29th Oct (Fri) - Iceland Day 4
Wow... went on the Golden Grand Slam tour today and was super busy with the sightseeing and activities. Let me try to recall...
OK. First, I went to Þingvellir National Park today to see the birthplace of the oldest existing parliament in the world. There isn't a building or anything, just a pole that indicated the land where leaders used to conglomerate, between the America and Europe continental plates, to confer on big issues. So if I looked to my left, I could see mountains belonging to America. And on my right, mountains that belonged to Europe. How cool was that!
And there's the impressive looking rift valley as well. But my stupid camera batt had to die on me at this point and I couldn't take pictures of the small river near the rift valley and the coins people throw in (the water was super clear) to make wishes. Darn!
After which, we headed over to Gjábakkahellir cave, one of the Icelandic lava tubes, and began my 1st attempt at caving.
Oh man... the cave was difficult for me (someone who hardly exercise and was of a clumsy character) as I had to scale through what had seemed like endless mounds of lava rocks and boulders. There wasn't even a point where we could walk on flat soil. It was climbing and scaling throughout. And we had to gradually made our way 20m down the cave, before scaling up again. It's cool when I think back now but it was scary then. I was more afraid of (1) straining my ribs and (2) spraining my ankle or something than actually falling down. Although there were only 4 of us for this particular caving trip (including the guide), I still found it rather tough to keep up with their pace because of my own stupid fears.
I did surrender halfway as I was too strained to keep up, but my guide explained to me that they were gonna exit from the other side and wouldn't be coming back the same way again, and we were already more than half way through so the exit's not too far ahead. So I gritted my teeth and continued forth.
Sensing my discomfort, the guide encouraged me to fall in line just behind him so that he could keep a look out for me and also lead me along the way. That did help increase my pace a little :) What made me felt bad was that the other 2 people in the group were 1st timers as well. But they were doing far better than me. Ok... I admit it, I suck. But I did try to keep up. Honestly.
At one point, the guide motioned us to sit on the rocks and asked us to turn off our headlights (which was the only source of light in the dark cave). Total darkness engulfed me and it seemed to grow with every passing second. But since it's a deliberate decision to off the lights and not because of equipment failure, it was ok and I didn't go into a panic state.
It was strangely peaceful to hear the water dripping down from the (tiny) stalamites and onto the floor. But as the seconds passed, I began to wonder how did those trapped victims (i.e.: under rubbles, collapsed caves and etc) managed to pull through those long hours or even days of waiting for rescue. Just a few seconds alone in this dark cave would be enough to scare me to death. And my instructor said, "without light, you wouldn't be able to tell from day and night and all sense of time would have fled you." True.
As we turned on our headlights and continued on, we seemed to have met with a dead end. All I could see was a wall of boulders blocking the exit. But my guide smiled and said, "let's go the other round". True enough, there was slight gap at the side and we kinda climbed and crawled through it before meeting another narrow hole again. This time, I went like " oh nooooooo".
I wasn't sure that even I could crawl through it. It looked so narrow. But my guide motioned us forward and then I began to see that the hole was bigger than I had saw from a distance earlier. And so, I gradually and finally made my "grand escape" out of the cave. I was tired, hungry but super glad that I made it. The full approx. 374m journey.
As we made our way to our next destination, I began reflecting on the thoughts I had had earlier. Then I came to a conclusion with those thoughts. My reaction to the blocked wall and the small openings was a reflection of how I would usually react to sticky problem or a bottleneck in life - which was "no, I can't/ won't do it". Come to think of it, sometimes I just get so tranfixed on the problem that my mind just simply refused to think og anything except the negatives. If I would just go nearer to investigate or confront it, perhaps I would realise that the problem wasn't as big or as complicated as it had originally sounded. Note to self.
Ok. Now back to my list of activities. After a quick lunch stop at the Gullfoss Cafe, where I had another bowl of the delicious traditional Icelandic lamp soup, we went over to witness the beauty of Gullfoss - the 8th highest waterfall (31m) in Iceland. I even saw a rainbow at the falls!
It was so cold there that ice had began to form on the land along the waterfall. They looked so pretty and sparkly un the sun that they looked more like crystals to me.
After the waterfall, our guide drove us down to the geothermal area of Geysir. Unfortunately, since a earthquake in year 2000, Geysir had more or less stopped its impressive hot water sprouting. It's so rare that you would be able to catch it once a year for that few seconds, if you were so damn lucky. So we walked over to the other smaller, but still active geothermal pool instead.
Our last stop for this day tour was at one of the volcano craters which has now been tranformed into a lake by decades of rainfall. It was super windy so I gladly stood far away from the edge and let the guide, plus the 2 other fellow travellers, stood at the edge.
By the time we got back into city centre, it was close to 5pm. As I still had another 45 mins to kill before my next tour began, I went into one od the cafes and got myself a carrot cake and a cup of hot choc. And boy was I surprised to find whale meat in the menu in this small cafe. I kinda expected to see it only in big restaurants. I was very tempted to try it but I managed to get a grip of myself. I shall not participate in eating the gentle giant.
Time passed by rather quickly and I was soon up and running for my Northern Lights chase. But just before that, there was supposed to another caving as part of this package. But I was too tired and my ribs were starting to sting again, so I politely explained to my new guide on why I had to exempt myself from the caving bit. He was cool about it.
When the other passenger came on board and started asking questions about this cave (Leidarendi cave) that they will be visiting, I couldn't help but listen in. Sensing my interest, my new guide assured me that this cave was way easier than the one I had gone to earlier today. And there would be room for us to walk through the cave as well. So just before they got off the car to get the equipment, I decided to join in. Well, simply because of 2 reasons - he said it was way easier than the previous cave that I'd went to and it would be safer to stick as a group rather then me staying alone in the car in the wilderness.
The new guide was right. It was way easier than the earlier cave and I got to see the insides of the cave better - partly because each of us have 2 lights (one headlamp and one on our hand) and because I felt calmer and more sure-footed than before. The only "bad" thing was that I had to walk like hunchback of Notre Dame most of time through the 900m long cave, because of the low ceiling.
We stopped a couple of times along the cave to observe and marvel at the tiny stalamites (the big ones were stolen years ago), the metallic texture of the minerals, the decades old sheep skeleton and etc.
As I began to relax (I felt rather tense before I went into the cave), I even started counting the number of times I hit my head against the ceiling. I lost count after the 9th time.
At one point, we sat down and off our lights and started talking about zombies. Well, it's basically about how people in the past didn't know anything about hyporthemia had thought that the people who had suffered this were actually dead and then came back as zombies...etc etc... and how it gradually led to the saying of "saved by a bell/ ring".
After caving, we went to the local fisherman village to have our dinner. And tada! Icelandic lobsters. Yummy! The taste of the meat reminded me of crayfish though. Sweet and juicy.
And then, for the final activity of the day, we went chasing for the northern lights. Full moon, clear sky, predicted 99% chance of seeing it. But after 4 hrs of driving and still no signs, we called it quits at about 1am and went back to our respective hostels sadly. Sigh. It would have been a superb closure for the day if we had seen it.
OK. First, I went to Þingvellir National Park today to see the birthplace of the oldest existing parliament in the world. There isn't a building or anything, just a pole that indicated the land where leaders used to conglomerate, between the America and Europe continental plates, to confer on big issues. So if I looked to my left, I could see mountains belonging to America. And on my right, mountains that belonged to Europe. How cool was that!
And there's the impressive looking rift valley as well. But my stupid camera batt had to die on me at this point and I couldn't take pictures of the small river near the rift valley and the coins people throw in (the water was super clear) to make wishes. Darn!
After which, we headed over to Gjábakkahellir cave, one of the Icelandic lava tubes, and began my 1st attempt at caving.
Oh man... the cave was difficult for me (someone who hardly exercise and was of a clumsy character) as I had to scale through what had seemed like endless mounds of lava rocks and boulders. There wasn't even a point where we could walk on flat soil. It was climbing and scaling throughout. And we had to gradually made our way 20m down the cave, before scaling up again. It's cool when I think back now but it was scary then. I was more afraid of (1) straining my ribs and (2) spraining my ankle or something than actually falling down. Although there were only 4 of us for this particular caving trip (including the guide), I still found it rather tough to keep up with their pace because of my own stupid fears.
I did surrender halfway as I was too strained to keep up, but my guide explained to me that they were gonna exit from the other side and wouldn't be coming back the same way again, and we were already more than half way through so the exit's not too far ahead. So I gritted my teeth and continued forth.
Sensing my discomfort, the guide encouraged me to fall in line just behind him so that he could keep a look out for me and also lead me along the way. That did help increase my pace a little :) What made me felt bad was that the other 2 people in the group were 1st timers as well. But they were doing far better than me. Ok... I admit it, I suck. But I did try to keep up. Honestly.
At one point, the guide motioned us to sit on the rocks and asked us to turn off our headlights (which was the only source of light in the dark cave). Total darkness engulfed me and it seemed to grow with every passing second. But since it's a deliberate decision to off the lights and not because of equipment failure, it was ok and I didn't go into a panic state.
It was strangely peaceful to hear the water dripping down from the (tiny) stalamites and onto the floor. But as the seconds passed, I began to wonder how did those trapped victims (i.e.: under rubbles, collapsed caves and etc) managed to pull through those long hours or even days of waiting for rescue. Just a few seconds alone in this dark cave would be enough to scare me to death. And my instructor said, "without light, you wouldn't be able to tell from day and night and all sense of time would have fled you." True.
As we turned on our headlights and continued on, we seemed to have met with a dead end. All I could see was a wall of boulders blocking the exit. But my guide smiled and said, "let's go the other round". True enough, there was slight gap at the side and we kinda climbed and crawled through it before meeting another narrow hole again. This time, I went like " oh nooooooo".
I wasn't sure that even I could crawl through it. It looked so narrow. But my guide motioned us forward and then I began to see that the hole was bigger than I had saw from a distance earlier. And so, I gradually and finally made my "grand escape" out of the cave. I was tired, hungry but super glad that I made it. The full approx. 374m journey.
As we made our way to our next destination, I began reflecting on the thoughts I had had earlier. Then I came to a conclusion with those thoughts. My reaction to the blocked wall and the small openings was a reflection of how I would usually react to sticky problem or a bottleneck in life - which was "no, I can't/ won't do it". Come to think of it, sometimes I just get so tranfixed on the problem that my mind just simply refused to think og anything except the negatives. If I would just go nearer to investigate or confront it, perhaps I would realise that the problem wasn't as big or as complicated as it had originally sounded. Note to self.
Ok. Now back to my list of activities. After a quick lunch stop at the Gullfoss Cafe, where I had another bowl of the delicious traditional Icelandic lamp soup, we went over to witness the beauty of Gullfoss - the 8th highest waterfall (31m) in Iceland. I even saw a rainbow at the falls!
It was so cold there that ice had began to form on the land along the waterfall. They looked so pretty and sparkly un the sun that they looked more like crystals to me.
After the waterfall, our guide drove us down to the geothermal area of Geysir. Unfortunately, since a earthquake in year 2000, Geysir had more or less stopped its impressive hot water sprouting. It's so rare that you would be able to catch it once a year for that few seconds, if you were so damn lucky. So we walked over to the other smaller, but still active geothermal pool instead.
Our last stop for this day tour was at one of the volcano craters which has now been tranformed into a lake by decades of rainfall. It was super windy so I gladly stood far away from the edge and let the guide, plus the 2 other fellow travellers, stood at the edge.
By the time we got back into city centre, it was close to 5pm. As I still had another 45 mins to kill before my next tour began, I went into one od the cafes and got myself a carrot cake and a cup of hot choc. And boy was I surprised to find whale meat in the menu in this small cafe. I kinda expected to see it only in big restaurants. I was very tempted to try it but I managed to get a grip of myself. I shall not participate in eating the gentle giant.
Time passed by rather quickly and I was soon up and running for my Northern Lights chase. But just before that, there was supposed to another caving as part of this package. But I was too tired and my ribs were starting to sting again, so I politely explained to my new guide on why I had to exempt myself from the caving bit. He was cool about it.
When the other passenger came on board and started asking questions about this cave (Leidarendi cave) that they will be visiting, I couldn't help but listen in. Sensing my interest, my new guide assured me that this cave was way easier than the one I had gone to earlier today. And there would be room for us to walk through the cave as well. So just before they got off the car to get the equipment, I decided to join in. Well, simply because of 2 reasons - he said it was way easier than the previous cave that I'd went to and it would be safer to stick as a group rather then me staying alone in the car in the wilderness.
The new guide was right. It was way easier than the earlier cave and I got to see the insides of the cave better - partly because each of us have 2 lights (one headlamp and one on our hand) and because I felt calmer and more sure-footed than before. The only "bad" thing was that I had to walk like hunchback of Notre Dame most of time through the 900m long cave, because of the low ceiling.
We stopped a couple of times along the cave to observe and marvel at the tiny stalamites (the big ones were stolen years ago), the metallic texture of the minerals, the decades old sheep skeleton and etc.
As I began to relax (I felt rather tense before I went into the cave), I even started counting the number of times I hit my head against the ceiling. I lost count after the 9th time.
At one point, we sat down and off our lights and started talking about zombies. Well, it's basically about how people in the past didn't know anything about hyporthemia had thought that the people who had suffered this were actually dead and then came back as zombies...etc etc... and how it gradually led to the saying of "saved by a bell/ ring".
After caving, we went to the local fisherman village to have our dinner. And tada! Icelandic lobsters. Yummy! The taste of the meat reminded me of crayfish though. Sweet and juicy.
And then, for the final activity of the day, we went chasing for the northern lights. Full moon, clear sky, predicted 99% chance of seeing it. But after 4 hrs of driving and still no signs, we called it quits at about 1am and went back to our respective hostels sadly. Sigh. It would have been a superb closure for the day if we had seen it.
Labels: Copenhagen_Iceland - 2010
posted by ikan bilis at 3:59 AM
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