Iceland: Flora, Fauna, and Merry Weather

I hadn’t been back to Iceland since before COVID. So, naturally, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I leapt at the chance to return to my favorite country—with sixteen of my closest friends.

Hallgrimskirkja and the
Leifur Eiriksson statue

Actually, it was a study tour I organized for alumni, faculty, and students from Erskine College. I generally avoid posting pictures of people without their consent, so you’ll notice a conspicuous absence of pictures of the sixteen people who kept me company on this trip, but I promise they were there!

Fellow travelers, from behind!

We spent a few days in Reykjavik on either end of the trip, and in between, our wonderful local driver/guide took us all the way around the country on the Ring Road, highlighting as many of the sights as we could see in a week and a half.

The sun smiles on Reykjavik (briefly)

I’ve done the Ring Road trip before (see this post), so rather than a blow-by-blow narration, let me just highlight some of the things I most enjoyed this time.

The Lava Show in Reykjavik, the only show
in the world where they play with real molten lava

First, our guide, Kristján, knew a great deal about the birds of Iceland, and on this trip, I learned about European widgeons…

A widgeon, not to be confused with a pigeon.

…saw my first ptarmigans…

A female ptarmigan. The males retain their
white winter plumage into the summer.

…and discovered that the bird that sounds like a video game sound effect, whose identity I had always wondered about, is a common snipe. I don’t have a picture of a snipe because they’re small, camouflaged, and shy, but here’s a link to a recording of the “winnowing” or “drumming” sound it makes with its tail.

We glimpsed seals, too…

The best picture I could get through the window
from the far side of the bus!

…as well as reindeer.

Reindeer are in introduced species, but 
they run wild in the east now.

And, of course, we saw many of Iceland’s beautiful horses, and even met some in person!

Another shot through a bus window.

These beauties were friendly and curious...
and slightly bitey.

We also visited a tomato greenhouse at Friðheimar, which sounds like a remarkably boring tourist attraction (unless you’re really into tomatoes, I guess), but this place was magical.

Tomato plants
(in case you've never seen one before)

Sitting amid the rows of tomato plants pollinated by bumble bees, we had a lunch of overwhelmingly rich tomato soup and fresh-baked bread…

Have you ever seen a bar in a greenhouse?

…then went across the street for a horseback riding demonstration (because, apparently, raising tomatoes doesn’t take enough time, so the greenhouse owners also breed horses).

A rider demonstrating that the tolt, one of the
Icelandic horse's special gaits, is so smooth
you can ride while carrying a full beer
(as one does) without spilling it

So much for the flora and fauna. How about that merry weather? As anyone who has ever visited Iceland knows, the weather is…not really great. We were lucky on this trip in that we got very little rain (though we did get sleet and even a touch of snow!), but we had a solid week of the windiest weather I have ever experienced. Even the Icelanders were complaining about it!

North Iceland or Sahara Desert? You guess!

The wind sandblasted our van and drove so much stinging grit into our faces that half of us didn’t even make it out of the parking lot when we got to Hverir to look at the sulfur springs and boiling mud pits.

This is why we hired a local professional
instead of trying to drive ourselves!

But what I loved about my group was that all of them were genuine troopers. No one complained about the weather (except to joke about it), and when it sleeted on us, everyone just pulled up their hoods and kept going. They inspired me with their tenacity and willingness to embrace the adventure, no matter how cold or wet it was.

Please observe the whitecaps on the Myvatn Nature Bath pools
(photo taken from indoors while the intrepid members of our group
went for a swim). The windchill was 24 degrees Fahrenheit.

And because they were willing to embrace the adventure, I was able to share with them my favorite country in the world, including some old favorites:

Djúpalon, the black-pebble beach
on Snæfellsnes peninsula

Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe

Jökulsárlon, the glacial lagoon populated
by icebergs streaked with volcanic ash

Reynisfara, where tourists are warned
to watch out for “sneaker waves”
(surf that runs high and fast up the beach)

Geysir (this geyser's name is Strokkur)

And there were even some firsts for me:

Whale-watching at Hauganes

Ásbyrgi, the giant canyon that, according to legend,
was formed by the hoof of Sleipnir,
Odin’s eight-legged horse

Svartifoss, the black waterfall

The glacier Sólheimajökull

Raufarhólshellir, a lava tunnel, where we were just in time to see
the ice stalagmites, which form over the winter and melt in the summer

Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall I’d seen before
but had never gone behind, which is its main attraction

Naturally, the one time I decide to brave the climb to see the Seljalandsfoss from the other side, the wind is so strong it blew most of the falls onto the path instead of into the pool. Although my faithful rain jacket kept me dry, when I got back on the bus, water literally poured out of my pockets! But I would say the trip (and the drip) was worth it.

Rainbows come after (and sometimes during) the rain

It was such a privilege sharing this beautiful, unique place with my colleagues, friends, and students, and I hope they caught something of my love for it. And given that none of them got blown off a cliff, fell off a boat, lost their passports, or missed the plane, the experience was good enough from my end that I might even do it again!

Hvitserkur on Vatnsnes

Yallah! An Adventure in Egypt

 

When your friend who studies the Middle East and whose husband runs a tour company invites you to join her on a trip to Egypt, you don’t think twice. So the day after Christmas, another friend and I flew out of Charlotte and, three flights later, joined our colleague and her family in Cairo. What followed was eight days of amazing adventure.

Of course what drew us to Egypt is the same thing that draws most people: more than 4,500 years of history, preserved in some of the most famous monuments in the world. And considering you could spend months touring Egypt and still not see everything there is to see, our friends made sure we took in a lot.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of Khafre,
and the Pyramid of Menkaure, 26th Century B.C.E.

The Sphinx, built for Khafre in the 4th Dynasty
but completely covered in sand by the 18th, when
Thutmose IV rediscovered it.

The Step Pyramid, built by the great architect Imhotep,
with the cobra-lined wall of Djoser's mortuary complex

The ceiling of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali
(1848) inside the Citadel of Salah al-Din.

Philae Temple, begun in the 4th Century B.C.E.
and moved in its entirety when its original location
was flooded by the Aswan High Dam in 1970.

The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, built by Rameses II
in the 13th Century B.C.E., also moved in its entirety
when the High Dam created Lake Nasser.
(All four statues are of Rameses.) 

The hypostyle hall at Karnak, built in the
20th Century B.C.E.

Luxor Temple, circa 1400 B.C.E.

The Temple of Hatshepsut, the woman pharaoh
of the 15th Century B.C.E.

The sarcophagus of Rameses VI in the Valley
of the Kings, from the 12th Century B.C.E.

The goddess Hathor welcoming Nefertari
in Nefertari's tomb, Valley of the Queens,
13th Century B.C.E.

But the thing is, we’ve all seen pictures of these places before. They’re better in real life (so very much bigger than you expect them to be!), but I found what really made the trip for me was the experiences we had in and around these famous monuments. This is where I have to give a shout-out to Mejdi Tours, the company founded by my colleague’s husband, which makes sure we don’t forget, in visiting the sites of the past, that life is still being lived in these places here and now.

Khan el-Khalili bazaar in Cairo

The Nubian Village outside of Aswan, where a
local family hosted us for dinner.

A belly dancer at the New Year's Eve
gala in the Tolip Hotel in Aswan.

A tanoura dancer at the gala.

A Luxor family hosted us for lunch and 
showed us how they make feteer meshaltet
(probably the best bread in the world).

A dawn hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings.

The Neighborhood of the Garbage Collectors
in Cairo, a mostly Christian community that
has created one of the most efficient recycling
industries in the world. Most tourists never see
this neighborhood, but we were led through it
by a guide who had grown up there.

We went on a camel right at the Pyramids,
where this camel got very friendly with me.
The camel driver was about eight years old.

Stray dogs are ubiquitous in Egypt. This one
has set up shop in Saqqara, the necropolis of 
ancient Memphis, and is doing very well
for himself.

Cats, beloved by the Prophet Muhammad
and sacred to the ancient Egyptians, are also
everywhere. This one lives at Philae and is taken
care of by the people who run the café on the island. 

From the 5 a.m. call to prayer to the (apparently justified) belief that stoplights are an unnecessary obstacle to traffic flow, every moment reminded me that the way I’m used to living is by no means the only way to do it. I’m always grateful for the opportunity to see life in another culture, and I look forward to the next opportunity to be humbled by the wonderful variations of humanity. So as they kept telling me in Egypt, “Yallah”—let’s go!