The Magic and Powerful Energy of Iceland – Part 2

Another issue of Globetrotter has come out since the last time you heard from me, and I’ve had many adventures since then as well, which I’d like to share with the world, with you. It’s hard to focus on a single one right now because everything is so well connected.

Each story, each step and each decision I make influences the events and my new adventures. I’ve decided to focus on the experience and adventure of the contrast described in my first article.

The volcano, to me, represents the destruction of the old and the creation of the new. I left the heat emerging from the bowels of the Earth and took a bath in the icy lake water of Europe’s largest volcano, Vatnajökull. To experience this contrast is to experience the “Land of Fire and Ice” in the true sense. Without planning it, I went with life as it unrolled and it took me there.

I’m sitting in the office, doing my job as a HI Eco Ambassador. It’s Thursday and I want to take a short break from the city for the weekend and explore nature. A lady comes to the hostel and I can already notice positive energy emanating from her from afar. Somehow, among all the other people, I noticed her and she was stuck in my memory. Shortly after, the hostel manager walks over and starts a conversation: “Did you happen to see the lady that was here not long ago?” I reply: “I think I know who you mean.” I couldn’t have missed her.” She explains to me that she runs two HI hostels in a small town in eastern Iceland – Seyðisfjörður. She needs someone to accompany her on her way from Reykjavik to her home. It’s about an eight- to nine-hour drive. When she talked to her, she mentioned me. My eyes light up and, without further questions, I immediately say yes: “Thank you very much for thinking about me, I really wanted to get out of town and drive a car.” She tells me to meet with her, so we can make arrangements. Þóra greets me with a big hug, a smile on her face and says: “My dear, so we’re going on a journey.”

And so my adventure begins

I had everything ready for the trip the evening before and I finished up my work at the hostel in the morning. But when I walked up to Þóra and the hotel manager, they both looked at me. They saw my small backpack and asked me if that was all I would be taking with me and then asked me the most important question: “Did you pack your swimsuit?” I told them I didn’t, since I would be back shortly (yeah, I thought...). The manager looks at me and smiles: “You can’t go anywhere in Iceland without a swimsuit!” Þóra adds to that: “Take something else as well. You never know, you might stay there permanently.” They laugh, as if they know something I don’t. I smile. I’m a little confused, I turn around and tell myself: “Well, apparently I’ll have to pack a larger suitcase.” Then, behind me, I hear: “Take your desk with you, in case you don’t get a ride back right away.” Fine then, I’ll go repack. I pack a swimsuit, tracksuit bottoms, hiking shoes, a computer and some food for the road. I return newly equipped and ask: “Will this be ok?” “You’re good to go,” they answer and we set off.

Frankly, I had no idea where I was going. I knew very little about Iceland (you can read about how unexpectedly I got there in my first article). Google Maps showed me the town was located in a fjord (a submerged glacier valley) all the way to the east, and photos showed a blue church with a rainbow path leading to it, and small colourful houses with snow-capped mountains towering above the town. That was all I managed to google before we left, and I knew nothing about the route.

The landscape is amazing. Completely alien to my eyes and very different from Slovenia. There’s rocky terrain as far as the eye can see, its structure constantly changing, and tundra. From porphyritic basalt structures and majestic black and grey mountains whose tops are covered in white mist to reddish green and yellowish carpets of moss and low bushes, accompanied by the purple lupine in its blooming season (which is an invasive alien species). The landscape is shaped by rivers that constantly change their flow. The bridges need to be relocated each time, and I saw some of them along the way that were quite long, but were now without purpose and just an abandoned memory of a former road. We rode through the black desert devoid of growth and across wild and untamed rivers that shape the landscape to their whim before flowing into the sea. Every once in a while, I also encountered a few sheep and various species of birds. A warning: when you’re driving around Iceland, you should stay very focused on the road despite admiring the landscape because you often have to react to the animals that are on the road.

I’ve left out lots of things in this description. But all this resulted in my body receiving a large amount of oxygen, ha-ha, as I was breathing deeply all the time because I was so inspired by everything and it all made the twinkle in my eyes even bigger. My gratitude for my own decision to go to Iceland only increased. And when I thought it couldn’t get any better...

We were driving through a landscape that was completely new to me and which was formed by the infamous eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010. There was only a field of lava, covered in green moss. As if one were looking at small green and cute fluffy clouds that make you want to pick one up and cuddle it.

Oooh, and there’s something else in the background, something white that isn’t fog! It’s the first time in my life that I’ve set my eyes on a glacier! The first ice tongue of Eyjafjallajökull, but it was then followed by a few others. I don’t know how long it’s been, but soon after that glacier I see new ice tongues and they just seem to keep coming. I was lucky that Þóra had told me about the landscape and culture, even about the story of HI Iceland and how she had changed the old hospital in the east into a charming hostel. She had also told me what it was we were just driving by. I discovered the largest glacier in Europe.

Vatnajökull. It covers 8% of Iceland, has an area of 7,700 square kilometres and encompasses 8 active volcanoes. If all the ice of the glacier melted, it would raise the sea level by 1cm. Again, life providing confirmation, I realise. I became an Arctic Angel a few months ago and started writing my bachelor’s thesis on the subject. And now I’m here, standing next to a glacier, the most sensitive one to climate change, since it has lost 15% of its volume in the last century, and scientists have been researching it since the 18th century.

Through predictions and various climate change scenarios, research indicates that with the current trend, there will be no more glaciers in Iceland in 200 years. All that will remain are ice caps at the highest mountain elevations. And it’s not just Iceland, but other glaciers outside the polar regions as well (you can check out more information and a timeline of changes in the form of a video here).

In my first interview that I gave for Vanity Fair Italia (the interview is in Italian), which was after my visit to Iceland, the journalist asked me what ice meant to me. I could describe to him what I’m about to share with you. I described to him the feelings that I experienced when I was driving next to the glacier. The feelings I got when I was standing at the foot of the glacier, feeling the coolness of the glacier lake and observed the parts of the glacier which the water slowly eroded into the sea and which will soon be forgotten for eternity. No, we cannot plant ice – when it melts, it’s gone.

I’m standing next to Jökulsárlón – a glacier lagoon. I connect with the present, turn on all my senses and fall into some kind of meditative state, although being fully conscious. I smell the freshness of the ice. I feel the coldness on my skin, the raindrops. I hear the ice moving on the water. All of a sudden, I hear a loud crack. It startles me. A large chunk of ice that I’m observing, swayed and broke in half, one part falling into the water. The sound I can’t describe is so deep and so new to me. I observe all these colours, these various hues that encompass everything, from white and gentle blue to blue-green, turquoise and then grey and black. All these structures and patterns. All this ice I see now that will soon cease to exist. I walk to the water and touch it. I’m not cold at all, it’s rather invigorating.

It all inspires me and fills me with motivation. Ice also gives me the feeling of might and, again, magic. And the might is reflected in the large ice tongue in the background. The wonder of the molecule that is H2O, which can change all states of matter and transforms into these masterpieces with lowering temperature, thanks to density anomalies. The wonder of the molecule that enables us to live. The wonder of the planet Earth, the home that we all share. All this also reminded me of why I’m here and what I’m fighting for in life. If we want to successfully tackle climate change, we have to change our perspective. We are part of nature. When we talk about protecting nature, we talk about protecting ourselves. We talk about the survival of the human race. The entire planet’s ecosystem is interlinked and ice, both that in Antarctica and the Arctic, is the common good of all the inhabitants of the world.

Now when I connect all the feelings evoked by the volcano and the glacier, and all the realisations that hit me, I can say putting yourself in situations that make you leave your comfort zone and urge you to listen to your intuition.

“What about the rest of your journey? Didn’t you write that you were on your way to a small town in eastern Iceland? And now you’re just describing a glacier?”

Well, let’s save that part for the next article. But you can take a peek at a segment or two on my Instagram, specifically in “Highlights”.

P.S. – Now that you’ve made it all the way to the end, I’m sending you a biiig package of energy and awesome feelings from Iceland! I wish you all the best.

»If we want to tackle the climate issue, we have to change our perspective. We are part of nature: when we talk about nature we talk about us, we talk about our survival.« – Veronika