I barely get off the plane at the airport in Iceland when I receive the following message from the police on my phone: “Earthquakes! Increased seismic activity in the area. Stay away from slopes. Danger of rockfalls and landslides. A volcanic eruption may start shortly”.
Great welcome, I must say!
I leave the airport, suddenly awakened by the message and the cold weather, and head towards the bus that will take me to Reykjavik. I have a paid transfer.
“Sorry, I have a question”, I try to get the driver’s attention after handing him my suitcase.
“Mladin?…” he stares at the voucher. “You can speak to me in Romanian”, he says. “I had a friend named Mladin in Brăila, and that’s how I realized you’re Romanian” 🙂
He answers my question, then, instead of “Welcome”, he asks if I felt the earthquake.
What?!?! Which one? When? How?
Apparently, it had just happened, probably the plane was still taxiing, which is why I didn’t feel it. He tells me that a volcano located near the airport, on the way to the capital, is about to erupt, and that they’re already fed up with all the earthquakes.
“Let it erupt, so we can be done with the shaking”, he complains.
Great, so I’m starting my vacation in Iceland with breaking news.
In the evening, after a long walk and a shower in a shared bathroom, I settle peacefully into bed with my laptop in my lap and… earthquake!!! F&@%^! I feel everything inside me going soft, but, guess what, unlike back home, where I’d be thinking about how to evacuate as quickly as possible, here I calm down instantly, telling myself: “with how many quakes these people get, I must be okay here”. And that’s it. I get back to what I was doing.
THE LITLI-HRUTUR VOLCANO
…and it erupted, woohoo! It’s July 10.
It’s the volcano that also erupted in 2022 and 2021, after 6,000 years of deep sleep…
I read something funny: normally, when a volcano erupts, people try to run as far away from it as possible. Not the Icelanders: they go for a hike to the volcano, haha. The truth is, there are so-called “tourist volcanoes”, the kind you can hike to, under well-established rules, of course.
So the madness begins: let’s go to the volcano!!! How do we get there, which way do we go, is it allowed, is the trail hard, is it long?!?
Suddenly, tours are activated – with guides, with buses and then guides, and you can find many websites that show maps of the area with the 3 eruptions from the past 3 years (the Fagradalsfjall volcanic area).
But everyone is waiting for the official decision, which they say is made a few days after the eruption, once authorities assess how the lava behaves, which direction it’s going, and which path would be safe for visitors.
Of course, I’m tempted to go see the volcano myself, but damn, I’m just now leaving that area for another part of the country.
I arrive at the domestic airport and spot, through the fence, the gas clouds from the eruption behind the pyramid-shaped mountain – that’s how I was taught to identify the place, by the pyramid-shaped mountain.
I’m annoyed that I can’t get a better view because of the fence, the airport building, etc.
You think I give up that easily? I simply abandon my two suitcases in the airport – where there are only a few travelers waiting – pretending to step outside for a bit of (cold!) air. I spot a scooter parked near the airport. (For context: I’ve only ever ridden a scooter once in my life, around the block, just to get a little familiar before a vacation…)
I hop on the scooter and speed off for about a kilometer, to the end of the airport fence, so I can take some clean shots. I know, I’m crazy.
I take the photos and hurry back with the scooter, park it quickly, and stroll back into the airport like a flower, where my luggage is waiting peacefully, with no one having noticed my brief absence. Phew!
It’s July 13, and I find out that the official trail to the volcano has been opened.
Alright, all the curious ones can now set off!
The news is good, but the details hit me hard: you have to walk, from the point where you leave your car to the place where you can see the eruption, no more and no less than 10 kilometers. And a few of those 10 are tough, because you walk through lava rocks. You stop, stare, marvel, get shocked, take pictures, then walk another 10 kilometers back.
Well, I decide to wait a bit longer, maybe the lava will take an unexpected turn and shorten the path to it…
TRIP TO THE VOLCANO
I go about my travels across Iceland – far and wide, in sunshine and rain, wearing a T-shirt or bundled up in a winter jacket. I keep an eye on what’s happening at the volcano, especially now that I’m close to it again.
On the bus I board for a classic tour, a group of sad-looking tourists gets on at the last minute: their guided volcano tour just got canceled, and as compensation, they’ve been added to our tour.
The government closed the trail to the volcano for safety reasons. Good news for me, at least now I’m no longer torn by the question: should I go, or not…
Well, that evening the trail to the volcano is reopened. And I start debating again. I want to go to the volcano, of course I do, but I don’t feel up to it! I’m intimidated by the number of people who know the route, then I’m even more put off by a tour company that specializes in volcano hikes, telling me it’s a difficult trip if you’re not somewhat physically prepared.
Oh, how much I wish I could go!
In my hotel room, I watch hypnotized, over and over, how the volcano erupts. There’s a channel broadcasting live, non-stop, from the site.
I even find it funny sometimes, when brave visitors accidentally stop right in front of the camera:
I search online for solutions, ask people about how difficult it really is to hike all the way to the volcano.
And I make a decision… I don’t even know what to call it… desperate, crazy?
I start looking online for helicopter tours to the volcano!
I find a few. So expensive they make my stomach ache, not just my wallet! For about 400 euros, you get a 30–40 minute flight, with only 10 of those minutes over the eruption zone. It’s madness, I tell myself, but what’s even crazier is that I can’t find any available ticket, even though the sites show lots of flight slots with tourists!
I have 2 days left before my flight back to Romania. I write to one company, then find a single available seat with another one – one for the first day, and one for the next. Torn by thoughts, emotions, fears, and internal struggles, I book the seat for my last day in Iceland. Why? Because I check the weather and, seeing that it’ll be cloudy, I tell myself the lava will be more visible.
HELICOPTER TOUR TO THE VOLCANO
The next day I find out that the hiking trail to the volcano is closed, to the dismay of many Icelanders and foreign tourists. Because the lava flow changed direction, the route is no longer safe.
I see on the news how some reckless people went very close to the hot zone, risking getting caught by the eruption’s changes.
I get a message on my phone saying that a seat has just opened up today at noon on a helicopter flight, if I want it. I reply that I’ve already made a reservation with another company, for tomorrow.
Full of emotion about the tour, I reread the email with instructions three times, the time, the meeting point, and the fact that I must be absolutely punctual! Realizing that the airport where the helicopter takes off is neither far nor close to the hotel, and that I’m staying in a pedestrian-only zone where taxis can’t reach, I find the perfect solution: scooter!!!
Yes, but it’s not that simple. I know the destination, but I don’t know the route! I have no idea how long it will take me to get there – me, a scooter beginner – what the path is like, what challenges I might face, etc., etc.
So what do you think I do? I open Google Maps, hop on the nearest scooter, and start heading downhill! A bit scared, riding over streets under construction that shake my insides, stopping now and then to check my phone for directions (since I couldn’t attach it to the handlebar).
Should I tell you I crossed a boulevard with the scooter like a lunatic? I hadn’t noticed there was a bike and scooter path going underneath the road. I went straight over it, struggling to lift the scooter over some tall curbs hahaha.
Beaten by a cold wind, I reach the small airport in question. I ask around, find out where I need to be the next morning, and then calmly head back on the scooter.
That reconnaissance mission took me an hour! My supporting leg was sore from how stressed I was while riding… But at least I had calculated the timing and now knew exactly where I needed to go.
I wake up at the crack of dawn, afraid I might be late, or worse, that I won’t find any scooters in the area.
I found one 🙂
I grab one by the handlebars and, in 20 minutes, following the route I now knew well, I arrive at the airport.
I show my reservation, find out there’s still one more flight before mine (I arrived way too early), so I sit down next to two American couples. And we wait… Soon joined by the rest of my flight group – two English colleagues and a Czech couple. And we wait…
“We can’t fly!” – we suddenly hear, and we’re shocked. What?!?!
“Yes, we’re not allowed. We’re waiting…”
We find out the reason: because today – of all days – the wind has changed direction, all commercial flights are being rerouted to fly over the volcano. Therefore, no helicopter or private plane has permission to fly over the area. And that’s that.
I’m furious! I remember the message that offered me a flight yesterday. Not to mention the fact that I had to choose between yesterday and today from the very beginning. Damn it! It’s my last day in Iceland, it’s not like I can reschedule.
Others have the same problem. One person has a flight home today! Others tomorrow, like me.
“Quick, get to the helicopter!” I suddenly hear people rushing around!
Oh no! I grab my things and start running toward the runway, but nope, wrong group. The ones running now are those scheduled to fly around 8 a.m. (It’s 10 a.m. now.)
I calmly sit down and watch the Icelandic channel that broadcasts the eruption non-stop. It’s calmed down a bit since last night, when it seemed the most spectacular!
We start getting to know each other. I’m surprised to learn that the English guy is married to a Romanian woman and they live in Cluj! I complain about my broken camera, and make sure that at least someone with a good one will send me 1–2 photos.
The five who had run to the helicopter return to the offices with gloomy faces. What happened?!?
Apparently, they already had their seatbelts on when the pilot received the order to… stay grounded. So the permission lasted just a few minutes, just long enough for no one to take off.
Since I had the pilot right there, I started questioning him: so, what’s the volcano like, when did you first go there, did you take pictures, oh cool, would you send them to me too?
The man, whose name is Gudnar, didn’t seem bothered by my persistence, on the contrary, he seemed proud that he photographed the eruption right when it started, and he immediately sent me a few photos:
Others then asked him for the pictures as well.
And again we sank into a long wait. And again we watched the volcano erupt… on TV.
“That’s it, they’ve announced it: today they’re not giving flight permission for any helicopters!” – someone informed us, snapping us back to the reality we had all been dreading.
We all expressed our disappointment, each in our own language.
Some people who are staying longer in Iceland reschedule their booking. For us, the few who are leaving tomorrow, they offer us a flight right now, with the same helicopter, but to another place, a tourist spot where flights are allowed. Plus a bonus: we’d land there.
We all refuse. The downside is we can’t reschedule. The upside is we saved a lot of money haha.
The scooter is waiting for me outside, loyal as ever. No restrictions for it, it takes me wherever I want to go…
So I grab the handlebars and off I go.
I comfort myself with a whale-watching tour, and I do see them (more on that, later). From the boat, still feeling regret, I photograph the gas clouds from the erupting volcano. That volcano behind the pyramid-shaped mountain…
Then I stroll through Reykjavik.
As if to twist the knife, the shops display goods with a clear “message”:
Lava Chocolate. What else would they call it, in Iceland? 🙂
I buy some, to sweeten my disappointment a little.
I come across magnets made from volcanic lava, candle holders, or simply little bags filled with lava stones. I don’t buy any.
Some shops display stones they claim are from the current eruption. Who knows. I don’t buy those either.
In other places, the vendors are already up to date with fashion! The volcano barely erupted and there it is already printed on boutique T-shirts. I don’t buy those either.
At night, I notice on the volcano channel how beautifully the lava is flowing now:
Before and after midnight. It’s still light outside, but because of the lava, it looks like that. From my room window, I see what the light really looks like:
A disappointing day… If I ever look back on it, the scooter rides will definitely be the most vivid memories. I was a real volcano on wheels 🙂
UPDATE
The eruption ended on August 5, 2023. Oh, and I was still training to catch it, counting on the fact that previous ones had lasted for months…
