Husavik

For today we planned whale watching trip from Husavik. We made a reservation for 15:15 so we had to hurry up a bit and to resign from seeing the nearest penisula (the one with Siglufjordur, Olafsfjordur and Dalvik) so we just drove the main road to Akureyri and then to Husavik. The only thing I can say about the so-called northern capitol of Iceland is that it's huuuge considering it's population. 17,000 people leave there - that is around 10,000 less than my hometown, and my hometown looks like a little village comparing to Akureyri (not to mention that they have a university!). If you drive further on the main road (there's only one main road in Iceland, the one with number 1), you'll see a nice panorama of the town from the opposite side of Eyjafjordur.

We were about to turn left from 1 to 85 (the crossroads were on a hill) and whooops, we lost brakes! There came a series of bad wishes to our car rental people from the mouth of our fellow driver, but what to do? No time to stay here and wait for help, nor for going back to Akureyri. Fortunately they texted us with two addresses of mechanics in Husavik, so we went there... with a hand brake only. But the only danger - sheep - were kind enough to go away. The mechanics didn't have the proper hose and we would have to wait till tomorrow morning - therefore we asked them to block one brake and now we have only three of them but shhh, don't tell the police!

The whale watching didn't work today. The weather was bad, there was a storm on the sea and the captain decided not to go (they said no ship went out that day). We made a reservation for tomorrow at 9:00 then and I went to the whale museum near the harbor. It's definitely worth seeing! Lots of information about those incredible mammals and their unbelievable abilities, e.g. a sperm whale (nice name, by the way) can dive as far as 3000m down! And all this with lungs (very efficient ones though). There are some whales that make a bubble trap around fishes and then eat them, there are some that eat toooons of plankton and krill everyday, but all of them are enormous and beautiful in a special way. There's some practical information about many species as well: size, population, behavior, places where you can find them... You can also find Keiko room (the orca that played Willy), a hunting room, and if you go upstairs there are some whale skeletons. Very impressive... did you know that they have mammal-looking hands with five fingers?

It was getting late so we went to a small restaurant (Salka) instead of visiting Museum of Penises (yeah, there really is one... they say you'll find there a penis of every mammal living on Iceland except human). It's expensive and if you want to defeat your hunger, you'll have to order something like a burger with french fries. I wanted to try something that's special for this fishing region and I tasted some shrimps and langoustine. They have a very light and soft meat, delicious! But again, for ~2000 ikr you won't make your stomach full.

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