We had quite the night in the van last night. It was blowing a gale almost all day and when we turned in, it was blowing so hard that it felt like there were 8 or 10 football players encircling the van and randomly shoving it hard every few seconds. The wind kept up a steady roar as well. All of that combined to make for a less-than-perfect last night of sleep. We had an 8:30 ferry to catch back to the mainland, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and made a quick cup of tea before getting in line for the boat. Fortunately, the weather had calmed a bit, so the crossing wasn’t too bad. All we had to do then was drive about an hour and a half back to Reykjavik for a little last minute shopping (I never found anything in the way of a souvenir, but Mallory found a beautiful classic Icelandic cardigan sweater a few days ago; today was mostly gifts). We’re now sitting in our humble little guesthouse room; Mal’s writing postcards and I’m processing photos and trying to catch up on email and the blog.
Where was I on the travelogue? Oh, that’s right, Friday. That morning dawned cloudy and cool again, but your intrepid vanagers weren’t going to let a little rain stop us. After all, we had a lot more waterfalls to see! Actually one of the coolest (er, hottest?) things we’ve seen the whole time we’ve been here was our first stop that morning. Deildartunguhver hot springs is the largest in Europe, by volume. It puts out 180 liters/minute, at 97° celcius. It heats all the surrounding towns, through a 74 kilometer pipeline (considered the longest of its kind). Here’s a video I shot to give you an idea of what it was like:
It was really quite amazing, and only about a mile from our campground. You could see its giant cloud of steam from miles around. When you get close to all the little geysers, the steam envelops you; we ended up quite damp when we walked back to the car, just from the steam!
From there, we had went another short way up the road to see an museum dedicated to Snorri Sturluson, a famous Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He lived from 1179 to 1241, and wrote many of the most familiar (to them) Icelandic sagas. Here’s a striking bit of brightly painted carving that surrounded the entrance to the exhibits:
The museum is in a beautiful building too, but we just didn’t have the energy to brave the crowds, so we did a quick circuit, checked out the giftshop, and headed out to the first landmark of the day, Hraunfossar and Barnafoss:
The blue water in all the creeks and streams around Iceland is quite striking, isn’t it? I’m not sure why it’s so turquoise. I’ll have to read up on it.
Also fascinating are the obvious lava formations in the rocks everywhere:
Next up was a side trip to catch a lesser-known waterfall called Bruarfoss. I found it quite remarkable, especially since it’s essentially unmarked from the nearest paved road, and the photography book in which I found it recommended said that people are often thwarted in their efforts to find it. I did actually have a little trouble with Google Maps when we’re in the nearby settlement, and had to switch to the Apple Maps app to finish the job. Perseverance paid off, as you’ll see:
Just because I can, I’ll also share one of the little Live-Photo-converted-to-video-using-Motion-Stills bits that I shared on Instagram:
Phew! I’m really sorry if I’ve overdone it with the waterfalls, but it’s really a big part of what Iceland’s all about. I think Mal joked at the beginning of the week that it could really be called Fossland!
On our way to catch the ferry out to Vestmannaeyjar (the Westmann islands), we stopped to make a little ramen tuna casserole dinner, while parked below our first waterfall of the week, Seljalandsfoss. We stopped next to the highway just before the falls, so I could grab this giant lupine field with the falls in the background:
So that leaves our 36 hours on Heimaey, the main island in the archipelago, as my last bit to post about here. I’ll probably write that on the plane tomorrow, and publish it when we land in NYC. We have something like a 7-hour layover, so we’re actually going to leave the airport and meet Rosy at a Himalayan restaurant in Queens for lunch, then zoom back to the airport for our flight to Denver. Louisa will pick us up at DIA at something like 10:45 pm tomorrow night. Sheesh, if we don’t have some jet lag for a few days, I’ll be amazed. At least we get to see both girls for a bit before we get home.
Until tomorrow!
