One year later, we travelled to Iceland in Ido’s footsteps.
Our hearts were drawn there. To feel, to touch, to see. To try and understand. To breath in the place where he took his final breaths. Where he perished.
To meet those who set out to find him on that terrible stormy night. To erect a memorial in the place where he lost his life, where we lost him. An unbearable journey. A journey into the depths of pain, to the chasms of grief.
On Tuesday, July 12, 2005, Eyal and Nir take off from Israel. Ifat takes a flight from London. They meet at Reykjavik Airport. The next day, they set off on the Laugavegur trek. Gardar and Johann, from the Hella Search and Rescue team, join them. They begin their voyage on the other side of the path, going in the opposite direction to Ido’s.
On the second day of the journey, due to an injury, Nir and Ifat return to Reykjavik. Eyal goes on with the team members.
Later that day, at Alftavatn, Eyal meets Fanney, the warden of the hut in Hrafntinnusker, where Ido was supposed to stay. During their emotional meeting, she tells him that she went out to look for Ido in the terrible storm.
On Friday, July 15, 2005, Danny and I land at Reykjavik and meet Nir and Ifat.
Saturday, July 16, 2005.
We all meet at the hut in Hrafntinnusker. We get there with the help of Israel’s honorary consul and the Search and Rescue team members. Eyal, who arrived a day earlier, tells us that when he got there, the Icelandic flag at the site was at half-mast, in memory of Ido.
Brief arrangements, and we are on our way to the spot where they found Ido.
The incredible views seem otherworldly: a black-and-white wilderness, totally arid, with glaring white surfaces of ice strewn across stretches of volcanic ash and jet-black basalt rocks. The endless expanse is ridged with channels of meltwater. Not a single tree. Not a bush. No object on the horizon. The weather is bleak. It suits the mood we’ve been in since morning. In complete opposition to the clear skies and sunshine of the previous days.
And then, at midday, as we make our way, we experience the fickle weather, the power of nature. With amazing speed, we are covered with heavy fog. The temperature plummets and hard rain begins to pound down on us. We experience a tiny bit of what Ido went through. We witness the power and cruelty of Iceland’s stormy weather.
According to the search and rescue people, a year earlier the weather was much harsher, far more severe and cruel, and it took our Ido away from us forever.
We walk. Visibility is limited. We are blinded not only by the fog and rain, but by our tears.
We arrive. The site is painfully close to the hut. If the storm had lingered for just a few moments last year… Here, in the middle of nothing, on a black basalt rock surrounded with ice, Ido waited for the rescuers. Here is where they found him. Too late.
With indescribable pain mingled with numbness, we stood around the rock and communed with our Ido.
On the basalt-spotted bare icy wilderness, in heavy fog and freezing cold, we piled a heap of basalt stones. The memorial plaque we brought from home, from Israel, was set among them. In the primeval landscape, alongside the Laugavegur trail, we erected a memorial. In the place where we lost Ido - we eternalized his name. His memory.
And still - it is inconceivable. Incomprehensible.