Djaddasaga: volcano

Last weekend Jó and I took a trip to Vestmannaeyjar, aka the Westmann Islands. These islands consist of one main island, Heimaey (13.4 square kms), surrounded by smaller islands. Only the main one is inhabited (about 4500 people), although some of the other islands are used for raising sheep.

The islands were mostly created 12,000 years ago as this is a highly volcanic spot. The latest addition was in 1963, when the island Surtsey emerged from the sea during a volcanic eruption. Notably, a volcano basically appeared on Heimaey in 1973 and destroyed one third of the houses in town.

Alright, enough with the trivia :).

Overall, Heimaey is a cute island, kind of a mini-Iceland. You can walk from the harbor through the town to the airport in 30 minutes. There are some very imposing cliffs and rocks on the north side (I would not try to climb those), and two volcanic cones you can climb (they're not very high, around 220 meters each). We climbed Helgafell, the older cone, but I'm sure we will go over Eldfell (the 1973 cone) if we return.

The people on the island are supposedly friendlier than mainland (main island?) Icelanders. In fact, a random person nodded to me as our eyes met at one point, which confirms that people are indeed friendlier. On the downside, the buildings in the island are slightly run-down, and the harbour area has a pretty bad fish smell (I assume it's from drying fish).

The town has a lot of puffin-inspired names, paintings and merchandise (even the street signs are shaped like puffins...). However walking around town you don't see any puffins, which is a bit annoying. But! Go to the cliffs, and there they will be... Plenty and plenty of puffins! They look quite cute and they are entertaining to watch as they fly from and return to their cliff spots. Moreover, as I can attest from my last meal in the island, they're quite tasty. Their meat is quite dense and dark, somewhat like whale meat, but much tastier. Puffins: cute and tasty, the perfect animal! (well, I guess lambs too fit into that mold).

And now for the onslaught of pictures:

Volcanoes and lava

Walking on the 1973 lava

The lava stopped by this water tank

The 73 volcanic cone, as seen from the older volcano

Animals

Puffin group

"Don't look to your left, but I think somebody is watching us..."

How YOU doin?

Fulmar in flight

The mascot shark of the football team. At least it didn't smell like urine

Close encounters of the sheep kind

Cliffs

Rock face

Jo v/s the cliff

How do you get to that building?

How do you get to that building? Part 2

Do you see the elephant?

Miscellaneous

On the ferry

Jó's flowery socks that I had to wear when I found out I forgot to bring any extra clothes (and my socks were wet)

A view of the town, from the old volcano

A fishy mural

A monument to the 200+ Mormon Icelanders that left for Utah in the 1800's.. For real!

A plane taking off from the local airport

Last weekend, we went inland to a farm named Bjalli to meet some of Jo's relatives. It's just under a two hour drive from the city, and a world away.

The family farm isn't constantly inhabited anymore, but it's still visited quite often. Right next to the house are the remains of the sod houses which were inhabited a century ago.

The farm has a great view of Hekla and of a couple of glaciers.

Hekla is a very photogenic mountain, rising alone from the ground. It also happens to be Iceland's most active volcano, having last erupted in 2000. During the middle ages, it was considered in Europe to be one of the entrances to hell. Now that's notoriety!

That weekend also included Jónsmessa, which correlates with the longest day the year (near the summer solstice). So it's traditional to have a big bonfire, which was quite fun :). We were about a dozen people, and we went through a large pile of wood. Which, I found out later, was the remains of a horse stable there that was destroyed in the 2000 independence day earthquake.

We camped for the night in our new tent, and drove around the area the next day. We stopped at the local cemetery. I don't know, why but there is something strangely low-key and comforting about Icelandic cemeteries. Maybe it's the not-too-fancy plaques and the disorderly grass. I wonder how they will look in the winter though.