the lights
We loved all our Icelandic adventures. You can read about them here. By far though, we were most excited to see the Northern Lights. Thanks to Evy’s thorough research and a very cooperative weather forecast, the conditions were right for a chance to see the aurora. But there’s never a guarantee they’ll appear or that you’ll be in the right place to see them. We started our tour hopeful but not naïve. When we got on the small bus at 10pm, we chatted with two other tourgoers. They had tried to see the lights the night before. Apparently, their determined guide tried for 5hours to find any hint of solar activity – with no luck. The forecast this night was much better than the day before. But listening to their ordeal, I couldn’t help but feel anxious about our chances.
It took about half an hour of driving before we had left the light pollution of Reykjavik. A few minutes later, we started to see wispy, green-tinted clouds – the Northern Lights! They weren’t at all like the streaming ribbons of neon green and red you see in guide books, but they were still very pretty. Our guide was excited that there was solar activity so early in the evening and said she would find a place to park the bus so we could get out to enjoy them. With all the snow built up on the sides of the rural roads, there was no place to stop. She kept driving. The energy on board was frantic as we leaned over one another and strained to see out the tinted windows. We all knew the lights could end any minute, and this might be our only chance to see them. It felt like forever before our guide found safe parking at a lake. We hurried off the bus and looked up.
Pale green wisps were spreading across the sky. They moved and changed from minute to minute. Slowly, they grew into long, bright ribbons. We couldn’t believe it! After maybe twenty minutes, the lights started coming down from the sky in long ‘curtains’! They danced and sparkled overhead as they shot through the atmosphere. The display lasted for more than an hour. Taking in the beautiful show, we felt pure awe. If we hadn’t seen anything else during our time in Iceland, the entire trip would have still been worth it just to see this unbelievable display.
(Resumen en español)
Disfrutamos de todo lo que vimos en nuestros viajes. Pero sin duda, lo más increíble que vimos fueron las auroras boreales. Nuestra excursión comenzó a las 10 de la noche e inmediatamente salimos de la ciudad. Habíamos conducido durante aproximadamente 40 minutos cuando comenzamos a ver nubes tenues y teñidas de verde, ¡la aurora boreal! Tuvimos que seguir conduciendo hasta un lugar seguro para estacionar el autobús. Cuando finalmente nos paramos, salimos rápidamente del autobús, miramos arriba, y se esparcieron por el cielo unos rizos verdes claros. Se movían y cambiaban cada minuto. Poco a poco, se convirtieron en cintas más largas y brillantes. ¡No podíamos creerlo! ¡Después de unos veinte minutos, ¡las luces empezaron a bajar del cielo en largas cortinas! Bailaron y brillaron en lo alto mientras atravesaban la atmósfera. Cuando vimos el hermoso espectáculo, sentimos pura fascinación. Si no hubiéramos visto nada más durante nuestro tiempo en Islandia, todo el viaje hubiera valido la pena solo por ver esa impresionante exhibición.
