Reykjavik tourist shops are filled with T-shirts sporting variations on the I Visited Iceland theme, including one touting “Cats Of Reykjavik.”
Where have they put them? During every trip we have taken, ever, there has always been a cat. Or many cats, as in our Algarve AirBnB. In our entire time in Iceland, we seen just one cat, and that just its fleeing butt-end.
With the exception of sea birds and the Arctic Fox, the majority of species found today in Iceland arrived along with the humans. We didn’t see any foxes. But we saw lots of critters.
Birds
Other than crows and a few mallards, all the birds were unfamiliar to us. Whooper Swans, which actually look a lot like white geese with gold heads, dot the greener fields. Visiting the “pseudo craters” in Myvatn we strolled the lakes and saw rock ptarmigans, whooper swans, horned grebes, and lots of others we did not identify.
Sheep
There are somewhere between ten score and ten billion sheep in Iceland. Driving along the ring road, you are surrounded by fields of straw-colored puffballs of grass dotted with straw-colored puffballs of sheep. Or perhaps fields of sheep dotted with puffballs of grass. They are indistinguishable, hence either figure could be correct.
This was lambing season, so we regularly screeched to a halt and leapt out with cameras. “So cute!” cooed Terri. “And tasty!” added Marida. She should know, having sampled the local lamb roasted over root veggies, in tacos, and soaking up bread in traditional lamb stew. Icelandic lamb is truly superlative, which the Icelandic Lamb Marketing Board (or something) attributes to the herbs they feed on in their open air wanderings.
Horses
Icelandic horses originally came over in open Viking ships, and the toughness this required remains a feature of this breed traditionally used in sheep herding. But they are also unusually playful, and we often found them cuddling neck and neck or prancing around a field for no apparent reason. And it was foaling season!
Fish
An Icelandic lady we met in a hot tub recommended ocean conservations types such as ourselves should go to Siglufjöður, a cute port in the far north with a long history as the world’s capital of herring fishing. Until they fished them dry, of course. The town was “well, huh” but the Herring Industry Museum was awesome – three huge old buildings with antique fishing boats you could climb around on and inside of, as well as fish oil processing and salt packing machinery. By the time we emerged, it was snowing and the mountain road was starting to ice up. We leapt into the car and plunged into the first of several miles-long, creepy tunnels through the mountainous terrain framing the fjords.
Driving south, we had a looooong journey but stopped in Vidimyrarkirkja which may (?) be the oldest church in Iceland. It’s beautiful, even if it’s not.
At the end of a long day, we landed in the historic Blonduos hotel. This is salmon country, both for sports fishing and for farmed salmon. We stayed up the hall from the favorite room of Eric Clapton and (later) Ringo Starr, who came repeatedly. I asked why. They had no idea. Maybe they like salmon fishing?