Snaefellsnes Peninsula

The west of Iceland round the Snaefellsnes Peninsula reminds me of the desert in a wet kind of way. I know this does not make sense.... It has been raining constantly since we’ve been here, everything is totally soaked, the ground sodden, our clothes and feet are wet, waterfalls and creeks are everywhere yet the area still reminds me of a desert. It is the visibility of the folds in the land, the hollows, valleys, dips and ridges. Despite the obvious rain, the vegetation is grasses, not bush and certainly not trees.  It clings so close to the land. It makes it feel like the desert, in that you can really have contact with the underlying land formations.

Baejarfoss waterfall

Lava shapes near Buoakirkja Black Church

Raudfeldsgja Gorge

And yet there are far more colours than the deserts I’ve seen: reds, ochre, yellow, orange, green, lime green. The patterns are innumerable, I see so much colour in so little space. The land itself is volcanic black and red. There are often rocks with lichen growing on (well it looks like lichen) and moss. These things would seem to make it less like the desert and yet perhaps they add to that sense?

The other way the west part of Iceland reminds me of the desert is that it is bleak and harsh. While we see outcrops of houses and tonnes of fat sheep, it still feels inhospitable, a difficult place to live and make a living. There are lone churches, small and neat but they remind me of the people’s need to look to something else to elevate them from the physical world. The grandeur of some of the churches certainly speaks of this. The panels on the places we stop talk of exploits of trolls or half giant half humans, Norse gods and folk tales of betrayal and killings. Seems to me people want to be drawn elsewhere to the spiritual or the imaginative to free them from the harshness round them.

Stykkisholmskirkja

Stykkisholmskirkja Church