The bus and ferry rides to Westman Island were made all the more pleasurable by the large plate of lox I ate for breakfast before starting out.
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| The town as seen from the volcano. |
Westman Island is a bit north and east of Vik, where we spent the night before, as well. Only one of the islands is inhabited--there's a town of about 30,000 people. Picturesque and VERY attuned to tourists.
The main island was devastated by a volcano in 1973 that wiped out whole neighborhoods. The eruptions took place over a five month period--like 9/11 on steroids, toxic gas, black air. The ever-ready Icelanders mounted a huge rescue campaign. Miraculously, no one died, and the town, well it's quaint and inviting. AND drivers will stop for pedestrians. I'm still in a state of shock over that one.
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| Half way up the volcano. |
We climbed the offending volcano, a mile upward hike on slippery ash. Quite an adventure but spectacular at the top. Going back down again was an exercise in side-stepping so as not to tumble into the ocean.
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| Not quite as impressive as the original. |
A museum called (in a fit of hyperbole) "The Pompei of the North" contains the remnants of a block buried in fifteen feet of ash. Only a few foundations of homes that once stood there remain. The government would like to excavate the site more completely but has run out of money. Sigh, what else is new?
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| Where's Mom? |
Then it was time for the puffins. We climbed a mountain by a lighthouse, and there they were, posing for our cameras like little divas. Most of the birds we saw were babies, waiting for their moms to come home with dinner. So they hovered nearby, not quite ready to fly.
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| How did they get here? |
I hung over the edge of a steep cliff to take this picture of several sheep, improbably grazing on a ledge near the ocean. How in the world did they ever get down there? My best guess is through a tunnel that we couldn't see from where we were perched. But they were self-assured and unfazed, like all of the livestock in this country.
