Days 3, 4, and 5: There are clouds in the sky...

Replica of an early Icelandic house

Well, these last 3 days have been packed full of stuff! Mu took a ton of pictures and I'll post some of them here, and then he'll have more on Facebook.

On the road

On Monday (Day 3), we spent the morning in Reykjavik before setting out for the longest single drive of our trip.  We got a pretty late start since we were still on US time, but made it to the National Museum, which was really well done and informative.  It had a ton of artifacts ranging from when Iceland was first settled to the modern day, as well as a really neat aside about DNA analysis of a Viking woman found at a dig.  It was especially interesting to see all the changing religious art as Iceland transitioned from following the Norse gods into Christianity.  There was a little figure whose plaque read, "Thor or Christ?"  There were features of it that could be interpreted either way, and carbon dating didn't help because the religions were already co-existing at the time.

Stephen Stephensson

Eventually, we got on the road for our long drive to Akureyri, Iceland's second biggest city (of about 17000 people).  There's not much there, but it was a good overnight stop on our way to other things.  The drive itself was beautiful, and a bit intense.  The whole day was pretty overcast, and we had a 30ish minute stretch during which we were in a fog bank with minimal visibility.  I was glad to not be driving!  There was also a shortcut suggested by our GPS which was, in fact, a shortcut, but took us on an unsealed road (the first of several over the last couple of days, as it turned out).  We also stopped at a random statue that was a tribute to an Icelandic poet who moved to the US? I don't really know.  Anyways, we made it to our lovely guesthouse, got Indian takeout for dinner, and crashed out for the night.

At Godafoss

Day 4 began with a short drive to a lovely waterfall, Godafoss (waterfall of the gods).  It was very beautiful, though not very large.  We got to walk around both sides of the fall and even get relatively close to the water above it.  It was a fair bit colder than anything thus far, so we also stopped by the gift shop/restaurant, where Mu and Michael got warm accessories and I ate a sandwich with smoked trout (a happy find).  After that, it was on to Lake Myvatn and the surrounding sites.

That one looks like a troll!

First of the lake-related sites on our agenda was Dimmuborgir, a lava field with incredible lava formations.  The whole landscape there is pretty nuts -- all rock and random vegetation, with strange-looking structures and cracks in the ground.  It was starting to mist by this time, but being tourists, we went on a 2.3km walk around the place anyways. On the loop, I played my favorite game -- deciding what the formations looked like.  There was a dragon and a bear and a person and a kitty, among other things.  The highlight of the walk was a cavern that they call the church, presumably due to its size and structure.  We got to climb around it a bit before moving on.

The Church

After the lava field, we drove to a little village at the northeast corner of the lake called Reykjalid.  The plan was to hike from there to a spring, then on to a crater, then back to the village to pick up our car.  This would've been a 10km round trip, and thus reasonably doable.  The beginning was pretty cool, with rocks and pools (that we couldn't go into but that were pretty) and generally cool surroundings.  However, as we went on, the rain picked up.  By the time we had reached the halfway point, it was starting to get a bit concerning.  We were also all more tired than expected, given the walking from before.

Crazy crater

We initially thought about going back for the car and driving to the crater, but eventually after some discussion, Mu offered to go back for the car and to meet Michael and I at the crater before all climbing up.  That worked out really well and made a shorter hike for all of us.  The crater itself was pretty nuts -- the "easy" path was not, but the view was really amazing.  We had the option of walking around the whole thing, but it was raining pretty hard and we were tired and hungry, so we didn't end up doing that.  Still, it was worth all the effort.

Our delicious dinner

Our delicious breakfast

By this point, all our stuff was pretty soaked through and we were really looking forward to being fed and warm.  We went to a restaurant recommended by all sources (and so popular that we had to wait 40 minutes on a Tuesday night for it), and it was amazing.  Super delicious fish and lamb, and a house specialty bread that I didn't care for (I didn't like the spices), but that Michael really enjoyed.  And then, as the crowning glory to this day, we went to the Myvatn Nature Baths!  These consist of some locker room and a humongous pool of thermal-spring-fed water!  The water was warm but not hot (though hotter in areas), and although it smelled very strongly of sulfur, it was super nice and relaxing.  Since we got there late, it wasn't very crowded.  We probably spent about an our and a half there, just soaking and relaxing after the long day.  We crashed out pretty soon upon going to our guesthouse, which is why I didn't blog.

Bubbling pool at Hverir

Then, this morning, we had a lovely breakfast (more smoked fish, yay! And waffles with homemade jam!) before setting out again.  First stop was Hverir, a mud/geyser field that we stumbled upon while actually on our way elsewhere.  It was a really odd landscape, with sulfurous-smelling bubbling pools,vents with rocks, and strange Martian-looking structures.  The ground was clay-like and annoying, and my shoes will probably never be the same, but it was really neat.

Dettifoss is amazing

The next stop was Dettifoss, a magnificent waterfall that's the biggest by volume in Europe.  It apparently dumps something like 193 cubic meters of water per second!  We got pretty damp with the spray, though, and it would've been nice to go to other side, but there wasn't a bridge and you could only drive to it with a 4WD.  Anyways, we took some photos and then decided to hike up to a smaller fall, Sellfoss, up the river.  The hike itself was pretty short and easy...and then we got there and decided to spend 2 hours pretending to be mountain goats and hopping across rocks in an attempt to get to a better view.  No one fell in the water, which I count as a success. :)

Having hopped across rocks at Sellfoss

At this point, we had another long drive ahead of us, this time to see puffins and a fjord!  We were told that we'd be getting more sunshine today, but that turned out to be a lie, so we drove for nearly 3 hours through mist and fog and over some concerning roads to Borgarfjordur Eystri, a tiny village (pop: 130) with a puffin breeding colony.  It was a little insane, but worth the drive.  Puffins are pretty awesome looking, we saw other birds including Eider geese and gulls of some kind with chicklets, and Slartibarfast would have approved of the fjords.  We also took a short detour to see Alfaborg, the house of the queen of the elves.  I don't know either, but it was awesome.


Dinner consisted of, among other things, delicious fish soup at one of 2 restaurants in town, and then we had another long drive along amazing and scary roads to our guesthouse, which is in the middle of nowhere.  I don't know how people live in this kind of isolation, but it's fun for a day or two as a vacation.  Tomorrow, we're off to see a glacier!

Puffins!

Random waterfall along the road