Iceland is a country where nature and natural phenomena remind us of both their beauty and their power. So it happened when I arrived in the country in the beginning of June 2024. I traveled from Finland by ship and train to Norway and when I was about to board the plane in Oslo, I received a message from my icelandic colleague of the Forestwell project, Hulda, stating that I would not be able to reach the final destination, a village called Höfn in East Iceland, a six-hour drive from Reykjavik.
The roads were closed due to a very strong storm, rains, possible snowfall and sandstorms.The volcano activated at the end of May in the village of Sundhnúk was also still spewing smoke, but there was no acute danger.
If there was something good about this situation, it was at least the fact that I changed my plan to travel by plane instead of travelling by ship (Smyril Line from Denmark via the Faroe Islands). If I had chosen this route, I probably would have had to travel in a really bad storm and be stranded for several days in the port town of Seyðisfjörður.
