We spent the day at Snæfellsnes with Dean Sharenow. Dean is Rob’s college roommate and is half of the bandKill Henry Sugar. (I’m listening to his music now and highly recommend it.)
The weather was foul when we set out and I really wondered if we had made a mistake since you could not see the mountains, at all, because of the fog. Fortunately as the day progressed, the clouds lifted. We stopped at Búðir, which is a national park now, but used to be a fishing village. The only things left of the village now are the hotel and the church. Looking at the mountains, it is hard to imagine that the ocean is at my back.
As we walked back to the car, I spotted a roof sitting on the ground. Curious, I walked over to it and discovered a set of crude stone steps leading underground. Of course, I had to go down them. At the bottom, rough stone walls enclosed a tiny room. I imagine that it had been a turf house, but don’t really know.
In an attempt to go to Snæfellsjökul, we went on from Búðir to road F574. Now, those of you who have visited know that the more digits a road number has the worse it is going to be. The F means, only try this in a four-wheel drive. Dean had rented an appropriate vehicle, so we started up the road. It was gravel, single lane and very steep. Guard rails? Ha. We laugh at your guard rails, they obstruct the view when you are trying to look straight down the side of the mountain.
About a third of the way up, we paused at Songhellar, or the Singing Cave. Apparently a man named Bardur Snaefellsas lived in this cave with the “dwarf-voices” or echoes, while he built a farm at Laugarbrekka at Hellnar. The cave is formed from a lava bubble, so has a nearly perfect parabolic arch at the top, which makes a great echo. It has a crazy amount of grafitti carved into the walls dating back 1753. It’s so nice to know that vandalism is not a result of modern times.
Sadly, the road became to icy for us to continue up to see Snæfellsjökul. As a seeming reward for our good sense at turning back, the clouds lifted affording uninterrupted beautiful views of the coast from above. I did not even try taking a picture, because it trying to do it justice seemed like a futile effort.
For the rest of our drive, we travelled under blue skies. We stopped to visit with some horses, who came up to the fence to be petted as if they were dogs. They are small enough that it really does feel like petting a dog. A very large dog, but still.
After we got back from Snæfellsnes, we went to a party at Jodi, Sam, Julie and Sarah’s. It was fun, but we were there very, very late.
