vivek sekar

sticking to the usual pattern of waking up sometime close to 10:30, we booked ourselves a car for 2 days. day one would take us to the Borgarnes – Stykkish – olafsvik, a distance of 300 odd kms. after some confirmations of the road conditions, weather and the state of the car tires (it was not winter weather tires, but all weather tires) at 11:30 i started the car, and we were off. one of my wishes to drive in Iceland was no more a dream, keeping to the speed limit we were zooming past mountains and ocean views.

a sunny day, with just the enough amount of clouds to give the sky a good texture. a road laid between the sea to one side and rugged mountainous terrain on the other side. a road, with just some spots of ice and snow on it. within 30 mins we were out of the suburbs, accompanied by the howling wind blowing from the mountains. upfront the road was vanishing into the mountain, and then the tunnel signs came up. we were going through a 6 km tunnel from one mountain range to the other range from below the sea. After taking the wrong lane and some confusion, we paid for the journey through the tunnel and were half way to Borgarnes. driving around the corners of the mountains, we approached the small town of Borgarnes. with the mountains behind me, i had a beautiful view of the town with a pinkish orange cloud cover and a crystallizing sea. after a small rest to take some photos, we stopped next to the super market got some snacks for breakfast and were off from there to Stykkish.

on the route 55, we were headed to Stykkish. leaving Borgarnes the road headed into the Snæfellsjökull peninsula, leaving the sea behind into the mountains. the mountains we had seen on the horizon became bigger and bigger as we were approaching them, instead of a mountain in one side and sea on the other, as had been 10 kms before, now the road was in between mountains. the wind speed was picking up, the car moved a little left and right with the blowing wind. even though it was a straight road, i was busy with the steering wheel.

sometime after i had come to Finland, i had set a status message “lost in the world around me”. this road, empty, devoid of humans for tens of kilometers at a stretch, with just a handful of houses, towering mountains, huge meadows of snow, ice and grassland, with not even birds in sight but just the Icelandic horses on the farm by the road. it was this place, where “lost in the world around me” made more appropriate sense. the sound of winds blowing across an icy asphalt road carrying with it snow hundreds of year old from glaciers(the arctic winds straight from the north pole). a straight road, with mountains on all side, with the approaching mountains looking more menacing than the previous one we had passed. my knowledge that nature is the supreme reigning being in Iceland was re-iterated, and this was the time when i was seeing this invisible (even though its everything around us) force at work.

while appreciating what was going on around me, we had covered some distance from Borgarnes and were close to Stykkish. Some 35 kms before Stykissh, we reached the cross roads between a route leading to Stykissh via Olafsvik and the other road straight to Stykkish. confused, we asked for directions and headed on the route to direct Stykkish (this cross road had a fuel pump and some inhabitants – dont ask me what work they do there, cos i haven’t a clue.). the road we took, was heading straight into the mountain, but this time with a incline to it. my first qualms of not having taken the right car started the moment i saw a sign (chains around a wheel – means spiked or chained tires were needed), but i moved on with the confidence that the car rental guys had given about the route being drivable. we moved along the road, and slowly i could feel that the grip was not as much as i was hoping for and to help matters a storm was brewing ahead of us. up front we saw a Subaru coming along, hurriedly i lowered the window and waved. the car slowed but stopped a few meters behind us. a old lady came to our car, and we started asking her about the road ahead.

“Hi, is the road ahead safe to drive on?”. she replied in the positive(she had just come on the road). and i understood i had wrongly phrased the question. “this car has only all weather tires without the spike, do you think its safe to drive on with these tires ?”. she replied “yes you can give it a try.”. again that answered made me realize the phrasing was wrong so again came a question trying to explain everything clearly, by the time i could ask again she asked “where are you from?”. “we have come from Helsinki(are from India), we wanted to drive around Iceland. we rented this car in Reykjavik and are going to Stykkish and then onto Olafsvik. So do you think with this rented car we can go on?”, this time i think i got through clearly. “You are very brave to have come this far” “i think its not the best of conditions to drive, but still you can give it a try.” i do understand that in all the loneliness, people go cuckoo when seeing some new face, but the comment “still you can give it a try” was way above it all. We smiled and said that we might as will head back since i was not confident about the car being able to take us through. she again repeated that we were brave to go seeing around Iceland in winter, and that most tourist never really go around on their own.

she had complimented us, and we were over the moon from having heard it and more than overjoyed. thanking her we returned on our way back. a old lady had complimented us for having the guts to try go around Iceland in a 2WD – all weather tires. tracing back our way, Saravanan commented this trip was a “Successful failure”. as we were returning the evening had started and the sun was slowly going down. half the time on the way back we both were boasting about the compliment we had received and talking about Iceland since we had a video camera and Saravanan was recording. the same landscape we had come by looked totally different under the setting sun.

on the way back i felt that we were reaching Reykjavik fast, so on route we decided to take diversion and head into a small settlement with a church overlooking the sea. as we drove into the area, just like any other place it was deserted with no people around. we reached the end of the road, stopped by and just had a look. we had stopped just before a sheep farm, the sheep were sheltered into small hangars to keep them away from the cold and wind. after some roaming about, we got back on the road to Reykjavik.

Highly disappointed for not having been able to make it to the planned towns, i was fired up to get a new tires in the car or just return the car.

end of successful failure !!