Trip of a Lifetime by Paty Jager

Gullfoss

I just returned from a 6 day trip to Iceland. It was put together by the Authors Guild and Iceland Travel Agency.

Our tour guide said it was the best tour he'd herded in his 30 years as a guide. It was a combination of local sites and literary events. I won't go into detail of what all we saw, because I'll be spacing that out on my own blog this month and next. Writingintothesunset.net

I'm going to give you a brief recap of what I learned on this trip.

1- Iceland is not all ice. But it is mostly lava. Under neath the thick moss and grass are layers of volcanic ash and lava. The volcanoes that boiled and spewed to make the island are still active.

Much of the landscape looked like this.

2- The towns get their hot water and electricity from the steam and water of hot springs that boil out of the ground in many places across the island.

This was one of the several hot springs we stopped to see. Water boiling out of the ground.

3- The only native mammals on the island are foxes. But they have mice and rats that came over on ships early on. The Icelandic horses that were brought over by the Norsemen and have stayed pure to the breed. (more on the horses later) sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, and caribou.
Because they are an island there are no diseases in the animals and to keep it that way, they don't allow animals to be brought in.

4- The Icelandic horse is a pure breed. There has not been another breed on the island. They have 5 gaits- walk, trot, toilt, gallop, and pace. They said this is the only horse with 5 gaits. The toilt, a very smooth trot, looked like something I've seen Paso horses do.  They sell horses to people of other countries, but once a horse leaves the island it can't come back because it could bring diseases. There are 350,000 people in Iceland and 80,000 horses.

We had a show of the 5 gaits of the Icelandic horse.

5- Tourism, fishing, then sheep are the island's biggest incomes. We ate fish every day we were there- either for lunch or dinner or both. And we had lamb twice. Only had beef once. The cows are mainly used for dairy products. One is skyr a thick almost cottage cheese consistency type of yogurt that is made like a cheese. It is more sour than yogurt but when sweeteners like sugar or fruit are added it is good.

This is skyr- The white is plain, the strawberry was with sweetener and berry, and the blueberry was with a berry liquor

6- The first settlers of Iceland were Norsemen- people from the Scandinavian countries. And Viking is not a people or culture - the name meant pirates. Our guide went to great length to say that they are not descendants of Vikings but of Norsemen. Vikings was the name given to pirates of that time period.

This was an exhibit of a boat built to the specifications of a Viking ship and was sailed from Iceland to North America in the 1990s.

7- Icelandic Sagas are full of stories of brutality. Yet, the Icelanders love their sagas as much as we love the fairy tales of our childhood. And as they say, "these are stories made up to entertain".

We attended a play about the sagas

8 - Meeting the Icelandic Authors Union was an honor and an interesting evening. Two authors, a non-fiction and fiction, talked about how the union works and about sales both in their country and abroad. How difficult it is to get books into translation to other countries and that the most popular authors in Iceland are the crime fiction writers. Which brings me to...

9- Knowing we were going to have a meeting with Yrsa Sigurdardottir, a crime fiction author, I had read/listened to her first two books in a series. I loved them and was excited to meet her. She had a different view of translations and genre books in Iceland. The two at the Authors Union were NonFiction and Middle grade/YA authors.  I enjoyed visiting with Yrsa, and we talked about meeting up at Bouchercon in Saramento 2020, though she will be at Dallas this year.

Yrsa signing a book for one of our group.

10- We spent a couple hours at the Blue Lagoon a small lake of hot springs water and silica. I only stayed in the water for about 30 minutes. It wasn't too hot, but even though I sat on the cement bench along the edge in the water, my legs and body would start floating to the top. I float easily in regular water and this water I was unusually floaty.  The water was a light blue and thick. You couldn't see more than four inches into it.

The water of the Blue Lagoon outside the swimming part.

10- While there was talk of trolls (giants) and little people I didn't see... I caught sight of a water nymph while at one of the hot springs.

There is a photographer behind the bush. I think it was an advertisement.

I hope you enjoyed my bullet points of what I learned about Iceland. I would go back in a heartbeat to see more of the island. Maybe one day. And this time I would drag my hubby along.

Have you traveled or visited a place that filled you with awe?

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 40 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters.

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