Day 14 - Ten Years Ago

I have probably told this story on here before, but what the hell, I’ve not got much else to do….
 
Today a ten year old memory popped up on Facebook. In 2010 a volcano started erupting in Iceland – the Icelanders were still reeling from the bad publicity following the collapse of their financial sector, and I heard a news item saying they were trying to encourage tourists to come and see the eruption. I remember thinking that a) who would want to go to Iceland and b) who would want to see an erupting volcano? That evening my sister-in-law rang to ask if I would go with her to Iceland to see the volcano erupting…..
 
Three days later I was on a plane to Iceland to see an erupting volcano....
 
A very handsome and athletic looking man was in the check in queue near us – we both spotted him and I joked that I hoped he would be sitting next to me. Miraculously he was! I couldn’t wait to drop into the conversations how incredibly brave and daring I was being – he also dropped into the conversation that he was about to hike across Greenland, complete with guns to ward off polar bears– that pissed on my fire a bit. He gave me the website address for his charity hike – turns out he’d also climbed Everest and rowed the Atlantic. 
 
So we were collected for our tour by two phlegmatic Icelanders, and joined by a Canadian and two Norwegians. We set off round the ring road, then turned off to drive up the glacier. The authorities had spent the last week rescuing people from the glacier so our vehicle was checked to ensure the wheels were big enough. At times it was a complete white-out on the glacier, and we had to stop to release air from the tyres 3 or 4 times. We reached about 1600 metres and the blizzard cleared – in the distance we could see smoke; we thought we would stop and view from a safe distance but in fact we drove right up to the crater – within a couple hundred metres in fact. We could feel the heat, we could hear the volcano pulsing like a heartbeat and we could smell the sulphur. We stood and watched new craters forming, the ice sizzling as it melted, it was very surreal.
 
There were plenty of other people there, and also numerous helicopters and small planes overhead. It was very convivial, I almost expected a burger van to show up! The only time I was scared was when we drove to the lava flow – we were allowed to get out and approach the flow, to feel the heat emanating from it. We did, a bit reluctantly, then our guide said he didn’t feel comfortable there as the ice beneath us could give way at any time – we got back in the jeep sharpish. 
 
We stayed for about 5 hours. I only had a compact camera at the time, but one of the Norwegians had a DSLR and he shared his photos with me – if you’re interested there’s a Flickr album here https://www.flickr.com/photos/95776360@N05/albums/72157633495488601
 
 
We left in the early hours and as we drove back across the glacier – somewhat in a daze – the sky erupted with auroras. Our fellow tourists had seen the Northern Lights many times before but we were beside ourselves. It was about minus 25 in the wind but we didn’t care. The auroras followed us all the way back to Reykjavik. It was like magic.
 
The next day we did the Golden Circle tour. The guide pointed out some smoke in the distance from Eyjafjallajökull – Kathryn and I looked at each other and both said “did we dream that we actually went up there?”
 
We came home and as it was Easter we both then went off on family holidays – Kathryn to Norfolk, and we went to Dorset. Suddenly the volcano was all over the news, it stopped air travel for a week and it was all we were talking about (oh for the days when we thought not being able to fly for a few days was a global crisis!!!!). 
 
We still think of it as ‘our volcano’. We have both been back to Iceland 3 times since, and I’d go again if I could. Although at the moment I’d be thrilled to go to Halifax.