Iceland Part I: Horses

Photo courtesy of Kyle Wurtz

Recently, I read an article that said exploring Iceland is like hiking through a geology textbook. There are so many different landscapes and terrains, it's an apt comparison. Glaciers, volcanoes, fjords, beaches and dozens of cascading waterfalls. You could see all of those in just a couple of days. But despite the diverse scenery, there isn't much in terms of flora and fauna.

One of the curiouser aspects of Iceland is the lack of wildlife variety. There are many birds and plenty of fish in the sea, but the only mammals we saw during our time there were Icelandic horses (although according to this site, "polar bears occasionally visit the island, traveling on icebergs from Greenland." We didn't see any polar bears, unfortunately/fortunately).

Oh heyyyyyy, girl.

Icelandic horses are smaller than American horses (damn obesity epidemic), but they're not quite as small as ponies. In any case, they're definitely larger than a Delma, which for some reason became the standard unit of measurement when playing "21 Questions" during our long drives.

Icelandic horses are not only larger than a Delma, they're shaggier than a Delma too. Being winter, their coats were thick and furry, giving some of the horses emo-styled hair-dos. Combined with their penchant for standing in straight lines, it looked like the Icelandic horses were waiting to get backstage at a Dashboard Confessional concert. When the wind blows just right, their hair whips around in a frenzy and you could say they almost look like majestic, noble steeds (and since Icelandic horses apparently have their own congress, they should look like majestic, noble steeds). Almost.

When they start running though, you quickly realize their "whatever, man, be cool" image is a facade and that Icelandic horses are just big dorky posers. They don't run so much as forcibly trot, their upper bodies remaining perfectly still as their legs awkwardly flick back and forth.

They run like looooosers.

Regardless of their being posers, Delma and I really wanted to get close to one and pet it because we like to pet things (it's why we don't have many friends). Icelandic horses are everywhere in Iceland, but the timing was never right to get some QT with one. Either we were on our way to a geyser or there were 60MPH gusts of wind or the Icelandic horses were too far away for petting purposes.

On our fifth day in Iceland, the stars aligned (just like the Icelandic horses).

Driving back from checking out the wreckage of a WW2 US Navy plane, we spotted a group of Icelandic horses (a herd of Icelandic horses? band of Icelandic horses? smörgåsbord of Icelandic horses?) chilling by the side of the road. We weren't in a particular hurry to get anywhere and it was only lightly drizzling, so Kyle stopped the car and Delma and I hopped out.

The Icelandic horses weren't particularly interested in us at first, but like their American brethren, they're most definitely interested in sugar. We were banking on this and stole a bunch of sugar cubes from the hostel that morning. As soon as I lobbed that first sugar cube, three Icelandic horses trotted (forcibly, awkwardly, stupidly) over.

Here's Delma making one feel warm and fuzzy inside. She bribed him with a sugar cube.

Honestly, Icelandic horses are pretty chill animals. They came over, said sup, had some more sugar cubes. We stroked their Icelandic horse muzzles and they looked happy. A good time was had by all.

So why am I hating? I'm not ragging on them cus they're not chill. I’m hating on Icelandic horses because they felt out of place in Iceland. They looked like they would have felt more at home in Wisconsin. Short and stout with a gait that looks like that of an out-of-shape middle-aged white dude trying to play full-court. You'd expect a country with such breathtaking sights to have equally impressive animals. Icelandic tigers or Icelandic boa constrictors. I dunno. Icelandic horses just don't mesh with that “epic” Icelandic image. It’s hard to imagine a viking riding around on an Icelandic horse.

To be fair, I didn’t know what that Icelandic persona was going to be before embarking on this trip. I knew three things about Iceland before leaving: volcanoes, Björk and Hákarl. I did zero research and had zero expectations and figured if I didn’t know what to expect, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

This was a great strategy that I am going to utilize for all of my future trips because it resulted in me saying “Holy shit!” about ten times a day.

“Holy shit! That waterfall!”
“Holy shit! This wind!”
“Holy shit! That ice rock!”
“Holy shit! This hot dog!”

(It was the best hot dog of my life.)

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Icelandic horses. Like I said, they were super chill. I guess Iceland spoiled me. After being constantly surprised and astonished by its natural beauty (and hot dogs), the Icelandic horses were a bit of a let down.

I suppose that’s how you know a trip was awesome. When, after all you did and saw, the low point wasn't "it was boring." It wasn't "the food sucked" or "I got diarrhea," but rather it was "the horses were only ok."

"The Icelandic horses were only ok. I mean, they were chill. They just weren’t as majestic, as breathtaking, or as awe-inducing, soul-shaking, life-shattering as LITERALLY everything else we saw.”

LIT-ERR-AHH-LEE.

This concludes part I of what will probably (maybe) be many Iceland posts.