Sulfur & Memory
Iceland is reminding me strongly, unexpectedly, of Perú. The smell of the hot water is a powerful sense memory: a particular volcanic sulfur aroma that I might find unpleasant if it didn't draw me back twenty years to Chimbote. The cold water from the kitchen tap is clean and tasteless, but the hot water is geothermal and smells like it came from a posh neighborhood in Hell. When I shower or wash the dishes, I'm simultaneously in a cabin in rural Iceland and in a 3-story house in middle-class Chimbote, chickens clucking on the roof. A strange superposition.
I'm surprised, but I shouldn't be. Both Iceland and Perú are volcanic lands, shaped by lava and still active. Riding the bus from Lima to Chimbote and back, I always felt as though I were driving across Mars; the coastal region is in the rain shadow of the immense Andes and is all stark brown-red tumbles of boulders and sand. Iceland is more often compared to a lunar landscape than a Martian one, but the otherworldliness is similar.
There's even a distant echo in the languages, the shushing of Icelandic and the softness of Quechua. The language of the Vikings and the language of the Incas. Icelandic was longer protected from the soup of globalism by geography and weather, but the Internet and tourism are taking their toll even here.
I'm part of the Internet. Part of tourism. Treading as lightly as I can, but still treading the land in my heavy boots.
Today I'll be online most of the day, doing my tech startup work, torn between wanting it to snow more (we got a dusting yesterday that's already melted) and wanting easy driving weather for the trip to Reykjavik tonight. My best friend is already in the city, exploring, and tomorrow we'll wander together before driving inland to see waterfalls and volcanic craters.
