Yes, a chunk of ice slips down the glacier to the black beach, as though these are common things. My previous post on Iceland.

You can do random hikes in Iceland. It’s okay. Like nothing, a hike up the side of a waterfall to a flat plateau on top, with a lake that feeds the waterfall. There were rocks arranged as steps. A couple with a baby carrier ahead of us, like this was a regular hike. Gushing water flowing down to the town, a waterfall that has its own name, but for all that, this is commonplace in Iceland. Land of fire and ice? No. This is a land of rainbows and waterfalls. 

Fourteen percent of Iceland is covered by glaciers. They’re melting, what did you expect? A man running a Zodiac told us in his opinion that the glaciers are safe, this is Iceland! The icebergs popping off the edge of the glaciers come out blue, white and black depending on their age and exposure to oxygen. Seals play in the water around them. A woman taking us up the face of a glacier had a different take. She said the one we were climbing would be gone in 20 years. What’s the truth? The government says half the glacier volumes will be gone by 2100, all that water added to the ocean. Sea level rising like it’s nothing.

Diamond Beach, where chunks of glacier wash up on the black sand. It’s startling to see these glowing chunks on the blackness. The melt river taking the icebergs out to the ocean, the crashing waves bringing them back in, mooring them on the beach, where they sit there like they’re never going to melt. I imagine them winking out of existing instead of shrinking over time. 

They built a bridge in the south to connect the country via a ring road, in the 1970s. The bridge allowed cars to travel over an area that often flooded with glacial melt. But things changed and eventually the river picked a new course, deciding autonomously under the weight of the glacier. It joined a different river instead, because this is a country of geologic bedlam. The bridge is now abandoned but it’s still there, testament to a country’s desire to connect.

There are no McDonalds in Iceland that I saw. But every gas station has a grill where you can buy burgers. It’s the cheapest place to eat. Over 30% of Iceland’s economy depends on tourism. It’s reliant on tourists: if people stopped visiting, the economy would likely crash. The roads are heavy with camper vans and cars with expandable tents on the roof. Imagine lines of cars with ladders along the side, letting you climb onto the roof so you don’t have to sleep on the lava rock. 

Iceland went bankrupt during the Global Financial Crisis in late 2008. All the major banks defaulted. A country went broke. It can happen. A town called Akureyri put in hearts for the red stoplights so that when you’re stopped and waiting, that’s what you see. You see hearts. I’ve never seen that anywhere else. 

We hiked to the top of this volcano and walked the rim, about 3.5 km. I played music on my phone, ABBA, as one of my kids skipped and danced and sang. There are volcanoes everywhere but most are quiescent. They’re spent. Maybe they’ll wake up again in the future, who knows? We also went horseback riding. In Iceland, horses have a labour union and are given two months a year vacation. That, to me, sounds very European.

This the divide between the Eurasian plate and the North American plate. The two continents intersect in Iceland, the only land mass where that happens. I put a foot on each continent. Imagined that there was some rumbling down below, like the drift had accelerated, bringing the land masses together again. We are so fixated on land, but one day, the continents will merge again and our conceptions of place are going to alter. Yes, it’s going to take millions of years, but it’s easy to wonder about it when you’re at the intersection. A foot on each edge.

It’s a beautiful country. Worth exploring. Some people do stop-overs on flights to and from Europe but that doesn’t do it justice. You need time. Patience. You need the ability to hike and walk and stop at random places to wander. It’s an untouched land in many ways… trying to regrow the forests the Vikings took down. Almost one hundred percent renewable energy, too. The winters must be spectacular, if a little isolating. When I come back here, it’ll be during winter, to see the northern lights, the midnight sun, the way the snow looks in the canyons and the valleys.