Fire and Ice

Our third day began early. We'd ended up "camping" so late that we didn't find a spot near a WC. When we woke up, therefore, we had to get going! It was a bit chilly so we got the coffee going and headed out to find a WC.

It's fabulous to get to have great coffee every morning, even while living in a camper van! Happy Campers equipped us with these rockin' travel french presses and you know I packed along my favorite coffee from the Bay Area:) Peet's coffee every morning. Yum!

Now, don't get all persnickety with me. We're drinking Icelandic coffee, too. We stop in little cafes and coffee shops periodically and have had some great cups of coffee. It is very typical here for the coffee to come from a machine -- like a huge Keurig or something similar. We don't like this as much -- not as strong. Or, as Dave put it, "When it comes from a machine, it lacks the caffeine."

At any rate, once we were sufficiently caffeinated, we had breakfast at this nice turn out. The turn outs here are great. Many have the sign boards that I mentioned before. They almost always have a picnic table. Sometimes a WC and sometimes trash cans.

The landscape here can change dramatically in short distances. I don't mean go from prairie to mountains, though sometimes that, too. I mean lava fields to soft green rolling hills to mountains to canyons of rivers and streams, to the arctic tundra to Mars.

 glaciers on either side of the mountain

 Awhile ago, a volcano erupted and immediately melted part of the glaciers -- sending a massive amount of water rolling downhill all at once. It wiped out everything in its path -- including the steel bridges. You can see a huge chunk of twisted bridge below.

We had some driving to do today to get us over to the enormous national park, Vatnajökull . We made many stops along the way for pictures, to just enjoy the scenery, etc. Once in Skaftafell, we went to the visitor center to get more detailed park hiking maps and look around. Really a great place -- tons of information available, a little cafe where we had apple cake and coffee, and showers! SHOWERS! Oh the bliss!

We threw down the cake (came with fresh, real whipped cream....yummmmm!), grabbed the hiking trail map (Cost 350 kroner -- about 3 bucks) and went to the RV to load up our packs. We have been good at bringing bottles of water and snacks on all our hikes...which is good because no hike is ever as short or as easy as we first imagine.

Side bar -- speaking of water, the water here is excellent. You can drink from any stream, fountain, source...it is all pure and delicious. There are hoses at all gas stations, campgrounds, various other places where you can fill up for free. We have a 5 gallon tank under our little sink in the RV. We keep it full and fill up our bottles wherever we can.

Campgrounds are interesting, too. Often, they are just a grassy field. However, there is often a little house or room of some sort with a kitchen, bathroom, sometimes a washer. We cooked breakfast on a stove top with borrowed skillets in one such room just the other day. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, we intended to do the 3 mile route which began in the campground where we parked -- went out to a glacier overlook then up to the waterfall then around to an old Icelandic house and stable before descending back to the visitor center. However, we veered off on the trail and missed the glacier. Who cares!??! We'll swing back around later or not. We could see the glaciers from the road anyway, so we didn't really miss it.

The hike was gorgeous and fairly rigorous. Rocky, hilly, twisty, windy. I LOVED it. Totally my kind of hiking. Svinafell was worth the effort -- a gorgeous waterfall (you know the word by now, foss!) dropping amidst basalt. The trail took us all around it -- starting high, dropping down to ground level and back up again. There were other people around, certainly, but people are very polite and many are also photographers so there are rules of etiquette that are generally followed. That said, sometimes spatially ignorant tourists walked literally right in front of Dave's tripod and camera and proceeded to stand there totally unaware they were in his shot:)

The Icelandic farmhouse was really cool. Made me feel quite tall. This pic of me by the door is actually the animal stalls. It is literally built next to the house and there was a door between them from the inside. We loved the grass roof, too. The farmhouse itself was very cute -- small with interesting door and window placement. A large step up into the kitchen, which was at the back of the house -- most of which was technically built into the hillside -- with 2 windows jutting above the ground providing light into the room. Then there was just a single room at the front of the house and the connecting door into the stalls.

Right across the road was a real farm and they had a lot of ponies. The ponies here are special. Icelanders are very protective of them. They cannot leave Iceland nor can any other horse be brought into Iceland. The Icelandic Ponies (as they seem to always be called) are smaller and stockier than the horses we're used to in the states. They are all over the place here and are beautiful. I was quite surprised to see that often, they are laying down. Of course, having also taken a brief snooze in that "sweet Icelandic grass" (as we now refer to it), I can see the charm.

When we got back to the campground, we decided to forgo circling back around to the glacier overlook trail. We were ready for showers! We bought cards in the visitor center that got inserted into a control box in the private shower rooms. It was about 5 bucks for 5 minutes of hot water and it felt AMAZING.

Now we were totally recharged and ready to continue kicking serious Iceland butt so we hopped back in Mr. Happy and continued on. We needed to stop for gas and food on our way to the glacier lagoon. Getting gas here is interesting. We'd heard ahead of time that you need a gas card with a pin to get gas. Well, technically, any card with a pin will do it -- so I've had to use my debit card for this. The first time we got gas, I didn't understand that I could use my debit card so the guy at the station came out and used a store card for me and then we went back inside and he charged my credit card for the amount. Easy enough! The next time, I assumed it would go like that. It didn't. This brings up one of our many Icelandic mottos (there are several created daily): "I didn't see that coming." 

This time, the lady came out to show me, the guy across from me and the guy behind me how to use the pay at the pump machine. After that, I figured I had it down. Yeah. right.



Now all fueled up, we attempted to go across the street to the restaurant in town but it wasn't going to open until 6:30 and it was only 5. We went back to the gas station for dinner. In the US, that would be gross, but here it is common. Nearly every gas station we've been to has a restaurant attached and there is real food cooked. We enjoyed our meals a lot and even tried our first Icelandic beer on draft, a Viking. Dave had fish and chips and I had a burger with ham, bacon, cheese, and a fried egg on it. Sounds odd and I didn't know that was what I was getting, but it was delicious.

So-- now we were ready to drive to the large glacier lagoon. I didn't know what to expect, having never seen anything like that before. I was blown away when I first caught a glimpse of it. We ended up spending the night parked right in front of it. Dave walked around it for hours that night taking pics. It was mesmerizing. Calm, quiet, gorgeous. Surprising colors. Sometimes a seal would cruise through. Lots of photographers coming and going throughout the evening. By evening I mean between 9 and midnight. With 24 hours of light, the photogs like the 6 or so hours of "twilight" we have now because it is the best light to shoot in.

At one point, I was sitting in the RV just watching the lagoon. A little iceberg broke free -- it made the most magnificent sound. The ice floated along the current on its way out to sea. I was amazed by this tiny little view of a nature I'd never seen before. Loved it.



Dave came back to the van around midnight and we had a nightcap and went to bed. Another full day of adventure under our belts. Hurrah!

Lots of cliches and adjectives!!

It's hard to keep coming up with new ways to properly exclaim our joy every 3 seconds. We started out with lots of cliches and adjectives, but already by day 2 we've reduced it to, "This is just stupid." -- short for stupidly beautiful or amazing or fill-in-the-blank. Or, simply, "man."

A conversation might go like this:

"Man."
"Yup."
"Dude."
"I know."

The morning of day 2 brought about the first of "You know you're not in North America anymore when..." moments, of which we're assembling many.

First, the bathrooms here are ridiculous. Even the supposed "port-a-potty" type facilities are clean, well stocked with supplies, and all have running water! And, most importantly -- THEY DON'T SMELL! Amazeballs!

Anyway, woke up on day two, looked out the window and discovered I had in fact slept under a waterfall and it wasn't just a dream. Got up, made coffee and walked around and under the fall -- getting soaked and loving every single drop.

 Here's your dose of "you know you're not in N. America when..." this is your exit path -- no stairs, no signs saying caution, no hand rails. Bam! Just you and nature.

We drove just a little ways down the road to a camp ground with walk in access to another foss. This was awesome -- we could walk into a cave like area under it. I shot some video of this because the sound was so amazing!

After this, we walked back outside and the grass looked so amazing, soft, and green -- I had to lay down in it.

We cruised onward to an area where we'd read about a geo thermal pool. An interesting thing about Iceland is that the directions are both as specific as possible and completely vague. We read that you park by the house and walk 10 minutes. So, we parked by a little house we found and started walking. It failed to mention we'd be walking along a rocky river bed, which was totally fine, but I would have carried my things in a backpack had I known! This was good foreshadowing though... Before long, we came to this amazing and completely deserted pool. It was a bit nerve wracking to just jump in not really knowing if it was ok, what was in there, how deep it was, etc. But, I was desperate for anything even remotely related to bathing -- so I jumped in. Ahhhhh.....amazing. Perfectly warm and soothing. There was even a deep end and a shallow end:)

 Dave on the hike back to the van after the geothermal bath soak and swim.

Lunchtime! We drove into Scogar and found a funny little cafe/dinner theater looking place and I chowed down on fish and chips. The salad was super good -- the feta was made with fresh sheep's milk and the veggies are grown right here in Iceland. Their main product is geothermal heat -- so they have lots of green houses and can grow veggies year round. Dave had a smoked lamb sandwich.

 This cute little farmstead sits in Scogar at the mouth of the river at the bottom of the waterfall.

 Lots of tourists because we were there during the middle of the day. Another "You know you're not in N. America..." moment -- well, ok, several. A) There were 456 steps up to the top and no other way up. Not always handrails. No markings or warnings. B) Almost all the tourists went up to the top -- even the elderly ones! C) There was no bathroom or concession stand sort of place other than the hotel and cafe where we had lunch.

 You can't tell from this pic, but he was hanging out on this little chunk of overhang taking a picture of the foss.

 One happy girl!

 This is what is going on just upstream of the major falls. One thing we're finding is that all Icelandic waterfalls are compound. If you keep walking, you'll find more waterfalls.

 A little bit of magic as we walked back to the RV after a great and steep climb up and back down. Loved it.

Next, we ventured over to a gorgeous black sand beach. I was amazed at the sand itself -- check out the texture...

 really cool basalt columns -- the tops of these were wide enough to sit on. When we first arrived, there was a large group there sitting all over the columns for a group photo -- looked cool having people stacked all over them!

We continued our journey on east and made a brief stop in a super cute little town called Vik. It had an adorable church at the top of a hill overlooking the town.

 Love these pretty flowers that look so much like blue bonnets. They are lupines.

We concluded our evening with an amazing, long hike in a deserted canyon. It remains one of our favorite places (I'm writing this now on day 7). The temperature, colors, landscape...everything was perfect. We walked until around 11:30 PM and intended to stay right there at the base of the canyon. There was a WC and everything! (bathroom = WC= water closet) Unfortunately, when I came out of the WC, I saw a small sign that said no camping:( It was odd, because generally you can camp absolutely anywhere unless you are on private property. We thought about ignoring it because we were so remote and it was already almost midnight -- we didn't figure anyone would really be coming to check. But, ultimately, we moved on, sadly, and ended up camping under another waterfall just a bit down the road.

Dinner before the canyon walk -- sat down by a pretty creek under twin waterfalls.

 Twilight. We're in 24 hours of sunlight, so this is about as dark as it gets. Gorgeous. So glad we brought sleep masks to block out the light. Dave has been referring to them as, "velvet love masks."

 Find it totally interesting that many trails here go right through farms and people's property -- and they'll just build ladders like this one so you can get over the fences.

This is the view of the waterfall from my bed in the van. Was around 1 am at this time. Man, we were exhausted but what a stellar day!