Day 202-visiting friends in Tálknafjörður

   July 24-We got up and around and headed out in the late morning.  We drove highways 60 and 62 through the southern West Fjords taking in the sights.

Larger farming operations, like this one near Gilsfjörður, have balers that also wrap the bales in plastic.

This waterfall in Fjarðarhornsdalur appears to spring from the cliff face.

   We arrived in Tálknafjörður in the mid-afternoon.  We came here to visit the family of Spencer’s friend, Hinrik Nói, who lived at Varmaland until early June, because his father, Börkur, was the principal at that school.  Shan also knew his mother, Helena, since she was one of the teachers at Hraunborg.  Unfortunately, we did not see Börkur on this visit, because he has returned to the life of a fisherman and the boat on which he works headed to sea at 2am this morning.  He was not due to return until sometime on Friday.  It sounds like hard work with a very random sleeping schedule.  Helena does not like that he is gone so long at a time and is justifiably worried of the dangers of life at sea.  However, Börkur enjoys the work and modern technology allows him to make cell phone calls far out at sea when he has a free moment.
   Report cards and school pictures were handed out to the Varmaland students a couple days after we left on our trip to Europe in June, so Börkur kept them for us and Helena gave them to us.  When Helena saw the report cards, she said that the girls had gotten very good marks.  We had noticed that the girls were being taught material that they had already seen the previous year in Gunnison, so it made sense that they should have done pretty well at Varmaland.  Nonetheless, we were very proud of their willingness to go to school in a foreign country and to take it seriously enough to do well academically.

Halla,  Ingibjörg, Spencer, and Hinrik Nói.

   By chance, Spencer’s Hraunborg teacher and Helena’s good friend, Ingibjörg, happened to visiting today, because she is originally from Tálknafjörður, just like Börkur.  In fact, they are related (second cousins), but this is not hard to imagine in a community with only 300 people!  Ingibjörg’s family is moving to Ísafjörður in the northern West Fjords, where her husband, Halla, is from.  They were just stopping through Tálkanfjörður on their way back down to Bifröst so they could pack the rest of their belongings for the final move.  We had a great time sitting around talking to the two families and a couple other people who stopped by during the course of the afternoon.  Shan had not been aware of some of the personality conflicts and politics at Hraunborg, so those revelations were interesting.   The for-profit Hjallastefnan education group that runs Hraunborg is also taking over the public school in Tálknafjörður, which is somewhat confusing.  Since the county government will continue to provide the same amount of funds for the school, any sort of a profit margin for Hjallastefnan necessarily means that less money will be available to spend on the kids’ actual education.  Since Helena is aware of this, she is going to observing the school very carefully to make sure that no corners are cut in the process.
   Another set of family friends from Ísafjörður arrived in the evening to pick up some table and chairs, so they stayed for a while and supper with us.  The husband works as an assistant principal in the public school in Ísafjörður during the winter and runs a horse-guide business during the summer.  It was interesting to compare his business with similar businesses that we know about in the Gunnison area.  Helena boiled us some potatoes and halibut that Börkur had brought home on his last fishing trip, a very traditional Icelandic meal, and it tasted fantastic.  The parents of Helena’s ex-husband (the grandparents of Helena’s teenage daughter, Ása ) showed up and ate supper with us as well, and then they joined us in a visit to Pollurin (the puddle, in English), the semi-improved hot springs a few miles east of town.  The water was hot, the company was delightful, and views out onto the fjord were fantastic.  We finally got out, the kids changed into pajamas, and we all headed back to Helena’s around midnight.

Grandmothe Ása, granddaughter Ása, Spencer, Joslyn, Hinrik Nói, Ása's cousin, Helena, Alex, and Sally relax in one of the three hot pots at Pollurin, looking out over the mouth of Tálknafjörður.

Tálknafjörður at midnight.