Musing on Icelandic Landscape

The land of fire and ice is a delightful playground for all the senses.  The vividly colored moss lying on jagged lava rocks sits nestled along monstrous mountains and line the shores of icy cold water.  The massive amount of untouched land emanates a mysterious sensuality that makes one believe that there are untold secrets just beyond our comprehension, especially if you are a foreigner. The natives of the land seem comfortable with the assumed or unknown, sometimes delighting in the fact that they dwell on a volatile hotbed of natural occurrences.  It’s intriguing and strange to meet people that seem as mysterious as the place they inhabit.

Once active volcanoes, lie like sleeping giants covered in blankets of snow in the winter and vibrant green grass in the summer.  The hibernation of these giants, ranging from hundreds to thousands of years, provide a pristine backdrop for breathtaking photos, extreme adventures, vigorous hikes, camping excursions and awe-inspiring drives in the countryside.

Fueled by melting glaciers and rain, countless waterfalls throughout the country run along crevices in mountains, take incredible cliff dives and free fall into rivers or streams below.  These spectacular sights to behold are like watching poetry in motion.  The power from the gushing water titillates the senses and energizes the soul.  This constant flow of liquid feeds into calmer streams that supply fresh and delicious drinking water for all living organisms in the area.

Experiencing waterfalls in the summer is alluring, but the winter supplies its own magical splendor that is worth trekking along icy paths to witness.  Water frozen mid-fall suspends off a precipice and anxiously awaits its chance to fulfill its destiny as a free flowing molecular compound, when the weather allows.

The sulfuric smell from the myriad of naturally occurring hot springs wafts in the air to warn any passerby about the boiling hot water that is bubbling to the surface of the earth.  The mostly cloudy and rainy skies sometimes take a break to let a cerulean sky reflect like a mirror on the lakes and seas around the island. Winds, at times reaching up to 112 mph, whisper sweet songs from the mountains in your ear as they whiz by.  Listen closely and you might catch a secret or two .

Active volcanoes astride the Mid-Atlantic ridge and ooze out magma that produces a crust on the earth’s surface. This activity slowly shifts the tectonic plates apart that run down the center of the island, creating a surreal opportunity where one can actually jump from the North American to Eurasian continental plate in one small leap.

Sheep, outnumbering people 2:1, graze freely on farmlands, the sides of the road, and pretty much anywhere they please. Fences have been constructed to keep people out and the sheep use this to their advantage.  They easily find weak spots in the enclosures and squeeze through them so they can roam in and out of the farmlands at will.  “Why did the sheep cross the road?,” is a silly question that is not worth pondering because a proper sheep will never tell.  However, like pedestrians, their right to cross the road safely is respected in Iceland and drivers occasionally have to stop to watch moving heaps of black or white wool trot happily across driving paths.  Some very grateful sheep might blurt out a “baaaaaahhhhhh” of thanks before continuing on their way.