopper. Otherwise, for eight hours, I scanned the water for rising fish. I listened to bird calls and rain drops. I felt the wind shift and watched flies descend on the lake. It was quiet and calming with just enough of an adrenaline rush to make me want to take lessons back home.
But, baby, let me tell you about cod. We also took a sea angling tour from the Reykjavik harbor. After a 20 minute boat ride and one-minute tutorial, I dropped my line in the water and, bam, cod. It felt as if the captain had steered us to a stocked pond. They just kept biting. Twice I reeled in two fish at once, a cod and smaller haddock with big mournful eyes. A deckhand filleted the fish, tossing their carcasses to a flock of seagulls, and then baked/steamed them in aluminum pans set in a grill. We feasted on the fruits of our unskilled labor on the ride back to the docks. Cod never tasted so good.
Living vicariously!