From Hofn to Skogar

We were sad to leave behind the amazing beauty of the glacier, but we had a long drive down to the south coast and so got an early start. We were out of bed and packed up by 7:00 a.m. and enjoyed another delicious breakfast at Arnanes. We decided to stop once more at the glacial lagoon in hopes of spotting some seals. Since the weather was a little better, we were not disappointed. There were around 8 or 9 of them swimming around the mouth of the river that runs out of the lagoon.

 After watching the seals for a bit we decided to go across the road where we could watch ice bergs float out into the ocean. We were amazed to find a beautiful black sand beach with hundreds of ice bergs washed ashore. It was magnificent. We hung out on the beach for a short while, took some pictures, and even purloined a ziplock bag of the black sand along with a rock as a souvenir.

Then we were back on the road. We weren't sure what the day would hold but we knew we wanted to stop in Vik and end up in Skogar. We were hoping to put ourselves in a position to catch a bus to visit Thorsmork National Park. The first part of the drive we continued to have spectacular views of the glacier.

Once we rounded the bend onto the south coast we left behind the majesty of the glacier. If you can call any section of the Ring Road boring and unattractive then this might be it. The glacier run off creates a giant barren swampy flood plains from it's edge to the coast. Much of this we had to cross on bridges. During the drive we did see two unusual and interesting things however. First we saw this incredible rainbow unlike any we had ever seen. Rather than being an arc or half arc across the sky, this rainbow stretched across the horizon in front of us where the sky met the land. We felt as though we were driving straight into the magical land of Icelandic elves. It stayed with us for a long time and kept us company on the "long" (by Icelandic standards) monotonous drive. The other unusual thing we saw was a long twisted piece of metal; a monument to a huge glacial flood that utterly destroyed a large concrete bridge.

We arrived in Vik in time for lunch and found a gas stop where Brandon ordered Icelandish lamb soup and I had fish and chips. We also found a touristy yet affordable wool shop where we found a few gifts including gloves for Violette, a headband for Vivienne, and a beanie for our annual Floerke Family gift exchange.

We got back on the road and before long we reached Skogar. Our first stop was to check out Skogafoss. At this point we had seen many waterfalls and weren't as easily impressed. Skogafoss however was one of the prettiest waterfalls we had seen.

After getting a good look at Skogafoss we went to the visitor center and learned that our plans for a bus trip in and hike out of Thorsmork weren't possible. The timing of it would have put us hiking in the middle of the night. We were disappointed but settled for pitching our tent next to the beautiful waterfall and doing a shorter hike the next morning.

After setting up camp we decided to visit this fascinating folk museum near the campground. The curator has collected everything from all ages of Iceland's past; dolls, clothes, boats, agricultural tools, musical instruments, books. There are also several historic buildings including turf covered houses and a church. The "collection" is widely anachronistic - stuff just everywhere in no particular order.

We finished up our day with a dinner of pasta and red wine. We slept pleasantly amidst a crowd of Europeans preparing to embark on the hike to Thorsmork.

Vatnajokull Day!

Henceforth let August 1 be known as Vatnajokull Day, and may it be celebrated the world over!

Vatnajokull (VOUGHT-nyur-cuddle): the largest glacier in Europe, the third largest glacier in the world, and the largest glacier in the world that is not a part of the polar caps.  The core of this glacier is from the last ice-age.  It is so large that the dozens of tongues have their own names and are treated like their own glaciers.  The most recent volcanic eruption in Iceland happened inside this glacier at Grimsvotn.

Our day began by stopping at a gas station and discovering a treasure trove of hand-stitched Icelandic wool on consignment.  I got a beanie, and Stephanie got a head-band ear-warming thing.  Then we drove down to Jokulsarlon for our cruise of the glacial lagoon.

Notice the new hat!

This is the main establishment that takes tourists on lagoon cruises.  They have metal boats that haul thirty to forty people at a time on twenty minutes cruises that venture a few hundred feet into the lagoon.

This is the boat that we went on.  

Across the river from the big place there is this guy Ingvar who runs his own tours out of a trailer.  He is a local guy who worked for the big place for many years before deciding to start his own company.  His tour is twice as long, takes you all the way across the lagoon to see the glacial tongue where it is slowly collapsing into the lagoon, and he gets you within feet of the icebergs.  He was friendly and warm in a way that not all Icelanders are.  The passengers on the boat were Ingvar, Stephanie, and me.  It was unbelievably cool.

A glacial lagoon forms when a glacial tongue ends at a lake.  As the glacier comes apart, icebergs break off and float around the lake for several days or weeks until they melt or drift down a short river to the ocean.  Apparently the icebergs can reach over a kilometer in diameter, though this is very rare.

The black striations in some of the bergs are a record of ancient volcanic eruptions that created layers of ash on the glacier many years ago.

The core of glaciers are this bright blue color.  They will turn white when the sun hits them.  Lucky for us, there had not been sun at Jokulsarlon for many days prior to our arrival.

Each berg is like a modern sculpture.

A pod of seals live in the lagoon.  You can see their little noses sticking out of the water.

Ingvar pulled out a piece of ice for us to play with.  This ice may be thousands of years old.  Apparently, there was a company a few years ago that made ice cubes out of the glacier and sold it to stupidly rich people to pour their scotch over.  What?!


After the glacial lagoon, we drove to a highway turn off where we were to meet the company that would take us on the glacier.  We were picked up by a caravan of "super jeeps."

A "super jeep" is any four wheel drive vehicle with cartoonishly large tires.  

Our driver was a white-haired Icelander with bad English.  The road he drove us on was treacherous in the extreme, a narrow dirt track with blind corners, sharp turns, and hundred-foot drops.  He drove at breakneck speed while talking on his cell phone.  Periodically he would stop and address us in bad English while pointing at the landscape.  Something like: "Here...two-hundred meter...three-hundred here...drop...glacier many kilometer years ago...now: nope."  Then speed off again.  

I am pretty sure this guy was the owner of the company.  

They dressed us up in astronaut costumes and gave us a quick lesson on how to drive the skidoos (snow-mobiles).  Then we were on the glacier.

Steph and I shared a skidoo.  We drove along a track in single file like a train, but it was more adventurous than that sounds.  Our top speed was about 45 kph, which felt quite fast. 

It was foggy and damp, and we did not see much of the glacier, but it was fun nonetheless.

The trip lasted approximately two hours.  Then we piled back in the "super jeep" for the horrifying drive back down. 

That night at Arnanes we splurged on the lobster spectacular:

Beer made from ten-thousand-year-old glacier-water:

And rhubard tart with iced-skyr:

Let it ring from the mountaintops: August 1 shall henceforth be known as Vatnajokull day!

The Drive to Hofn

July 31 was as uneventful as a day in Iceland could be.  We had along drive from Myvatn to Hofn (pronounced "Huppin"), and could not afford to make many stops along the way.  But the drive was pleasant.  With plenty of beauty.  Like this:

Looks like a nice little waterfall.  But please note for perspective the tiny people at the bottom.

After a few hours we passed through the town of Egilsstathir.  We stopped off and had some coffee and shared a slice of rhubarb-vanilla pie that was spectacularly good.  Stephanie said without hyperbole that it was the best pie she ever tasted.  I will not insult my grandmother Millie by agreeing, but it was awesome.

There was some kind of youth sporting event happening in Egilsstathir that seemed to be some kind of junior Olympics for the whole region.  There was soccer and track and all kinds of stuff going on.  Leaving Egilsstathir, I made a wrong turn and we ended up on a dirt road.

The longer we drove on this road the more treacherous it became, and I was little concerned that we might harm the car car and get charged for the damage.  But in the end we made it through and the road spilled us into Berufjorthur, which was a truly glorious fjord.

Shortly after, we reconnected with the Hringraut.  We were now on the south-east coast of Iceland, enjoying the scenery from inside our car as the weather turned nasty outside.

 

 There were hundreds of swans or geese floating in the ocean, apparently unbothered by the bad weather.  

 I was feeling a bit claustrophobic up after several hours of driving, so I got out at a rest stop to snap some pictures on the black-sand beach. 

Hard to believe that was the best picture that I could get.  The wind kept blowing the camera over.

When we got to Hofn, we found our guesthouse, Arnanes.

We would thoroughly enjoy two nights at Arnanes, sleeping in the basement with a shared bathroom, but enjoying the comfortable beds, a room decorated with home-made art, and extravagantly good food.  

The lobster appetizer was yummy.  Icelandic lobsters are small but unbelievably good.

Myvatn

A few miles due east of Akureyri is lake Myvatn: home to the strangest landscape I have ever seen.

Our drive over took us up the glorious Eyjafjurthur one last time, and the water was still and glassy.

We had not gotten very far before we came across the Gothafoss (and I nearly drove us into a ditch trying to get us off the highway).  This would prove to be the third most impressive waterfall we saw that day.

A note about the name of the falls.  Icelanders name places by scrunching together words.  So "foss" means waterfall and is the suffix of every waterfall that has a name (the vast majority of Icelandic waterfalls are not named).  "Gotha" means "gods."  So this is the "gods-falls" because when Iceland decided to convert to Christianity, this is where the leader of parliament threw all his old idols away in a grand symbolic gesture.  See:

From there, it was a short drive to Myvatn.  We stopped in the tiny village of Skutustadir and hiked around these volcanic pseudo-craters.

It is hard to see in the picture, but the land is shaped by these pseudo-craters that were formed when a bunch of magma bubbled up under a lake and as the giant bubbles burst, the water immediately cooled them and they became rock.  I think this is the only place in the world this kind of landscape exists.

Then we drove a a few minutes down the lake to Dimmuborgir where there are unique basalt columns.

This is the only place in the world these kinds of columns exist above water, apparently.

Then we found a camp site and ate some lunch.

You will note in the above picture that the black mountain on the horizon is actually Hverfjall: a pristine volcanic cone that is several kilometers in diameter.  We hiked that later in the day, as you will see below.

Then we were off to see some hot-spots at Namafjall (NOW-ma-fyatl)

Magma lies a mere two kilometers below the surface here, and this leads to countless vents where steam shoots out and mud pots bubble.  It is loud with the sound of the glup-glupping mud pots and hissing vents.

The above photo helps to illustrate the incredible diversity of the landscape around Myvatn.  Steph is standing amongst the vents at Namafjall during our hike.  The ground around us is barren and mineral-encrusted.  But you can see that right across the highway the hillside is lush and fertile.  On the horizon you can see several more vents shooting steam into the air, and (harder to see) volcanic hills.  To the left of this picture is the Myvatn Nature Baths (see below) and then the lake itself.

By the time we finished at Namafjall, our day was almost half over, but we were not done having our minds blown.  Not by a long shot.

We drove about forty minutes to the Dettifoss.  The Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume.  

 The minute you park your car, you can hear and feel the rumble of the water that comes thundering over these falls at a rate of five-hundred cubic meters per second.  To stand at the Dettifoss is to feel the ground shake and to have you ears filled with endless thunder.  It was quite impressive.  The picture (of course) does not do it justice. We have a video, but I am having trouble uploading it at the moment.

Dettifoss is in the "glacier-shadow" of Vatnajokull (the largest glacier outside the polar regions) which creates a unlikely desert in the north-east corner of Iceland.  So surrounding the Dettifoss is a vast desert reminiscent of Joshua Tree National Park.  However, the Dettifoss is so big that the mist from the falls creates its own ecosystem: a strip of lush green life that stretches for several kilometers down the west bank. 

Notice how the far side of the falls is utterly barren, like the surface of the moon, while the near side is green.  For perspective, you may also be able to see the tiny specks that are the people on the other side. 

Just up the river from Dettifoss is another crummy waterfall call the Selfoss.  If it was not dwarfed by is big brother down stream, the Selfoss would almost certainly be an attraction in its own right.

On our way back to camp, we stopped off at the Myvatn Nature Baths, which is a smaller (and cheaper) version of the Blue Lagoon resort.  Stephanie aptly compared being in this silicate-rich, milky-blue water to swimming in lotion.  It was unbelievable.

We need one of these at our house.

The day was long and we were feeling relaxed and drowsy by the time we got back to our tent.  But as we ate our dinner of Icelandic hot dogs, red onion, and couscous prepared on our campstove, Hverfjall loomed above us.  In the end, we decide that one more one-in-a-lifetime excursion was necessary.  So around 9pm we poured some wine into our travel mugs and climbed to the top of Hverfjall.  It's not every day that you have the chance to stand on the lip of one of the most pristine volcanic cones on earth.

Saturday, July 30 was a good day.