Látrabjarg, Westfjords, Iceland.
The evening hour made our walk up the hill almost solitary. Still, the sun stood high behind the clouds, making a compromise by submitting a slight orange glow from behind its curtain. Hidden between the high grass, a small artic fox shot off. We didn’t see him. Our eyes were fixed on where the cliffs met the sea. Here you could submerge in that on-the-edge-of-the-world feeling. A true indulgence for a storyteller. Not 10 minutes on this cliff and tales started gnawing on the border of my mind.
I didn’t take long before Koen found the few puffins resting on the edges of the rock. We had seen a thousand before on Grímsey Island (Click here for that story!) Here the majority of birds flying in and out of their nests on the cliff were of a different kind, which didn’t make it less impressive to see them swooping over the ocean. While Koen was slightly obsessing over the birds, I proceeded to take in the views. To the north a sequence of fjords spread out. The colour of their rock getting a shade of blue just that little bit darker each time. We had followed the road coming from Breiðavík, which lied up north in a yellow sand bay that oddly resembled much warmer places on this earth.
I shift my gaze to the western horizon and let the wind play with the view. Rumour says you can spot whales from up here, enormous bundles of life. I turn around, looking over the cliffs to where the grass flows in waves all the way to the east. Rumour says you could walk all the way up to here from Rauðasandur. Don’t you just love how the people, their stories and our mother planet all come together in magical places like this? Swirling around in the magical vibrations of the mystery that we call life.
END NOTE
I don’t have to remind anyone to keep a safe distance from the cliffs. The ground can be unstable and wind can take you off guard. Never cross any boundary lines and don’t litter. Feel the way nature shows you love by giving you access to her beauty. Look where you are and then love her back.
I recommend sleeping in Breiðavík, which lies only a short drive away from the cliffs. There lies a lovely hotel with camping ground in a beautiful bay.
