Iceland Film Review #2

The second in a series of posts featuring film taken in Iceland.

Coastal Inlet at Borgarnes, May 2011.

I took these photos as we arrived in a tiny town called Borgarnes.  They came out so dark and moody, which I loved because this day of the trip was the most terrifying for me as a result of the snowstorm I'll write about below.  One thing I found super disorienting about this land is that the mountains were black, made of soft volcanic rock.  Growing up in Appalachia, I'm used to leafy green mountains, covered in a botanical variety richer than anywhere in the world.  But in Iceland there are so few (maybe no native ones at all?) trees.  You'll see below, many of the structures are built from stone, as lumber has to be expensively shipped in.

We had originally planned to drive from Reykjavik to the northern part of the country in one day and begin our whale watching expedition early in the week, but even though it was late May, we got caught in an intensely gusty (read: horizontal) snowstorm that had me shaking in my boots.  I was driving the Polo, and convinced we were going to get blown off the tiny ridge road flanked by steep drops on either side, I insisted we stop the madness and take an unexpected stay in the previously unknown-to-us town of Borgarnes.  I think my fellow traveler thought I was overly frightened for the situation, but we had to stop because I'm the only one of us who can drive a manual shift and I love safety too much to risk it!  We stopped at a hostel and a grocery store in Borgarnes around 6pm or so, finding both completely deserted.  In our Lonely Planet guide, there was one more option to try for housing, a farmer's guesthouse called Bjarg.  Luckily finding Bjarg nestled back behind the main road with a majestic fjord view and one available room, we shared a cottage with a British couple and managed to find some salmon at another market in the town to have for dinner.  We were pleased to find that Bjarg had an interesting Icelandic film rental selection (we watched Brúðguminn--highly recommend), and I also liked that each cabin had a special name, historic to the property.  Ours was called "Jarpur," who was the "farmer's favorite horse and exceptionally kind to children."  

Because of Iceland's northerly location on the globe, in the spring and summer the sun only goes down for a few hours a night, so it was light out pretty much all the time. Thankfully, Bjarg and all the locations we stayed in Iceland had thick curtains in the bedrooms so you could kind of pretend it was night if you couldn't sleep. Below are digital images, including me with the Polo at Bjarg and the keys to the rental cottage.