Iceland in Winter

I have one more trip to tell you about: Iceland!

Jochem and I spent three years saving money for our world trip, then one year backpacking and then one year saving money for our wedding. After five years we suddenly had nothing to save money for and so we spent it all on trips. This worked really well until we quite suddenly decided to buy a house with no savings and everything became much more complicated, but still - the trips were great.

This trip to Iceland was only a short trip of five days, of which two days were spent traveling from Amsterdam to Reykjavik and back, so in all we had three full days in Iceland. We arrived on the island on Valentine's Day in the midst of winter. I am glad that we came to Iceland because it was the most winter I have seen all year. Last year we had a notoriously long and cold winter in The Netherlands with lots of ice and snow, but this year the temperature hardly made it below zero degrees Celcius. I like winter when it is not accompanied by grey skies and rain, which is exactly what Iceland gave us: three cold but sunny days with almost Bolivia-like clear blue skies.

I liked Iceland a lot. In Dutch we have a wonderful word, 'eigenwijs,' which my dictionary tells me can be translated as 'a know-it-all', although that doesn't sound right. I felt that Iceland was the epitomy of 'eigenwijs.' It is a relatively small island with a unique flora, fauna and culture. The people are very cool. They are laid-back like Australians and South Africans, except they are used to days without daylight and extreme cold. I felt way too uncool to hang out with them, although I still enjoyed their company. The people were friendly, spoke English and were proud of being Icelandic. I would be too.

Since our time was limited, we did something that we almost never do: we booked a hotel in Reykjavik and did all of our trips from there with organized tours. In hindsight it probably would have been better to rent a car and explore on our own, but that would have involved an amount of thinking that I was unwilling to engage in, because choosing what to see from all the things to see in Iceland is like pushing me towards a buffet and then asking me to pick just one thing - impossible. Besides, the tourism industry is very well-established in Iceland and easy to join. In the end we decided on four major attractions.

(1) Northern Lights

It was winter and we were in Iceland and so we wanted to see Northern Lights!

The first night we joined the tour there were no Northern Lights, which is a really big bummer if you've just spent a couple of hours standing still in the dark at minus ten degrees Celcius. Forget what I said about snorkeling with seals in South Africa - THIS was the coldest that I have ever been!

We were entitled to a free re-run, though, and while we almost missed it again during our second night, eventually we saw them! Northern Lights!!! It was spectacular and magical and kind of emotional, since they were not easy to find. It is difficult to photograph them, because they are always moving and changing - you can look at it for hours. It is easy to understand why our forefathers thought that they were deceased warriors dancing in the sky. Totally worth the cold and sleep deprivation!

(2) Golden Circle

This was another cold day. It was freezing and it was windy and I had not brought thermal underwear. Lesson learned.

Nevertheless, we had a great day exploring some of Iceland's most famous geological sites: the Gullfoss Waterfall, the Strokkur Geyser and the rift valley at Thingvellir National Park, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates sit on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, growing 2.5 centimers apart each year. This National Park is also the site of the first parliament in the world, so it also has a historical and cultural heritage.

I told you that the Icelandic were cool.

Gullfoss

Strokkur

Thingvellir

(3) Sólheimajökull Glacier

We went for more action on this day by joining a tour to hike on the Sólheimajökull glacier. We strapped on a pair of crampons, picked up an ax and made our way on foot. It was a little bit strange to walk on ice at first, but I quickly got used to it. Jochem was fearless, of course. The glacier looked very different up close than it did from afar, with lots of different colors, caves and crevasses. It was an otherworldly experience.

(4) Blue Lagoon

For our last day in Iceland I exhibited some fine planning, because I had saved the most relaxing tour for last: a day at the Blue Lagoon. This place is kind of a Disneyland version of your average wellness resort, but that does not negate the fact that it is a beautiful place to float around in for a couple of hours. The Icelandic take their thermal springs seriously - another things that I like about them.

The only thing that I did not like about Iceland, is that it is so incredibly expensive to visit. If that does not stop you, I can definitely recommend it. It is about as far from Europe as a European country can get, both literally and figuratively. Cheers!

South Africa in Summer

Travel has become the great love affair of my life. These days nothing makes me happier than day dreaming about, planning for, but especially embarking on my next trip. I do not play favorites with my trips, but sometimes I go on a trip where everything is just right. This is what happened during my first visit to the US in 2003, it is what happened during my first camping trip with Jochem in Italy in 2007 and it is what happened during my trip to South Africa in December and January.

I have great friends and two of them have relatives in Cape Town. They had been to South Africa a couple of times already. The rest of us had never set foot on the continent. We had been talking about taking a trip to South Africa together for years, but it had never happened. I do not remember exactly how it happened this time, but joking led to talking, which led to the six of us having purchased six tickets from Amsterdam to Cape Town and back. We were finally going to South Africa! Roland and Margaretha would stay with their relatives for four weeks, while Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I would stay for two weeks during the Christmas holiday.

Winter in The Netherlands means summer in South Africa. We could not wait! Three of us work in education and it is common knowledge among teachers that the two months between the fall break and the christmas break are the hardest weeks of the school year. The days get cold and dark and there are no holidays to grant the much-needed day off every once in a while (as opposed to the spring semester, where a holiday pops up every week, or so it seems, completely disrupting your teaching flow). It is also the busiest time of the year - I myself was teaching six groups at the time, which meant that I was responsible for approximately 180 students. Difficult students, at that. I was beyond ready to leave work for South Africa. I was absolutely elated. Jochem likes to call me 'Nur 2.0' when I am this happy.

On Saturday, the 21st of December Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I met up at the airport for the first part of our trip.

Schiphol Amsterdam Airport

We had booked our tickets with Turkish Airlines and, since the flight from Istanbul to Cape Town did not leave until after midnight, we had arranged for a stopover just long enough to have dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and a glass of salep (a typically Turkish winter beverage, which is a hot, milky drink made from the flour of the dried tubers of orchids) on Taksim Square.

Parsifal Restaurant

After flying all night and a short stop in Johannesburg, we finally arrived in Cape Town. From the plane it was already clear to see just how beautifully situated the city is.

Cape Town

We spent most of our time with Roland and Margaretha's family, who made us feel more than welcome. They supplied us with comfortable safari tents in their warehouse, fresh linnen and towels, use of their kitchen and bathroom, advice on the best sights in town, fine company and one extroardinary Christmas dinner where they did an impressive job catering to the three vegetarians in the group (as a side note: South Africans eat a LOT of meat. This must not have been easy for them!). They offered us a home away from home during these weeks and I cannot thank them enough. 

From their house we took off every day with our two rental cars to see as much of the city as possible. There is so much to see that the options can be overwhelming, but luckily we had Roland and Margaretha to guide us. Before we left we had also organized a post-it day at home to make a sort of sightseeing schedule. This probably does not sound very romantic, but I thought it came in very handy. Of course I am the obsessive compulsive control freak in our circle of friends, but by determining the schedule beforehand everybody was able to get the most out of their short time in South Africa. This also meant that while we were there, we did not have to fine-tune our plans with six people - we could simply enjoy.

I really enjoyed our pace of travel during this time - every day we had a new adventure, but there was also lots of time to sleep in, make food together and hang out in our very own jacuzzi. At the start of our trip we took a few days to see the major sights in and around Cape Town. I especially enjoyed spotting wild penguins in Simon's Town.

Victoria and Alfred Waterfront

V&A Market on the Wharf

Two Oceans Aquarium

Nelson Mandela Gateway

Robben Island

Nelson Mandela's prison cell

Cape of Good Hope

Cape Point

Simon's Town

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

After Christmas we drove our rental cars east through wine country to the Garden Route Game Lodge.

It was established early on that we could not possibly go to South Africa without going on safari. We eventually settled on a small game park where we stayed for one night. I would have loved to stay longer, but it is very expensive to go on safari, so we tried to make the best of our limited time. During our short stay we went on one evening and one morning game drive and enjoyed the splendor of this luxurious resort.

Garden Route Game Lodge

Before we drove back to Cape Town, we stopped at Mossel Bay to play in its tidal pools.

Mossel Bay

We took a detour on the way back to Cape Town to drive through the desert landscape of the Little Karoo.

Little Karoo

We did not have much time in Cape Town before we took off on another mini trip to Cederberg. Jochem and I really wanted to go here after we had read in a travel magazine about the otherworldly hiking opportunities in the area. 

Cederberg

We stayed in Cederberg for two nights in a couple of cottages in the middle of nowhere. It was a beautiful spot and we had our own swimming pool and braai (a South African barbecue). There were, however, a lot of big, hairy spiders in our cottages. They were a little bit creepy, although harmless, so every evening we went on a little spider hunt to catch the spiders from our ceilings and beds and put them outside. We must have missed one, though, because when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night the biggest, reddest spider that I have ever seen came out from behind the toilet bowl. I did not enjoy showers in that bathroom very much after that. When we left the place, the proprietress told us not to worry about anything besides the black widows. I think that we were all very glad that we had not known until that very moment that there were black widows in the first place.

During our stay in Cederberg Jochem and I were the only ones crazy enough to go on the Wolfberg Cracks and Wolfberg Arch hike. The others went on a shorter hike to a waterfall, while the two of us struggled in the 40-degree heat and brutal sun (I have never experienced such extreme sunlight as in South Africa). In hindsight, the hike was quite dangerous and probably required a guide of some sort, since most of the time there was no one around, we did not know where we were going and it seemed easy to get lost in those cracks. I am definitely glad that I had not seen the movie 127 Hours at that point. Luckily we ran into a South African couple on the way who led us through the cracks and who, at one point, pulled me over a huge boulder. They were very relaxed (South Africans in general seem very relaxed) and said that it was fun to get lost in the cracks and nothing to worry about. At the end of the day I was utterly exhausted (the Inca Trail seemed like a walk in the park in retrospect!), but it had all been worth it because the scenery was breathtaking.

Wolfberg Cracks

Wolfberg Arch

After all that dust in the desert we made our way to Langebaan for some beach time before we returned to Cape Town.

Langebaan

Back in Cape Town we still had some plans in store.

We celebrated New Year's Eve on the beach overlooking Table Mountain and watching the fireworks being lit from the V&A Waterfront.

Bloubergstrand

On New Year's Day we woke up really early to go swimming with wild seals in Hout Bay. I have never been so cold yet so ecstatic at the same time.

Hout Bay

We took the cable car up to Table Mountain.

Table Mountain

We combined a guided horse ride with wine tasting in Paarl.

Paarl

And on our last day Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I went shark cage diving in Gans Bay where we saw five great white sharks in the wild.

Gans Bay

And then it was time to go already.

Cape Town International Airport

I believe that the many pictures do this trip more justice than anything I can say about it six months later. Surely you can see how amazing it was!

I remember feeling very positive about the future after our trip to South Africa. 'If I can have such a good time in just two weeks,' I thought, 'then perhaps I no longer need to yearn for another 9-month trip.' Perhaps it would be enough to make do with shorter trips throughout the year.

I wish that I could say that I have been able to hold on to this feeling, but as time has passed and I have gotten back into the swing of things at home, this feeling has started to disappear and I am once more dreaming of longer trip to ever more remote places.

But I will always look back on this trip to South Africa with fondness and joy.