Iceland Expedition - Part 4

The Bird Plague

Here is another Iceland adventure that Bearbirds and I had, with wonderful photos courtesy of Bearbirds.

It turned out that the second part of Bearbirds name was going to get a plague on our journey through Iceland.

Bearbirds was talking with a Japanese Christian missionary in the bus to Mývatn (Midge Lake) when he suddenly cried, "I beg your pardon a thousand times, but have a look out of the window, please!"

Three white swans were flying beside our bus over the deserted Icelandic highland. After a while they turned off.

"Probably they are humans turned into swans by a sorcerer or a troll," Bearbirds whispered to me when the missionary had apologized for the interruption a second time and had delved into his nice Japanese Bible. Probably he had to reread how to proselytize people without losing the famous Japanese politeness. It's like try to square the circle, if you ask me.

Finally we reached Mývatn and stayed in a nice hostel near the lake. In the night Bearbirds tossed and turned in bed and said, "I can't sleep. The birds are crying so loud!"

"It was you who chose the place near the lake," I answered without turning my face.

I was sitting on the windowsill watching the water birds busy in the moonlight to arrange their nesting places. There was a lot of discussions and quarrel among all the ducks, geese and divers.

Bearbirds was tired and grumpy the next morning when we had a walk uphill. The wind tousled my fur but the view to the snowcapped mountains of the highland was marvelous.

Then we went down to visit the mud pools. They didn't smell nice. Bearbirds stopped at a pool with blue bubbles.

"Do you want to have a bath?" I asked.

"Of course not! Silly cat, can't you see that it's boiling? I really don't like to be grilled!"

I would have liked to ask if there was hot blueberry soup in the pool but I preferred to keep my mouth shut.

Later we reached a fenced pool where Bearbirds had to pay an admission fee. I sat down in a beach chair and Bearbirds dived into the steaming water. She met two women, tourists from the other end of the world, and they began to chat.

"We are quite alone in this nice hot lagoon!"

"Oh, yes, there are no tourists here!"

And finally they all began to sing and to cry, "Here are no tourists! We are no tourists! All the others are tourists, but not we!"

Which troll* had turned them into a crazy gaggle of geese? It was extremely embarrassing. And this was the first time when I thought, Bearbirds, you really can be a plague!

* You can see him in this picture:

As you can see, travel with Bearbirds in Iceland was quite an adventure and the natural scenery was eye-popping. I've never had so much fun and learned so much!