Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.

Skogafoss. Iceland. January 10, 2016. Journal painting. 3.5 x 10. 5 inches. (8.89 x 26.67 cm)

January 10, 2016. Iceland. Turning left onto Highway 1, we proceed east. Set back to our left is a long escarpment. Above it, the slope climbs toward the snowy mass of Eyjafjallajoküll.
To our right the coastal plain stretches south toward nearby beaches. We pass a large tidal lagoon with black sand beaches to our right. Holtsós Arne tells us was a harbor in Viking times, but now is divided from the Atlantic by a narrow sand-bar. Hovering over the horizon, the sun casts a ruddy hue on a large mesa to landward. Looking like a slice of pie on the map, from our earthbound perspective we behold a sheer upheaval of basalt. Through a gap between this formation and the escarpment we had been following we behold the volcano summit, where a short time ago we had stood. Arne changes the subject.
“You know,” he asks me, “in Reykjavik there is a kissing cousins app.”
I asked if it was some kind of naught dating site, for people looking to hook up.
“Oh no,” he replies. “We Icelanders are very friendly. The problem is there are so few of us that you can’t be sure if someone is not a relative. If an Icelander talks to another one long enough, they’ll probably figure out that they have a common ancestor. Most of us are distant cousins.”
I asked him how the app works.
“Let’s say you just meet this really nice girl at a bar. At last call, maybe she wants to come home with you. You can take precautions and all that, but you know, drinking an all…anything can happen. If you have the app on your phone, you can just bump your phone against hers and it will tell you if she’s a first cousin or anything like that. Don’t want a baby with six fingers.”
“Reykjavik sounds like a wild town.” I say
“Not so much, but you know we’re all human.” Arne adds. “The app is more for young people going to clubs and bars. Cheaters used to hike into this ravine above Selfoss, where there are many hot springs. Some writer put it in a guidebook to sexy destinations, so now everybody goes there. It’s no secret anymore.” I ask him where cheaters go now. Hotels, he replies.
I ask is there is a hookup app for the Hidden People. Probably so he replies.
On paper the population of Iceland is a little over three hundred thousand individuals, which does not include giants, trolls, and an invisible race—like the Irish Tuatha de Danann. Living in natural features like rocks and hillocks the Huldufolk, or Hidden People are very real to Icelanders. Woe to him who builds a road or house, or disturbs in any way the natural arrangement of terrain, without some negotiation with this intangible population. This is accomplished through licensed intermediaries—ordinary human beings who represent their interests.

Skogafoss. January 10, 2016. The waterfall is caused by runoff from a glacier on the southeastern slopes of Eyjafjallajokull. Kathie Manthorne as cicerona.

Unlike Seljalandfoss, which has minimal amenities by comparison, Skogafoss has a proper restaurant, from which a trail leads to the base of the falls. The approach required walking across ice and snow with some care. My camera was tucked in the pocket of my Barbour oilcloth Anorak. As Kathie walks to the base of the falls, I choose a prospect and lay out a composition, across a page-spread in orange ink, making notes in watercolor. My field-box is a black-enameled steel box carrying a dozen half-pans aquarelles. The integral water-flask is closed with a threaded knurled brass cap. A rectangular enamel cup fits over the device, holding closed the lid, which serves as a palette. A high-sign from Arne beckons us back to his SuperJeep.

Basaltic outcropping next to Thorvaldseyri. January 10, 2016. Journal painting. 3.5 x 10. 5 inches. (8.89 x 26.67 cm)

We make one final stop at Thorvaldseyri, an historic farmstead that runs a museum dedicated to Eyjafjallajokull. It being Sunday, the gate was closed. Despite Arne’s insistence that some Icelanders have gone back to the old Norse gods, others still observe the Christian Sabbath. Parking on the shoulder, I am impressed by an almost complete absence of litter by the roadside.
I make start another painting, of an impressive vertiginous tabletop hill, just west of the farm. Driving back to Reykjavik in the dark, we are silent. Arne puts on some music.
Of Monsters and Men had burst on the scene in 2010. Icelandic pop star Bjork was already a household brand. Arne tells us that Icelanders are very proud of their literary heritage, going back to the Elder Edda, Snorri Sturlurson, and the late Halldór Laxness, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Medieval Iceland had the highest literacy rate in all of Western Europe. People would read to one another by the sputtering light of whale-oil lamps.
Passing Hvaergirði, Thousand Eyes is playing. Ahead the glow of Reykjavik lightens the dark western sky.
Kathie had booked us rooms at Hotel Natura, which though pleasant was nothing like its name.
The midcentury Bauhaus-style building stood beside what had been an Allied airfield during the Second World War. As we all tumbled out of the Jeep, I reached for my wallet to give Arne a tip. It was nowhere to be found.
Searching all my pockets and shoulder-bag, we looked on the floor-boards and under the seats.
Fortunately, I had scanned both sides of my credit cards and uploaded the PDF to my online Dropbox. Retrieving the document from a computer the hotel provided to guests, I went to our room and cancelled them all.
Three months later a person unknown to me sends me a query on Facebook messenger.
“Did you visit Iceland recently?”
Replying that I had, they responded by asking if I had lost a wallet. I replied that I had. The Good Samaritan informed me that she and her husband volunteer for periodic roadside cleanup details. Picking up litter along Highway 1, they found my wallet near Thorvaldsyeri. Addresses were exchanged. The wallet arrived a week or so later, containing all the credit cards and cash. Nothing had been taken.

James Lancel McElhinney © 2020
Queries: james@mcelhinneyart.com

© James Lancel McElhinney. 2016
Enquiries: james@mcelhinneyart.com

Disclaimer: The above is a work of fiction based on real events. Any resemblance to fact is coincidental. “Print the Legend”

(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).

Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com