"Have you ever seen the rain?"
Today was supposed to be one of the highlights of our Icelandic adventure - a glacial hike, then a cruise on a glacial lagoon (Jökulsárlón) topped off with a visit to a "diamond beach", where ice and icebergs wash up on the shore.
Our morning started at 9 am where we were fitted for our glacial hike. The hiking tour company checks each individual's outfit to ensure they were appropriately dressed. Given it was a bit drizzly, Mick was advised to hire waterproof pants to cover has jeans (waterproof top and boots met the grade). Damian didn't need to hire a thing as he was waterproofed from head to toe! NB we were told to go to bathroom before suiting up as there was no bathroom stops once the hike started.
We had a 45 walk in the rain from the base camp to the base of the glacier. At the beginning of the walk, the young Chinese boy (21 yrs old) was sticking close to us. We took that as a sign that he wanted to have a chat (given we had been on tour together for 5 days) - but we were wrong... Mick asked some questions and discussed that he had just finished uni, studying economics and was about to start working at KPMG as a graduate. This was a goldmine of conversation topics for Mick given he studied economics and had many friends who did the KPMG graduate program; alas the guy had no interest in holding down a conversation. As we were nearing the glacier, Mick's bladder (more likely his mind, as he had two wees before getting all suited up) decided he could not enjoy a 2 hr hike if he couldn't relieve himself again. Finding an opportune spot, he ducked off the path to water the (non existent) plants. As he started to feel relieved, he felt someone really close to him, so close that he was sure it was Damian. Nope! Mick turned around and was confronted with the eldest of The Fab Five, pissing less than a metre away from him!
Once we got to the glacier we were asked to form a circle around our tour guide, Ola, so she could show us, step by step, how to put on our crampons. We were told we had to wait and follow Ola every step of the way. Unfortunately our friendly Japanese tourists didn't understand a word that was being said; but they had done a glacier hike before, and were zipping through the crampon tying. Ola tried to ask them to stop and wait, but they were head down, bum up, putting on their crampons - they had no idea they were being spoken to. Ola then looked to the English speakers of our group to try to get us to get the Japanese ladies' attention. But given no one knew their names, we didn't know how to get their attention. Mick contemplated calling out "Konichiwa" - but thought that would be insensitive. One of The Fab Five called out "Japanese ladies" but that didn't their attention either. Ola gave up the fight and decided to just check their crampons at the end. Before we had even started the glacial hike, Damian started to feel a bit damp and began questioning how waterproof his clothes actually were.
We gingerly walked up and along the glacier, concerned that one misplaced step could see us fall down the glacier, our worst still down a 'moulin' (hole of unknown depth). Although we were getting a bit damp, it was still a fun adventure climbing the glacier. By the time we got to the peak of our hike, the rain started to pick up. Everything was wet. We were at a lookout, which was a great photo stop, unfortunately given the rain and wet fingers, the phone wasnt picking up the finger taps to take the photos. This is when the hike started getting miserable as the rain was relentless and our clothes clearly were not waterproof. We were keen to get off the glacier, but the Gaysians were having too much of a good time taking photos and delayed or departure. As we hiked back down, we were getting wetter and colder. Mick's hired pants were keeping his legs dry, but that was the only thing. Damian was completely soaked (and had no gloves) and was not a happy hiker! He felt like one of those miserable Icelandic ponies that sit with their arses pointed into the rain, he had lost all feeling in his hands and was worried what could happen if he slipped and had to try and stop himself with his hands.
When we got off the glacier we hurried back to base camp in record time in order to get out of our drenched clothes - although we didn't have any clothes to change into, so all we could do we remove the most sodden layers, and wring out the rest to try and get rid of the excess water.
As we were waiting for everyone else to get back, Mick confirmed with Mímir that we would be going back to the hotel to change before going to the glacial lake. This was not on the plan. Noting that everyone was drenched, and knowing how Damian would react to such news, Mick used his influencing skills to change the plans in order to enable people to get dry before heading to lunch and then the lagoon. While waiting (again) for The Fab Five to get back to the bus, Damian asked Mímir if the boat we were about to catch had a roof - the answer was no! At that point Damian had made up his mind that we were not going to sit in the rain any longer, he just needed to give Mick some time to come to the same conclusion. We decided we would rather have a nap and then sit in the hotel bar, rather than get our only dry, warm clothes wet.
When Mick told Mímir that we would not be joining them on the wet glacial lagoon cruise, he was completely shocked and tried to get us to change our minds. We didn't, and are glad that we held firm. We (very) briefly spoke to English couple after their return, they said it was cold, wet (pouring rain, more than on the glacier) and miserable (and they are from the UK!). There was next to no visibility and they didn't bother getting their cameras out to take photos!
We were disappointed that we didn't get to see the lagoon or the diamond beach, but we went to bed warm and dry, knowing we made the right decision
No comments:
Post a Comment