A Typical Day in Iceland
After a month of camping in this lovely country, I’ve definitely fallen into a routine. A typical day on this dialogue may be different than others given the fact that we don’t learn in a traditional classroom, but rather hike to different geological landscapes all around Iceland. There are three typical days: hike days, bus tour days, and days when we move campgrounds.
Regardless of the day, I typically wake up around 6:45. Breakfast is set up by Mal and our camp manager, Anne, by 6:00 and stays out until 7:45. I eat breakfast, get dressed, and pack my bag for whatever the day entails. On hiking days, we also pack lunches in the morning. Usually, we need to be on the bus by 8:30. It’s definitely an early start, but I’ve gotten used to waking up naturally from the sound of others moving about the campsite.
Hike days are pretty self explanatory. We either take the bus to the start of the trail or walk there from the campsite. Everyone can go at their own pace with a buddy, and we look out for specific features that we learned about before the hike. There’s usually an option to extend the hike led by our guide, Kirby, for the more daring (or crazy) students. Hike days were some of my favorites because of the incredible views we got to see. Not everyone can say that they ate lunch in a cirque or on top of a glacier. We typically get back to the campsite around 3 or 4, and most people are beat.
Bus tour days entail four or five stops around the area in which we’re camping. We’ve toured museums, studied pillow basalts, visited puffin colonies and much more. These days are our version of a classroom. We do field notebook and mapping exercises of different landscapes and have more in depth studies of different geological concepts. Somewhere along the way we stop and set up lunch. Our lunches are always sandwiches that we can create from the same selection of ingredients. While at first I feared the redundancy, the past few weeks have yielded some of the weirdest and most delicious sandwiches I’ve ever witnessed. Similar to hiking days, we usually get back around 4.
Days when we switch campsites are a little more hectic in the morning. We have to break down our tents and pack all our bags and still be on the bus by 8:30. It’s definitely a team effort: early risers who are packed and ready typically help people who are scrambling get packed up. Iceland also has a fun habit of only raining when we’re setting up or breaking down our tents. Once we hit the road, we usually have a few stops at coffee shops or museums to break up the driving time. There’s also usually a grocery stop so cook teams can prepare and everyone else can load up on snacks. Once we get to our next campsite, we set up our tents and get settled again. We stay in one place for anywhere from two to five nights.
Afternoons are typically open. I usually frequent the nearby pools or explore the local town in which we’re staying. When on the cook team, I start cooking at 5:30 and dinner is ready by 7. You will learn that cooking for 30 is no easy feat. After dinner there’s more free time (unless you’re on cook team–then you’re on dish duty). We usually hang out in the social tent and play games, read, or knit. People gradually retreat to their tents to get a good night’s sleep for the next big day.
