mánudagur, 23 júlí

The Icelandic legend says that God was going to pay Eve a visit in the Garden of Eden. She thought she'd put her best foot forward and only show him her clean children. Unfortunately, she forgot about that omniscient part of His personality. He got angry and since she had hidden the dirty children from Him, he decided to hide them forever from her and made the dirty children invisible. In order to get clean, these invisible (but no doubt still dirty) children live on the banks of Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods. It didn't get its name from that legend, though - Þorgeir, law-speaker for the Alþing in the year 1000, meditated for at least a day about Iceland accepting Christianity or staying with the Norse gods. He chose Christianity (but allowed for the worship of the Norse gods in people's homes) and on the way home, tossed his wooden carvings of the Norse gods into the waters of Goðafoss.

Akureyri, the Northern Capital, is set on Iceland's longest fjörd, Eyjafjörður. We stopped here for a couple of hours (it was the last Vín Búð until Reykjavík) and I wandered up to the cathedral and then down to the main shopping district for lunch. Along the way I saw beautiful cottage gardens, gorgeous handmade sweaters, the newest Harry Potter, and met two very friendly little 8 yr old Akureyrians on their bicycles. They were thrilled that I had a camera, so you will see them in their "yoga" poses on their bikes. I was happy that they were wearing helmets for several reasons...

Bright red and blue roofs dotted the mountainsides as we drove through a beautiful glacial valley with the Tröllaskagi Mountain range to the east. Sólla announced, "We are stopping at Varmahlið for the last chance at a good WC for awhile." Since this sounded so absolute, we took advantage of the stop to do a little grocery shopping, admire more handmade sweaters, eat ice cream, and take in the view of this little crossroads.

We left anything resembling fjords at this point and approached the high, rocky desert of the highlands. The single lane gravel road we were on is a major north/south route between Gullfoss and Varmahlið. Through our now rain-splattered windows we saw the enormous Blöndulón where a major power plant is located. The icecap of Hofsjökull was now visible.

At first the rocks on the orangey-tinted rolling plains were sparse. Then the rocks became more numerous, and then they became boulders. It was a very interesting landscape, even if the rain really did unfortunately reduce some of the available scenery to distant blurs. It was in similar but far rockier landscape to our east where the Apollo astronauts practiced driving the lunar rover in the 1960s, not a far-fetched idea. Again the idea of how changing a landscape this is came to mind; all it would take is yet another jökulhlaup like the one about 2,000 years ago that scoured the surface of this area, bringing boulders and other debris from many kilometers south to readjust roads, landmarks, and the course of some surface rivers.

Along this route was also a natural hotsprings, in an area where an infamous outlaw and his wife hid from the authorities for years. The darkening sky led a little bit of the ominous to this location, even though the soak was really nice. We didn't know that it was going to be the last warm water (unless we boiled it) for over 24 hours...

The weather started to clear and we were treated to a lovely huge rainbow over Hofsjökull. The drive had lulled several to naptime so not many were awake to see a very pretty - and seemingly fast-moving - 15 m wide and 15 m tall waterfall on our right. "Wow!" I thought. "We're driving right next to it!" Let me amend that. We were getting ready to ford Gýgjarsá, a glacial stream, bottom unseen, only about 10 m from the waterfall itself! I admit to holding my breath and lifting my feet off the floor - and trying to add up whatever good karma I'd accumulated recently to see if it might offset this iffy new adventure - and Sveini eased up to the edge of the stream. And then one wheel of the bus went in, we advanced a few feet, then the other front wheel went in, we moved a little forward, and then the big yellow bus nonchalantly crossed on over in a decidedly bumpy manner.

We passed the area's most likely candidate for a landing strip - markers, a windsock, and minimal rocks. The surrounding mountains seemed so close because of the air clarity, and you could make out the blue of the glacial ice even from the distance. Being on this high plateau gave us an amazing view of the northwestern part of this closest icecap. Very, very neat.

And very, very isolated. We later found out that there was no cell phone coverage in the area, and after crossing the highlands to Kerlingarfjoll we did feel like we were a little more removed from what we were familiar with than usual. And this was really great!

Our campsite was nestled in a valley along the Ásgarðsá, and fast-flowing glacial stream where we put our beer in to cool off, secured in a plastic bag and weighted with rocks. A wooden double-arched bridge connected our campsite with the facilities, but to initially get there with all our gear, our big yellow bus had to cross yet another stream. We did make a couple who'd camped out in a nearby area quite cross at us when we drove across and unloaded - after they picked their jaws off the ground in amazement of the bus crossing, they moved to another area.

Up went the tents, the fire started for dinner, and we got ready for tomorrow's hike. The light on the mountain behind us was unbelievable, and it actually got a little dark that evening because of our setting in the valley. But still no stars - too bright!