The Reykjavík city airport is small, consisting of only three gates--just doors out onto the tarmac--and a metal detector that by all appearances is used only for the international flights to Greenland and the Faroe Islands. An unexpected hub for the nation's air transportation network.

Kay took me early, because I had no ticket, just a confirmation number, but there was no need.  After some trouble locating my reservation, probably due to the unusualness of my last name, the check-in clerk handed me my ticket and took my backpack.  Kay gave me a hug and left.  I sat in the terminal and waited.

We filled a third of the Fokker 50 that carried us to Ísafjörður.  In the row in front of me, a baby screamed, her ears hurting from the air pressure as we rose out of Reykjavík and above the clouds.  I had hoped to observe Iceland from above, but contented myself flipping through the magazine, looking at the pictures.

The descent into Ísafjörður was as amazing as I had heard it would be.  It was a long way down through the clouds, and I watched hard out the window so I wouldn't miss the moment we broke through.  When we did, Bolungarvík was below us--I recognized it immediately because my guidebook said it was at the foot of three mountains.  We continued, and soon we were above Ísafjörður, and then at the head of the fjord we made a quick U-turn, and suddenly out my window there was nothing in my field of vision but the window and the steep, snowy wall of the fjord, seeming inches away.

I collected my backpack and stepped out into the rain.  A bus sat in front of the terminal, Bolungarvík on the sign in the window.  I guessed it was going to Ísafjörður as well, and waited outside the door.  One of the baggage handlers was also the bus driver.  He opened the door.

"Where are you staying?"

I blanked for a moment, then, "Gistiheimili Áslaug."

"Hotel Ísafjörður," the Japanese tourist said.  Everyone else was going to Bolungarvík.

The fare was 300 kronur, but the Japanese tourist didn't have a bill small enough for the driver to break.  "Just pay me for both on the ride back," the driver said, and let him off.

There was a note on the door of Gistiheimili Áslaug: "I am in the yellow house."

I looked around; there was a house protected by yellow corrugated iron with big windows to my left.  I couldn't see anyone inside, but I opened the door.  I heard footsteps, and a small woman appeared.

"Goðan daginn," she said.

"Goðan daginn.  My name is Brendan; I have a reservation."

"I wasn't expecting you so early.  I'm Áslaug.  Your room isn't ready yet, but you can leave your bag here."  She cleared a space behind the stairwell.

"Thanks.  Do you know if there's somewhere I can rent a bicycle?"

She thought a moment.  "I'm not sure," she said.  "Maybe you can ask at the hotel."

"Thanks.  I'll be back this afternoon."
 

Ísafjörður

It was only drizzling, with a light breeze.  A fine day by Icelandic standards.  I didn't know what to make of Ísafjörður at all.  A small town of 3000 people and the metropolis of the Westfjords, it felt bigger, due to the density of the construction.  The town is built on an L-shaped spit of land in the middle of the fjord, an improbable piece of land walled in my high mountains, their tops covered in clouds, on three sides, and the sea on the other, more mountains in the distance.  I took pictures, and the background of every shot is the same: steep mountains, not a square inch of sky.

Past an empty basketball court next to an empty school, I came into the center of Ísafjörður, a grey brick square with the spartan Hotel Ísafjörður on one side, a few shops and a bakery on the other.  There were few people around.  Today being a holiday, Icelanders were traveling.  It appeared that the residents of Ísafjörður had all chosen to go somewhere else, and tourists from other regions hadn't rushed in to replace them.

Down the street the tourist office was housed in a hospital green building covered with the standard corrugated iron, Iceland's national building material due to the harsh weather.  I tried the tourist office first because I felt awkward asking for a bike at the hotel, since I wasn't staying there.  But with the tourist office closed for the holiday, I didn't see that I had another option.

I went in.  The lobby was tiny and attractive.  The one other tourist who had been on the bus with me was at the desk, arranging his sightseeing tour for the day.

"I'll be speaking with the lady at the tourist office at 11," the woman at the reception desk was telling him.  "Your tour should be ready at noon."  He thanked her and went back to the elevator.

"Do you know if there's somewhere I can rent a bicycle?" I asked.

"The tourist office," she said.  "They're closed today, but I'm already calling over there, so I'll ask.  Come back around 11."

"Thanks."  It was just after 10, so I didn't have long to wait.

I can't say why, but since I bought my plane ticket for my first trip to Iceland in 2000, the Westfjords have occupied a space in the geography of my imagination.  My primary regret of that trip was not being able to come to the Westfjords.  Geologically the oldest region of Iceland, an eroded outpost of an ancient sunken mid-Atlantic continent, it is connected to the mainland only by a narrow isthmus, and suffers rugged terrain, foul weather, and a steadily decreasing population: since 1940, it has lost one-third of its people.  The region, roughly double the size of Delaware, is now home to just under 9,000.  Ísafjörður, a luminous cluster of crackling synapses compared to some of the towns I'd see in coming days, was an easy hook to hang my fascination with the region's isolation and wildness on.

I took advantage of my hour, and that's really all you need, to familiarize myself with the sights of the town, going first to the city park, a small grassy area surrounded by trees and flowerbeds with blooming crocuses.  Its centerpiece is an archway formed by a freshly whitewashed whale's jawbone, perhaps 12 feet high.  Across the street is the memorial to fishermen lost at sea: a statue of two fishermen, squat and rough, drawing in their nets.  Like so many other churches in Iceland, the modern yellow church's architecture takes its cues from the surrounding landscape, with mixed success.  One can hardly accuse Icelandic churches of being anything other than distinct.
 
 

Ísafjörður

That does not hold so true for Catholic churches.  The one I walked by, the Church of St. John the Evangelist, was in a nondescript house, parishioners filing in for the Whitmonday mass.  The priest held the door open, looking at me as if he recognized me, then closed it once it was clear I was no straggling worshiper, just a standard-issue sinner.

I walked past, continuing to the seawall.  Built of large black boulders, the wall extends all the way around the spit and much of the fjord, protecting the harbor, settlement, and airport from high water during storms.  Far off, the mountains of the uninhabited northern Hornstrandir peninsula rose from the sea, periodically disappearing into mist.  The lights of a fishing boat slowly disappeared as it headed out to sea.

Back at the hotel, the lady at the reception desk said the woman from the tourist office would be by at 11:30 with a bike for me.  I went back out, heading for the docks.

It being a holiday, the harbor was quiet.  A few people walking around like me, a man picking up litter in front of the timber buildings of the Maritime Museum, two kayakers paddling quietly through the still, sheltered water.

Back at the hotel half an hour later, my bicycle had arrived; in fact I was provided a choice of three.  The woman from the tourist office was friendly but a master of brevity, clearly eager to get on with her day.  She handed me a helmet and instructed me to leave the bike at the tourist office when I was done, and was on her way.

Being used to my road bike and riding in sneakers, getting around on a mountain bike in huge black hiking boots turned out to be a bit of a challenge at first, but it only took a quick ride to the harbor and back to gain my equilibrium, and I was off toward Bolungarvík.

I had no special reason to go to Bolungarvík, but at just 15km from Ísafjörður, it seemed easily reachable by bike, and a nice way to familiarize myself with the Westfjords a bit.  It was a pleasant ride there. The road rises from Ísafjörður with only a steep slope separating the road from the sea.  A few kilometers from Ísafjörður is the tiny village of Hnifsdalur, perched in a valley above the water, the houses intermingled with weathered wood shacks hung with harðfiskur--dried fish.  Just beyond
Hnifsdalur, near a facility labeled as a producer of harðfiskur and hákarl (fermented shark), I got off the bike and rested on the grass.  The sun wasn't out, but it was warm enough to sit for a while, enjoy the scenery, and break out a marzipan-filled chocolate bar.

Watch out for falling rock--and we mean it, dumbass: as kids on family vacations my brother and I, to the dismay of both parents, I believe, asked my dad to tell the story of Falling Rock, every time we passed a Watch Out for Falling Rock sign on the highway.  My memory of the story has dimmed somewhat, but the basic gist is that a tribal chief sends two of his sons out to perform a mission to determine who will be his heir.  One of them, Falling Rock, never returns, hence the road signs across the country instructing motorists to look out for him.  In my experience, falling rock warning signs have always been treated with a sort of blithe worrilessness.

In Iceland, the story of Falling Rock is irrelevant for two reasons.  The first is that the signs do not have any text, merely a graphic image of menacing, pointy boulders tumbling down a mountain, so there's no room for a pun.  The second is that on the road from Ísafjörður to Bolungarvík, at any rate, the signs are punctuated by actual sizable pointy fallen rocks in the middle of the road.  Less storytelling, more being ready for the mountain to attack seems advisable.

The signs started just after passing the Hnífsdalur's seaside cemetery.  At various points, the mountain was held in place with long lengths of netting, at others, thick walls of boulders were used.  The road, passing here and there through tunnels, rose steadily and steeply.  On the ocean side of the road a steep escarpment slanted perilously down into the icy sea.
 

On the road to Bolungarvík

Finally Bolungarvík came into view, along with the long downhill ride that leads to it.  The wind at my back, I sped down, passing a brightly colored lighthouse that looked like Lego and ruefully stopping my swift ride halfway down the slope when a small group of turf huts caught my eye.

Ösvör, as the place is called, is worth a stop for a few minutes.  A reconstructed set of three timber and turf buildings, it provides an idea of what a rural fisherman's life was like in the 18th century.  During the summer it's an attended museum.  Now, there wasn't a soul in sight.  Near the gravel parking lot is a fish drying shack, where cod, skate, and other fish hung in the wind.  Down a rocky slope were two more buildings built into the hillside.  One, a storage shed, was open.  Various tools hung from the ceiling and salt cod was stacked in the corner.  Next to it was the small residence, closed for the season.  A wooden fishing boat sat on the shore.

I got back on the back and continued my exhilirating coast down the hill toward Bolungarvík.  Turning a sharp corner at the bottom of the hill, though, I suddenly found myself riding perpendicular to the direction of the wind, and things were suddenly a lot less exhilirating.  A few minutes later, I arrived in Bolungarvík.

It's a village that's seen better days, though it's certainly seen worse. In 1993, fishing in Bolungarvík collapsed completely, and unemployment reached 70%.  The economy has recovered substantially, and the fisheries are operating again.  Still, the houses look like the storms coming in off the Greenland icecap aren't the only beatings they're taking, though things still look a far sight better than most economically distressed neighborhoods in the States.  If Ísafjörður was sleepy, Bolungarvík was more so.  Up the street I saw a few children playing, while by the docks I could hear the booming rattle of a truck being loaded.

I walked around the harbor for a while, taking a look at empty shipping containers and the docked trawlers.  A number of the containers had a logo saying "Fresh Fish" beneath an absurdly happy fish on them--an Icelandic variation of the pig-as-chef logo on barbeque joints around Indianapolis and presumably elsewhere.

It was starting to rain.  In case the weather was going to get worse, I thought it best to head back to Ísafjörður.  I scarfed down a lunch of cheese and flatbread on concrete wall by the harbor, and got on the bike.

By the time I got to the hill I had coasted down so easily and hour before, the rain had turned to snow, and the wind had risen, driving the tiny snowflakes into my face like needles.  I rode uphill against the wind, head down and staring at the road.  By the time I reached Ösvör, I wasn't sure how much further I could pedal battling two enemies, and I stopped near the Lego lighthouse and walked the bike up the rest of the hill, another half-kilometer or so.  Compared to that, even with the wind, the ride on to Hnífsdalur was easy, ending with a steep descent into the town and then back up again before the final downhill stretch into Ísafjörður.  By the time I got into Ísafjörður, the snow had stopped.  I tried riding around for a bit, but between the continuing wind and the chill setting in from my wet clothes, I just headed for the guesthouse.

I propped the bike against a wall and found Áslaug, who showed me to my room.  This was unexpected.  I had made my reservation for sleeping bag accomodation, which I took to be something like my lodgings at the Salvation Army in Reykjavik on my previous trip--a dorm room with an unmade bed.  What I got here was substantially more lavish.  The bed was unmade as advertised, but it was a single room with a desk, a couch, and a sink.  Three bathrooms were available on the hall, and there was a well-equipped kitchen.  Áslaug had already brought my backpack in from behind the stairs.

"Did you find a bicycle?" she asked.

"Yes.  I rode out to Bolungarvík."

"In this weather?"

"Well, it was good when I started."

The house next to the guesthouse, where I'd met Áslaug that morning, is a cafe.  Instead of taking a shower, which though tempting, sounded like far too much work at the present moment, I just went next door for a cup of coffee, carrying my Lonely Planet and Rough Guide with me (I'm generally a Lonely Planet partisan, but decided to test drive the Rough Guide on this
trip).

The two kayakers I'd seen in the harbor earlier were sitting at one table, poring over a map.  They spoke quietly, but I think they were Americans.  At a table by the window sat another couple.  The young woman working at the counter was Áslaug's daughter.  The Americans left soon after I sat down.

"Did you come on the bike?" the man at the table by the window asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Where did you come from?"

"Oh, I'm not traveling by bike.  I just rented it for the day."

The man's name was Arthur, and his companion was Beatrice.  Both were pilots from Switzerland, and were on a two month trip by Cessna from Switzerland to Alaska.  They had arrived in Ísafjörður this morning, landing very shortly after my plane.  They didn't have a set itinerary for their trip.

"We just stay wherever the weather's good," Beatrice explained.  She looked out the window.  "We'll be going to Greenland tomorrow."

We sat for a couple hours, reflecting on our affection for Northern regions, and discussing airlines and economics (Beatrice had lost her job when Swissair went under).  Beatrice browsed through my guidebook, looking up places to stay in Greenland.

As evening came on, not that you could tell from the sun, I headed over to the Samkaup supermarket, a block away, and stocked up on skyr and the fantastic Knorr Thai Curry soup I'd enjoyed on the last trip, picking up a box of powdered Icelandic meat soup while I was at it.
 

me, insanely happy after my shower

After a long, hot shower, I headed for the kitchen.  Dinner was spaghetti, with a packet of the Icelandic meat soup serving as an appetizer.  I could not identify any properties of the soup that made it identifiably Icelandic, but it was pretty good anyway.

After dinner I spent some time with the phone book (there's one for the whole country) to find the address of the Avis car rental.  I had no idea where it was, and I was hoping it wasn't at the airport.  According the the phone book, it was at Suðurgötu 4.  On my map, I couldn't find a Suðurgötu, though there was a Suðugata, down by the harbor, an easy walk from the guesthouse.  I figured they must be the same, but have yet to figure out why street names take a different grammatical form in phone books than they do on maps.

This was all too much for me.  I thought about going to the movie theatre to see Spiderman, but was seduced by the mattress.  I unrolled the sleeping bag and was out.

 May 21: Ísafjörður to Látrabjarg and back
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