The one thing about my remote youth hostel is that there
were no nearby stores or restaurants. One would think that the hostel manager
would then consider carrying some things like ramen noodles or rice, so that
unprepared guests like me would have at least something to munch on. Same thing
for coffee in the morning. But no, there were no such accommodations, so I had
to tough it out, and the next morning I was a bit grumpy when I took off. Since
I was already 30 km into the dirt road I figured that I had to finish going
around the peninsula, and in retrospect I am glad that I did because it was a
glorious sunny day, and the sights of the ocean against the backdrop of the
snowy walls of the fjords was spectacular. In fact that was the case for the
rest of the day, so you will thank me that I don’t go endlessly about how
pretty this was, and how spectacular that was.
By 8 am I was thirsty and falling asleep for lack of my
caffeine dose, and by 9 am I was in need of an injection of caffeine direct to
the heart. One thing missing in Iceland
are 7-Eleven stores all over the
place, but I felt salvation was at hand when I spied an N1 service station in
the distance. This particular chain of service stations advertises with the
motto “Come for the petrol, stay for the food”, and I was very glad to spend a
small fortune in two small cups of coffee. Maybe this is a good point to talk
about prices. Iceland is expensive, things being anywhere between two and three
times as much as in the US. For example, a small cup of coffee at the gas
station costs $2.50, and a bag of chips costs $6. Breakfast will see you back
by about $12, dinner will be anywhere from $15 for a personal pizza to $25-$40
for a main course, and a pint of beer to go with dinner will be $6.50. Gasoline
is about $6.50 a gallon, an individual room at the remote youth hostel without
food will be $50 per night (and that does not include linen), whereas a bed in
a dorm room will run you about $30 per night. This is traveling on the cheap,
eating and shopping where the locals do. Tourist hotels are a lot more
expensive, and just about anything touristy you want to do (e.g., a boat ride
to go see whales, or a raft trip down the river) will run $100 to $200 on the
average. Entrance to a museum or exhibition costs between $8 and $20.
Even though I believe that tourist attractions are
horrendously overpriced (and I think this is a purposeful policy to take
advantage of tourism as a source of employment and income), the fact remains
that the average Icelandic citizen drinks the same beer and eats the same pizza
at these high prices. Still, they can afford it! Unemployment stands at about
2%, they have socialized medicine (the value-added tax is 25% to pay for their
social services), their houses are small but pretty, and cars are small but all
look fairly new. So they are doing well, but once again I have to ask, how to
they do it?
Industries, as far as I can tell, include fisheries and
small craft building, wool products, sheep husbandry, tourism, and services.
That is it! What kind of magic key do they have that we don’t know about? I
believe the surface area of the country is about 100,000 km2 to the US
10,000,000 km2 (100th of the surface of the US). On another measure
of comparison they have 300,000 inhabitants to the US 300,000,000 (or 1,000th
of the US population). In short, they have about 10 times more land per person
than we have, but if you have been reading the previous days a lot of their
land is pretty grim and unsuitable for economic activities. I think the key is
that there is less of an economic disparity between people. They don’t seem to
have filthy rich people, but nor do they seem to have very poor people, so with
most people being in the middle they all fare reasonably well.
I said I was not going to go on and on about the landscape,
but there are a couple of things I want to say about three days of travel.
First, this is a mountainous country, so I am totally amazed at the number of
people I have seen doing bicycle treks. In three days I saw maybe 10 to 15
pairs, loaded like burritos, huffing and puffing but undeterred by sun, rain,
or sleet. A goodly number of these pairs were he and she, middle age,
presumably out to have an Icelandic adventure. As a flat-land bicycle
enthusiast I have to admire their moxy in undertaking such and adventure.
The other thing I have admired are the flocks of sheep.
Clearly lambing must have happened, because all ewes are happy guiding their
extremely fat little lambs from one patch of grass to the other. The little
ones look like small barrels of wool on extremely nimble and spindly legs. Now
and then you see only one ewe and one lamb, or one ewe and three lambs, but the
rule seems to be two per ewe. I did try Icelandic lamb in Reykjavik and found
it delicious and not gamey (the Icelanders say it is the good grass they eat),
so I can believe it is of good export quality, and the wool sweaters are nice
and expensive (but really, you would only use them at an ugly Christmas sweater
party), so here is to the little fuzz balls that so ably support he economy of
this country.
Icelanders are also very proud of their Viking ponies, which
you see all over the place. Mama ponies are foaling right now, and some of the
babies I saw seemed to be at best a few hours old. Spring is late coming to
Iceland, but it is here in force right now.
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