Myvatn, Midges, and Mud

We woke up – still in the fog from the night before. We made coffee and jazzed up the breakfast skyr with some warmed bananas and pecans. Felt all warm and toasty despite the cold foggy morning. Dave handled the driving. He's been great to drive the mountain passes or when it is foggy, knowing it is my preference to NOT be the driver then.

I don't drive much these days. I live in walking distance to work, and I walk there and back every day (about 2.5 miles round trip) I live in 4-6 miles (roundtrip) from everything I need – target, trader joes, the occasional cheeseburger with my buddy Jon. Driving is foreign to me-- especially driving in bad weather. Thankful for my brother!

So, we were on our way to a lake (and region) called Myvatn. Pronounced me-vaht. At least, we pronounced it that way and nothing bad ever happened to indicate we were wrong. It was looking to be a pretty rainy day all day so we drove around the town to scope it out.

The town itself is pretty small – a gas station/grocery store with an information center all right in one spot. BUT – lots of cool stuff all around. One thing we started noticing right away – because we'd never seen anything like it in the half of the country we'd seen so far – everywhere we went had a no camping or no parking overnight sign up. Hmmmm. Odd. As the day went on, we realized we'd need to have our first stay in a camp ground.

So, I know I've briefly touched on camp grounds before. Here's the thing – they are flippin' awesome. Every “town” of any size has at least one. Sometimes, they are just a field right in the middle of town. Sometimes, they are in dramatically awesome locations and have a lot of amenities. They are quite cheap – especially by Icelandic standards (I promise, a blog soon on prices.) Looks like the average price is around 1000 kroner a night per person. Less than $10 bucks. Sometimes this includes free showers, we were finding, and sometimes you had to pay just a little bit more for a shower.

We pulled into a campground called Bjarg to check it out. We needed to fill up our water tank anyway, so we did that first. Dave went into one of the buildings nearby to see about prices for the night and, presumably, to use the WC. Upon walking in, he discovers it is the shower and people are, in fact, in there showering. Our subsequent conversation went like this:

me: “Well?”

D: “That building is apparently the showers. I know this because people were showering when I walked in.”

“Hmmm. So, you saw nudes?”

“Indeed.”

“Huh. Didn't see that coming.”
“Me neither.”

“Were they surprised to see you?”

“Well, they were European.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know how European people never really look at you? Well, that's what happened.”

“huh.”

So, if you want to see naked Europeans for free while in Iceland – here's your tip. Go to campsite showers or the pools. You're welcome.

Anyway, he also discovered that the water hose we used was from a private residence. Oops. Time to move on!

We read in the book (“the book” is the Lonely Planet Iceland book, BTW) about a cool lunch place called the Cow Shed. WE thought this was a sub par restaurant name, but whatever – the book never let us down. We found it easily and pulled in. So, turns out that the name is quite accurate. I mean, it was literally a shed – and the cows were literally in it. And I was looking at them through a window. Hmmm. We chose a seat by the windows overlooking the land. That way, I could stare at the sweet baby sheeps! Yeah yeah, sheep is plural. Whatever. Baby sheeps. 

 our view from the table -- see the black things on the glass? Midges!

 Dave had a farm sampler plate.

 there's the cows -- hanging in the shed

 sauteed arctic char for me! super yum!

The menu was amazing! Yum! We had a fabulous lunch and enjoyed just sitting and watching the sheep meander about outside.

So – one thing in particular about Myvatn that is different from absolutely every other location on the island – the midges. A midge is a tiny little flying insect. Now, because Iceland is the most perfect country in the world, it is important to note that while these midges are annoying – they don't at all hurt you. They don't bite, or sting, or anything. They are just all over. Like a huge swarm of gnats – in your face. Cause apparently they live on carbon dioxide. Awesome. The book said go to the grocery store and get mosquito nets. At first we thought “nah”...then we thought “dude, drive over there RIGHT NOW and buy the nets!!” So, we did. A lovely thing about midges is that their very existence and death brings about more life – they are the reason there is moss growing on lava fields. Interesting, no?

We decided that since it was going to rain anyway and picture taking wouldn't be possible, we might as well spend some time at the infamous nature baths. I was SO excited!!! Soothing, hot water. Rainy, gorgeous day. Ahhhh....my soul was leaping at the mere thought of it. We drove over to check it out and were slightly disheartened to see a lot of tour buses pulling up and herds of older, white people heading in mass to my dreamy little respite. Hmmm... Well, we went in anyway and Dave thought that perhaps we could ask someone if they expected tours all day. See? That boy is useful and smart! I asked and they thought that these buses would be gone in 2 hours and no more were expected. Woohoo!

We'd somehow managed to lose Dave's knit hat – a must in Iceland. When it is windy (almost always) it is chilly. A hat makes it totally better – so, we scored a nice Icelandic wool hat and got the heck outta there.

Dave wanted to scope out some more photography sites for later so we cruised around to do so. We drove to Hverir – amazing. The ground is this sensational mixture of earth tones, bubbling mud, steam vents, boiling water. I was mesmerized by it – even in the rainy dreariness of the day. I cannot wait to see the pics Dave took. 

From there – we tried to drive up to the volcano Krafla. We were cruising right along and then BAM! Ice ad snow all over the road. In a big way. Like a landslide rolled over the road. Unfortunately, we couldn't turn around and we certainly couldn't go forward. So, we had to reverse down the road. Lord have mercy! So glad I wasn't driving – even so it was hard for me. I hate the sensation of rolling backwards. Dave handled it like a pro. Whew! After that, we needed our nature bath soak!!

So, we cruise back over to the Nature Baths and see the tour buses were still parked outside. We went on in anyway. It was 3500kroner a person – so around 34 bucks. You can stay all day – in and out of the various lagoons, steam showers, etc. They had a good cafe/restaurant too. Off we went.

There are a few rules for these larger mineral bath/lagoon joints. Basically:

you have to shower fully in the nude before entering. You cannot shower with your swimsuit on. There are posters up showing you which parts of the body in particular to wash. I HATE that I forgot to take a pic of them!!!

Anyway, it feels hard to get coordinated in there because you also have to

leave your towel in an interesting narrow slotted wall rack – which is the area in which one dries off.

Your shoes must come off far sooner – before you even enter the locker room.

Once I got all that figured out, got my swimsuit on over my specifically scrubbed areas, and figured out how to wear my locker key over my wrist, I headed outside.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Cold, windy, rainy day. I scrambled to get in the gorgeous, steamy, blue water. Oh.my.word. It is hard to really describe how it felt because typically, water doesn't have a feeling. This did. It felt soft. Almost in a liquid silk kind of way.The ground underneath us was black lava. It was pretty deep in some areas. They made it interesting by carving various nooks and crannies around the lagoon – gave it a look of having restaurant booths around one of the sides. We leaned our heads back to get our hair wet. It made our hair so smooth. Somewhere in there, I realized I had missed a rule – I didn't take my ring off. It was noticeable because it had turned black! I wear a simple gold and silver band. The gold was unchanged. The silver turned black. We were warned of this, but I simply forgot what with trying to put my towel in the right area and properly cleanse myself.

We probably stayed out there around an hour. It was very relaxing. People in Iceland are generally very quiet. I'll talk more about this later but as we moved around in the lagoon, we typically couldn't hear conversations happening unless we were pretty close to a group. We loved hearing all the many languages being spoken. Dave noted, however, that while we couldn't understand really any of them, they ALL could likely understand us. We had yet to encounter anyone who didn't speak English.

We decided to go inside and have a cup of coffee and hang out in there for a bit. We weren't sure what the process was – do we stay in our bathing suits? Change? Who knows! We changed and met in the cafe. Cake time! Today, Dave had cake but I picked up a bar of Icelandic dark chocolate. I'd been hearing about it for days so figured we'd give it a go.

Dave found a table in a corner with floor to ceiling windows over-looking the now creepy looking lagoon. We sat. And sat. And sat. It was a peaceful, restful way to wait out the rain. We drank coffee until we switched to beer. I blogged. Dave messed with the cameras and read some more in the book. It was really a nice time at the nature baths. We ultimately decided not to get back in – much more to see and do.

We got checked into our camp ground. They don't assign spaces here like they do in the US. You just drive in and park or pitch your tent wherever. Since we still had many hours of driving around before sleep time, we paid and left. We did hit the jackpot, however, in that they had laundry service! Hurrah! We dropped off a large load of laundry with them and they said to come back between 9-10PM and pick up the clean clothes. W00t! That cost about $9 for the washing and $9 for the drying. Most Icelanders don't use a dryer but since it was raining I didn't see that we had any other choice.

We parked the RV and I made dinner. Dave had read about a cool area in walking distance from the main drag in town so we decided to hike over that way and see what we found. Turned out to be really cool! Interesting caves and tunnels into and under lava rock formations. And, plenty of midges, too, of course.

We bopped around to a few other places still right near town killing time until the laundry would be done. Once we'd picked that up, Dave drove us back up to Hverir. He was excited to spend the late evening there taking pics. And boy, did he! I walked around in the sticky, gooey mud for awhile – delighting in the colors and oddness of the place. Watching a mud puddle boiling is the most sensational thing – and I don't know why! 

 This gorgeous blue pool is just off the main road but had warning signs all around it -- the water is crazy hot and will burn you instantly.

I then spent an equal amount of time attempting to scrape said sticky mud off my hiking boots. I finally gave up and just hopped back into Mr. Happy to do some writing. Hours went by and then suddenly, the side door flew open! Dave announced with total joy, “MAN! I feel like Teddy Roosevelt! I just charged up the side of a volcano and I've been taking amaaaaaazing photos all night! BAM!”

It was the most excited he's been yet this trip and it was fun to see. I seriously cannot wait to see the pics from that location. We cruised back over to the camp site and found a decent spot to park for the night. Dave had a snack – burns a lot of calories being Teddy Roosevelt – and then we pretty much fell dead asleep. A rainy, bleary-but-superb day that ended on a tremendous high note. All is well in Iceland.

A final note to Game of Thrones fans -- lots of locations around this area used for GoT!! So cool!!