Relics of air travel

I just checked in with eagle air. The carrier for the domestic flight from Reykjavik to Hofn. Its a small industrial unit bordering the airfield. It feels how I imagine air travel of the early 1900’s. I walked up, gave them a wadge of Icelandic notes (£60) and without requiring id, asking innumerate insulting questions about my bag packing capabilities, scanning my luggage for anything slightly pointy or searching me in case of a hidden bottle of water, took my bag and offered me coffee.

Currently sat in their foyer, the pilots are cutting about drinking coffee and chatting-up the office girls and the groundsman young son (Appx 10) is running around in a pair of ear defenders.

After a brief conversation with rob it became clear that there will be no-one to meet me at the Hofn airstrip. Apparently the geographers have the Land Rover at the glacier with no intention to return until late. Normally no reception can be a good thing – less fuss, but with this, I realize that this is the first time Ive gone, let alone flown somewhere with absolutely no knowledge of whats there. Some accounts suggest a small gravel road others some sort of civilization. My GPS Helpfully displays no information other than a mark to say where the town is. Google maps have no imagery or mapping more accurate than a white smudge from the edge of space.

As my battery empties, the girl I saw apparently sat behind the desk has emerged, she was infact stood looks about 12, I hope the pilot is a little older.

Iceland, bring your baby.

Got on the bus, and was pleasantly surprised to find not one but two small children. They more advanced years than last nights only equipped them with bigger lungs, worse their parents did not appear to even try and quench the torrent of squalling.

I spent the morning wandering around Reykjavik town center, it was pretty much deserted due to the “long weekend”. A pleasant place by all accounts, feels like eastern Europe and ex soviet states but without the undercurrent of poverty The buss drivers that were working appeared quite disgruntled. One almost got his bus round the corner sideways!

A most surprising feature of Iceland is their scaffolding – Its wooden planks held together with nails. There is health and safety god, he’s Norse! Go Iceland.

Screaming little vomit pumps

The two flights to Iceland were a pleasant affair due to the lack of noisy drunken Essex folk found on cheap flights from Stanstead. The second (3hr) was only marred by the couple in the two seats next to me – they chose to inflict their screaming little child on the whole flight. Unsurprisingly a sub-month old baby didn’t understand the concept of takeoff and turbulence, it did however know how to communicate its concern for the loud noises and violent shaking.

Things were complicated when I received this email on the morning of the 3 flights to Hofn:

Flugfélagið Ernir / Eagle Air Iceland wrote:

>
> Good day,
>
> 
>
> I am sorry to inform you that your flight from Reykjavik to Hofn
> 04.08.08 at 7:30am has been cancelled because of national holiday. We
> have a flight later the same day at 16:00 and we have reserved a seat
> for you on that flight. Let us know if you would like to use it. We
> are very sorry for the inconvenience.
>
> 
>
> Bestu kveðjur / Best Regards
>
> Lára
>
> Flugfélagið Ernir / Eagle Air
>
> Bókanir / Reservation: +354 562 2640
>
> Aðalnúmer / Office: +354 562 4200
>
> Fax: +354 562 4202
>
> 
>

Thanks for the warning chaps!

This meant more hours in Reykjavik than i planned, less than i want to stay awake for. Kindly my mother battled my travel insurance company, they were useless, she found me a guest house – a nice one at that. It waqs situated  on an industrial estate right by the airfield, I suspect from the look of things it was the US base until they removed their talons a few years ago. This theory was supported by all the sockets in my room being the American type and hence useless. The Guest house was nice, if slightly noisy, the worst being the bird outside which must most accurately mimicked the noise of a slippy fan belt. Presumably from all the poor quality American cars.