After all the time spent retrieving information about the volcanic eruption at Fimmvörðuháls, last week we decided we wanted to take a look at what was going on personally, before volcanic activity subsided and before the expected nightmarish climax of Easter holidays’ crowds. We knew Reykjavik Excursions organized tours for the event, so we booked our tickets straight from their site just a couple of hours before departing, one cold Monday afternoon when our internet connection wasn’t acting wisely. Various options were offered to enthusiastic tourists and visitors, from jeep to helicopter rides. We picked an unpretentious bus + guidance option (the cheapest available at 9900 ISK – not everybody’s bearing the name Rockfeller, with all its implications).
The tour was scheduled to leave at 6:00 pm from the BSI bus terminal. We arrived very early, so after exchanging our vouchers with the actual tickets at the counter we had to wait some time. Finally we were able to board our coach and left for the eruption location, almost on time. Leaving aside all kind of considerations about the trip by bus, which was comfortable although at times disturbed in its idyllic peacefulness by petty little tragedies, such as the unspoken reciprocal hatred of a couple of ladies not knowing each other spreading alarming waves of repugnance when forced to share neighboring seats, or such as the camera shooting spree that affected some passengers, making them take a gazillion of totally surreal snapshots. Alas, thus is life.
During the road trip through Southern Iceland the guide offered an articulated and intelligible overview on the volcanic activity in the country that kept us vigilant at all times – though I do think I napped a bit. The only stop we made was a thirty minutes one, just before leaving Route 1 in favor of gravel roads to lead us in the proximity of the eruption. We crossed frozen water streams rolling and swaying as if we were on a ship in the middle of a fit of naval peristalsis; we looked out of the coach’s windows in mild terror as we proceeded along cliffs and unstable mountains’ walls. We didn’t know a bus could do such things – and I still think it’s not advisable to try them to find out – but we trusted very much our driver, or rather we hoped we could trust him. He seemed kind of reliable and sober, though he had an unpronounceable Icelandic name my incompetent foreign ears kept on getting wrong or not getting at all.
When we reached the proximities of the volcano – as close as we could get considering the road blocks encircling the area – it was around 9:00 pm, already quite dark despite the brightness of the beautiful full moon rising in the sky. The air was crisp and nippy, and the location was being swept at times by a wind that was a little hard to endure for more than fifteen minutes. It was so cold that after no more than thirty minutes all passengers were once again packed into the warm darkness of the coach where our zealously unfathomable driver had been enjoying himself doing some cleaning.
What about the eruption itself? Well, even from a distance it was an incredible view: incandescent cinders and lapilli spurted abundantly from the mouth of the volcano among a profusion of lavic gushes, in shades of flaming oranges and reds piercing the obscurity of the night. Dense smoke columns bathed in pinks and violets ascended for meters. Now and then a more powerful eruptive burst exploded, lava and other materials rising higher over the summit. The dark profile of a newborn mountain in front of the volcanic mouth partly eclipsed the magnificence of the eruption. The waters below silently mirrored the blazing sight, while flashes of the cameras flickered from many directions, granting ephemeral spotlights to the many spectators numbed by the cold but completely bewitched. We could appreciate better the activity of the volcano thanks to a pair of binoculars, but just for a brief time: the pesky focusing wheel of the optical device decided of its own accord to stop working – probably under the stressing weather condition – and left us without aid from our pair of bionic eyes. My camera wasn’t very helpful as well. The crap lens I have wouldn’t work nicely in that darkness; without a tripod, which I very cleverly left back in Italy, all photos looked like they were taken by somebody with delirium tremens. My hands were freezing at a fast pace to the point of feeling I needed amputation, so in any case it couldn’t have been a successful shooting session.
On the way back we caught a glimpse of the northern lights, but Mr Driver – the man whose name I still have to figure out – wasn’t quick enough to stop the bus allowing us to have a better contemplation of the event. He temporarily parked the coach in the brightest, most lighted spot of the whole Icelandic wilderness: a crossroads in the middle of nowhere, a place where not one, but several blinding street lights were placed. In spite of his delayed zeal nobody could see a thing, though trust me, some tried very hard, our guide included.