Return to Iceland - Fjording Around

Sleeping in a capsule sucked. Surprisingly it wasn’t claustrophobia that was the issue—they’re rather roomy for what is basically a 4’ x 4’ x 7’ shipping container made of flimsy ABS plastic. The real problem is they get hot inside. Although they supposedly have air conditioning, what they really have is a fan that circulates air and somehow manages to dry it out so that you are slowly dehydrated. Add to that a thin mattress on a frame where you can feel the supports underneath, poor soundproofing, plus the units are really noisy themselves. They’re also stacked two high, so if you’re in the bottom like I was you have the person above you making noise and making the ceiling dip as they flop around. I ended up having to sleep with the door open to avoid feeling like I was baking and being turned into jerky, and even then I got maybe four hours of very uncomfortable sleep. Considering how I started feeling later in the day I’m not convinced I got that much. Regardless, I woke up in time for breakfast and head out by about 9.

The only thing on the itinerary for today was to drive along the shore and check out a rock formation on a beach called Hvítserkur. It’s a 50 foot tall structure of basalt that looks a lot like a dragon, although the legend is that it’s a petrified troll. Hvítserkur is a good ways down a gravel road, but once you park it’s a rather short walk to an observation deck on the cliff above the beach. However, if you actually want to go down on the black sand beach below you have to navigate a very steep, somewhat treacherous path. Most people don’t even bother, and quite a few that do stop shortly after starting. I managed to get down unscathed and got a good look at the monster and waited for the handful of tourists that were down there to take stupid pictures in which perspective made it look like they were holding or pushing or doing something else to the stones. A lot like the cliché pictures of people “holding up” the leaning tower in Pisa only there’s no real context to Hvítserkur that makes it look like you should “do” something to it. The hike back up was much quicker, though a lot more exhausting, and then I was off to the Westfjords.

The Westfjords is a large squiggly looking peninsular dangling off of the far northwestern portion on Iceland. When I was originally trying to loosely plan out my drive around the country I wasn’t sure I’d have time to visit the Westfjords. They’re off the ring road, and because of how dramatically fjordy the area is, there’s a lot of road to cover. Because of a couple days, namely my first, in which I covered more territory than expected I now had the time to take in the rugged sites. Because it wasn’t part of my original plan, there wasn’t anything in particular I wanted to see, though I did want to go through Ísafjörður on the way. Other than Akureyri, Ísafjörður was the only other town I got to see the first time I came to Iceland. Back then I two a pair of flights on Iceland’s domestic airline, Air Iceland, to spend a day in each. Much like with Akureyri, I was curious how Ísafjörður might have changed.

The landscape of the Westfjords is harsh, brutal, and beautiful. It’s a lot of the types of geology seen throughout the rest of Iceland, but compressed into a small area full of deep fjords with steep cliffs. The road clings to the edge of the fjords for most of the trip, which means it takes a long time of zigging and zagging in and out of the fjords to go from one town to another. Because of this, the roads are a little narrower than the ring road, climb up and down a good bit, have lengthy series of switchbacks. It’s a gorgeous and pleasant ride, but it means there aren’t a lot of places to stop and really take in the scenery. I pulled over whenever I could, but I ended up spending a lot of time driving and was surprised that I ended the day pulling into Ísafjörður when I expected to end up spending the night at least an hour away.

Because cell coverage is spotty in the Westfjords, I ended up pulling into a gas station to try and sort out my lodgings for the night. Once I found a decent guesthouse and got checked in, I realized how hungry I was. Other than a sandwich after hiking back up from Hvítserkur, I had done little more than snack occasionally the whole day of driving. The last time I was here in Ísafjörður I only remembered there being one restaurant and a bakery that was open in the off season, and neither were all that memorable. Looking online I stumbled on a seafood place called Tjöruhúsið. They only serve fish that was caught that day, and they serve it buffet style where groups of sit at long tables with bench seats. You could have a bench of nothing but your friends or a bench of complete strangers. I’m not a fan of buffets or talking to strangers, but the place kept showing up on lists of the best places in all of Iceland. It was just down the road, so I figured why not.

I didn’t realize how things worked when I showed up, but it turns out that you need a reservation because the place is very popular. They have multiple dinner services, and you show up for the 7 or 9 or whatever service that you’ve reserved. I got lucky and they had one seat for the service that happened to be starting in about 15 minutes. Serendipity at its finest. The seating arrangements or handled in a controlled chaos fashion. They try to fit people in wherever they can, and accommodate groups and keep people together, but with the way things are setup it ends up involving a lot of shuffling as people show up. Since they let me slide in without a reservation I volunteered to get moved around and ended up at a table of people all dining alone. At our table was a woman form Germany, one from Corsica in France, one from Detroit, and me. It was an odd mix, but I actually ended up enjoying myself despite my social awkwardness.

The food. My god…the food. When the service starts the cooks begin putting down massive skillets of steaming food on a large table at the front of the dining room. There was cod, haddock, plaice, wolfish, and some others I didn’t quite understand or recognize. They were in mustard dill sauces, white wine with onion sauces, simply pan seared with tomatoes, they were in sauces I couldn’t identify. It didn’t matter what was in the pan, it was delicious. When one pan ran out another pan was being set down. It wasn’t always replaced with the same thing. Something I sampled the first time around and loved was gone by the time I went back. And I went back. And I went back again. The woman from Detroit had eaten there the night before and immediately made a reservation for the next night. The one from Germany had been to Iceland 20 times and stopped to eat at Tjöruhúsið every one of them. If I’m lucky enough to make it back to Iceland, I will be eating there again myself. It ended up being about $55, which is pretty reasonable for a good dinner in Iceland, and I would’ve been happy to pay double. It was a phenomenal way to end the day.

Ísafjörður is a small town, and although I can tell it’s grown a bit since my last visit there’s not a lot that I want to see here. Tomorrow I’ll probably spend a little time strolling around, but it’ll mainly be driving again until I find something worth stopping for. Until then I’m going to try and make up for my shitty capsule sleeping.