Houston We Have A Problem

Icelandic volcanoes have had a bad press recently, and when Europe was plunged into chaos by the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull last month, I joined in the general anti-volcano mood

But I’m secretly a big fan of Icelandic volcanoes, and it brought back happy memories of my past life as an amateur vulcanologist and my first attempt at the ‘circumnavigation of Iceland’ in 1983 - the highlight of my career as a hitch hiker.

I used to hitch to Scotland a lot with my friend Mo. We went further and further north into the highlands, and one day we decided to follow the arrow pointing off the top of our map which said “To Reykjavik.’

We didn’t know much about Iceland, and we’d never met anyone who’d been there, so we had no idea what to expect. I did a bit of reading before I left, but I’m not a very practical traveller, so I stuck to Norse legends and medieval Icelandic sagas. Hitching across the North Sea has never been easy, and since the Cod War it’s impossible, so we got as far Glasgow and took a cheap flight. 

Arriving in Keflavik airport was like landing on the moon. There was no vegetation and no sign of habitation, just endless lava fields stretching from one horizon to another. After a while you get to appreciate the volcanic plains - the landscape of surrealists from Salvador Dali to Frida Kahlo. But as we drove from the airport it looked like a vast expanse of brown rubble.

It was May and it never got darker than dusk, but there was snow on the ground and I was glad to be wearing a floor length fur fabric coat I’d run up for the expedition. Mo was a fashion designer and was wearing a slightly more chic version she’d bought in a shop.

Some people reach for a cup of tea in a crisis, others reach for a beer. I find tannin keeps me awake at night, so we headed into the city centre looking for a bar. The only sign of life was a hot-dog stand, so we sat beside it looking over a frozen lake, drinking beer and wondering where the Viking warriors hung out.

I drank one can and opened another, but it didn’t seem to be hitting the spot. I wasn’t asking much - I wasn’t looking for third eye vision, cosmic trances or sweet oblivion. I just wanted something to take the edge of the fact that I’d just spent all the money from my first London show coming on holiday to a frozen lunar wasteland. I studied the beer can, as you do when you’re a bit depressed - and realised that it was non-alcoholic. I went back to the hot-dog stand.

“There’s a problem with this beer - it has no alcohol in it.”

“All beer in Icelandic is non-alcoholic” the man laughed, as if I was a bit of a half-wit. “Beer is illegal.”

Prohibition in the land of Vikings? They can’t have done all that rape and pillage, and discovered America on lemonade.

No, he explains, only beer is illegal. Hard alcohol is legal.….Vodka, Whiskey, Gin, and the local spirit-Black Death brinnivin.

“Okay, I’ll start with a shot of Black Death, please.”

But here’s the catch - there are only seven off licenses in the country and they’re closed for the week-end. 

Houston we have a problem.….. we’ve landed on the moon and there’s no beer.

If drinking was complicated, hitch-hiking looked fairly straight forward, as there was only one main road, which circled the island. The only decision we had to make was whether to take it clockwise or anti-clockwise. We headed South, reasoning that it might be a bit warmer, as it was slightly further from the arctic circle.

But although it was marked as a main road the tarmac ran out at Reykjavik city limits. It gave way to a dirt track, which took us through multi coloured lava fields, purple, black, orange, brown, some covered with velvety green moss, some dusted with snow. Now and then we’d go through a ‘town’ - a strip of tarmac, and a garage where locals congregate to eat hot dogs and drink alcohol free beer. 

We got as far as a place called Vik. If you like uncrowded beaches this could be your ideal holiday destination, with miles of long black pumice beaches, which are completely deserted apart from colonies of vicious arctic skuas which dive bomb you if you get too near their nests. I think they might have mistaken us for aggressive predators in our fur coats and it became a bit like an art house remake of The Birds.

We were keen to move on, but the road seemed very empty even by wilderness standards. Eventually a farmer in a pick-up truck stopped.

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere, really.”

“There’s nowhere to go - the road will be closed for months.”

“Why?”

“The skafatfjell glacier is up ahead - it’s the third biggest ice mass in the world. It melts in spring and the road will be impassable for months.”

We’re not easily put off, but even the best prepared travellers sometimes have to admit defeat.

Feeling a bit like Shakleton in Antarctica, we abandoned the circumnavigation of the island, bought another hot-dog and headed back to Reykjavik.

The next morning we set out round the Hringvegur anti-clockwise. We got a bit further this time, past the northern city of Akureyri and the waterfall of the Gods, and on to the shores of lake Myvatn. 

We had plenty of time to admire the extraordinary volcanic landscape, as we stood at a junction in the road for most of the day. People stopped to talk, and give us pieces of dried cod to chew on, or pour a medicinal cocktail from the boot of their car. We were conveniently placed next to a hot spring which we warm our hands on in the long gaps between cars, which lowered the risk of frostbite.

Then in the late afternoon an old white van stopped and a group of men in white lab and horn rimmed glasses got out.

“Where are you going? Don’t you know the road is closed until August?”

We should have guessed, but it seemed strange that no-one had bothered to tell us. Maybe they thought we made added a decorative element to their village, like a couple of glamourous garden gnomes, and they’d just leave us there till summer.

“We’re on our way to the research centre. Get in the van and we’ll take you over the hill. ”

“I’m not sure if we want to go over the hill.”

“You have to go over the hill.” They said, bundling us into the back of the van, which was full of test tubes, bunsen burners and other chemistry-set paraphernalia.

When Irish monks discovered Iceland in the sixth century, they thought they’d reached the ‘edge of hell’ and turned back without landing their curraghs. You can see where their picturesque vision of the underworld came from.…..

It was as if they’d said, “We’re only going as far as the fiery gates of Hell, is that any good to you?”

The left us on a volcanic desert, ringed by mountains streaked with yellow sulphur. There were pyramids of sulphur all around us hissing out columns of evil smelling steam - it the smell of rotten eggs which the monks recognized as the devil’s after shave. There were lakes of boiling black mud, and cracks in the ground oozing with molten lava from the centre of the earth. In the distance the moon was rising over a huge black crater.

Except that it was far too beautiful for hell. As I said before, more like landing on the moon -I found out later that the astronauts from Apollo 11 came here to practise their moonwalks.

We walked around for an hour or two and picked up some bits of lava and sulphur as souvenirs. But we weren’t as well equipped as the Apollo team, and when we noticed the soles of our shoes were melting, we thought we’d better return to civilization. Having decided to treat ourselves to a night in the hotel and a meal that wasn’t a hot dog, we walked back over the mountain dreaming of fermented shark meat and stuffed puffin.