Ice landing

I was enjoying an afternoon coffee and reading a local paper in Reykajvik when I came across a remarkable stat that on average there are 2 murders a year in Iceland.  This seems a remarkably small number in the context of where I’d been recently, Guatemala for example averages 70 per week, with just over 40 a week in Guatemala City alone, while Honduras, with the current highest murder rate in the world averages a violent crime every 74 minutes.

I was also thinking at the time that I had more chance of being murdered that gloomy afternoon as I did of seeing the sun, or it stopping raining in Reykajvik during my short 36 hour stop over from New York to London. Luckily however I drew on my savy travelling experience and contrived an elaborate approach to ensuring that I did see glimpses of sunshine during my time in Iceland. 

Sun?

After an afternoon trudging around the city in the cold wind and rain and discovering that the sole of left foot is no longer water proof I made my way back to the hostel. As the bus for my flight to London was due to pick me up at 4:30am I was keen to wring enjoyment out of Iceland and sample the famed nightlife of Reykjavik before departing.

The beauty of the hostel is that invariably you will find accomplices for such endeavours and so with a fellow Australian, a French and a German we had a few beers at the hostel bar before heading into town.  Around 2am I made the enlightened decision that by now there was no point in trying grab an hours sleep and that’d push through to when the bus arrived.  After the obligatory late night feed I made my way back to the hostel around 4:15am, allowing myself enough time to grab my gear and meet the bus. 

Checking my pockets however I found I somehow lost the key to my locker.  No problem I’ll just grab the spare….unfortunately however the night clerk didn’t have one and suggested I look harder for my key.  I thought about where I may have lost it and through the haze remembered spilling money on the ground when counting change for the food. 

Giving up on catching the bus and resigning myself to an expensive taxi fare to the airport I retraced my steps on the post rain slick and shiny streets.  I searched in vain but found no trace of my locker key.  Returning to the hostel the night clerk then decided the best course of action was to break open the locker.  So at 5am, with me holding his phone for light we tried with a set of plyers and a file to jimmy the lock open….which only succeeded in him breaking the file off in the lock.  Unfortunately I was in a 6 bed dorm and all around formless shapes were rising and peering with squinting eyes at the light and the banging and screeching noises coming from my locker in the centre of the room. After the clerk and I had both had a crack at the non-budging lock we retired to the hallway to converse on our next move, which was to admit defeat and waiting until 9am when the day manager arrived.  Unfortunately my flight was at 7:40am and I had to kiss goodbye my ticket.

Struggling to sleep due to annoyance at myself I wandered out to reception where the newly arrived manager calmly followed me back to my room and unlocked the stubborn locker door to reveal my belongings.

By this stage I was well and truly over Reykajvik and spent a small fortune on a new flight leaving that afternoon.  As luck would have it I was able to glimpse the sun a few times on the 50km or so bus ride out to the airport. I eventually lobbed into London around 10pm, having had minimal sleep over the past 48hours during a rather expensive time in Iceland.