In this part I want to tell you about Hitch hiking in Iceland. Don't do it!! The travel guides are quite encouraging about it, saying it's a cheap way to get around and that in Iceland it is safe to do so. In Iceland you will feel safe. However, when you go past Golden Circle, the traffic eases, to some parts where you will not see car for miles/hours. Icelanders do not commute from town to town in hoofs, like it is in Europe. Out of a Ring road it could be days. Also as I already mentioned, the weather changes, and I cannot stress enough the amount and ferocity with which the water falls from heavens. I have always used the term “horizontal rain”, but have seen the true meaning of it in Iceland. Iceland is so popular because of its unspoiled natural beauty and its wilderness. They do not have shelters/bus stops every couple of miles. Also distances between towns are much greater.
Can you see yourself hitch hiking day in, day out in these conditions? (btw this is primary surfaced road :-) )
Picking hitch hikers is up to you. I picked up one, who was Icelander and it was the longest 40 minutes of my life on the island. Not stopping was not an option, as to avoid him from the track I was driving, would mean steering the car into a massive drop. Plus I had one of my Samaritan moments: this was in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of anyone driving by in the next couple of days, and a very high chance of torrential rain arriving in the next couple of minutes as I have managed to overtake it on my way. You could say, God has listen to his prayers (He's obviously multilingual) and have send me down :-) It was quite funny that when he flagged me down, he had a beaming expression on his face. (This was one of the 5 beaming expressions on any Icelanders’ face I have seen in all my stay. They prefer to match the weather with their face expressions). This very quickly disappeared, when he realised that I wasn’t an Icelander (too pretty) nor could I speak or understand the gobbledy-gook. As great majority of visitors do not bring their vehicles to Iceland, a car having an Icelandic number plate, does not guarantee to carry an Icelander. After impressing him with my fairly extensive Icelanding vocabulary (which took about 30 seconds), he decided to match it with just "my car" and point a finger into infinity. Not impressive, but at least I knew, high jacking and rape wasn’t on his agenda. I have missed taking a truly spectacular shot and I hate myself for ever picking him up. Lesson learned. He should make better arrangements in the future and not rely on hitch hiking, as a regular transport.
Or in these? (Holmavik)
After I learned from this, I have not stopped for the next hitchhiker. Well hitchhikers. It was two of them with massive backpacks, the Icelandic heavens living up to their reputation and fully opened up, and them looking like cats that have just escaped the mass drowning. It was very easy not to stop as A) they would have never got into the car with their "light travel" bags, B) they were totally soaking wet, and I didn’t want my nice hire car all wet and get fined and C) it was two of them. And me lonely female, damsel in distress; and they always say you should stay safe. The funny bit on this experience was that as soon as I passed them, I felt a pang of guilt and I look in a rear view mirror. One of them quite aggressively threw his hand in the air with his middle finger proudly erected. Yes, there really only was one winner in this situation and it was ME! Thanks for pointing it out, mate. I was in a nice dry, warm (27C to be precise), comfortable car, with radio blaring Chris Rea’s’ Road to hell; those two cold, wet with heavy backpacks that were getting heavier and heavier with the rainfall. If it wasn’t for his aggressive approach to the negative outcome to his sorry situation, I would have felt really guilty and stopped the car, given them couple of carrier bags to cover their heads, some light unpalatable Icelandic snacks I have purchased couple of days ago and wasn’t planning on finishing them, and offered rough time frame when they can expect the next car to drive by, to raise their spirits. But as he got excremental with me, I just carried on driving, with my pang of guilt disappearing and very, very warm feeling inside. Sign it was time to turn down the heating :-)
If you go for hitch hiking wear, hi-vis jacket. And get bulletproof waterproofs.
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