[Getting ready to leave for Þhingvellir]
Hayl: C'mon, honey! We've got places to go and Thingvellirs to see!
Thayer: I totally saw that coming.
Hayl: No you didn't. That was WAY too creative for you to see coming.
----few minutes later----
Hayl: Places to go, Thingvellirs to see!
Thayer: It's not better the 2nd time around.
We are en route to the East and finally, hopefully, reaching the end of this endless ash cloud that has been permeating us and everything in the car on today's drive. We drove by Eyjafjallajokull -- the volcano that erupted (pronounced Ay-ya-FYAT-la-yo-KUT-l) -- and its next door neighbor several times its size, Myrdasjokull. We're feeling pretty dirty, but the hell with it. We're in Iceland, who cares about a little ash!
Let's rewind back to a time when we were clean. We left you last on our way to Þhingvellir, which is a national park on the site where Iceland's early settlers chose to have their national assembly, around 930 AD. Beauty and mountains and wildflowers and rocks and crags and awesomeness.
We stayed that night at Apartment K, as mentioned, and the next morning we checked out and headed to Bláa Lónið, or the Blue Lagoon. It was indeed everything it was cracked up to be. As someone wrote in the Apartment K guestbook, it was far less like Disneyland than expected. The water was like a warm, white-blue bath. We walked around, exploring the pools, relaxing, and giving ourselves silica mud masks. We also got a short but lovely water massage. After spending a good 4 hours pampering ourselves and taking a billion pictures (see our Flickr site here or here for just the highlights), we hit the road.
We drove for a few hours and, deciding to set up camp near Selfoss, we checked into Hótel Eldhestar, whose main foci are being eco-friendly and also... the Icelandic horse! There was horse art everywhere and a stable nearby from where guests can go on rides. We booked a ride for the next morning, then headed to a restaurant called Kaffi Krús for a late dinner. We both enjoyed the Selfossburger which, with it's combo of beef, bacon, cheese, tomato, and Bearnaise sauce, is famous the island over. NOM.
Around 10pm we finished dinner. Did we head back to Eldhestar and go to bed? Hell no! It wasn't even sunset!
[Driving after dinner]
Thayer: Whoa, it gets darker over here. The sun has set!
[We come around a mountain and the sun is still up -- had just been hiding on the other side of the mountain.]
Thayer: There's the sun!
Hayl: We're just going sightseeing at 10 pm. What?
Thayer: It's not like we were already sightseeing, either. It was 10pm and then we said, "Let's go sightseeing!"
We headed about an hour north to see Geysir. That's right. Geysir is its name. And every other geysir in the world is named after Geysir. Unfortunately, Geysir doesn't regularly perform anymore. Just on holidays when they put soap in him to make him spew. His neighbor Strokkur, though, puts on a show every 5 minutes or so. When we arrived, at about 11pm, mind, there were two men there with a rather large, expensive-looking video camera. Turns out, they're traveling the world shooting a History Channel show called "Gates of Hell" that will air in September. In medieval times, people were sure Geysir was a gate to hell. We just thought it was awesome.
After Geysir, we... continued sightseeing! Around midnight we got to Gulfoss — an immense, 2-tiered waterfall. Stunning stuff, made all the more surreal by the fact that it was the middle of the night, yet there was still plenty of light.
It started to look more dusk-like on our way home around 12:30am, which prompted us to get a little sleepy. Depending on the sun for our bodies' circadian cues is not really working. On the other hand, maybe it's working really well.
Still, we had to wear eye masks to bed at 1am because there was still enough light coming under the curtains to make you think you should be up and at 'em.
Next day, we got up and went Icelandic horseback riding with our lovely guide, Lina — a Swedish girl who summers in Iceland at the Eldhestar horse farm. We were the only ones on the tour, so she could spend extra time and patience teaching us to "tolt." Tolting is a thing Icelandic horses do that is between walking and trotting and is apparently supposed to be very smooth. Thayer seemed to pick it up like a pro. Me -- I was not able to synchronize the simultaneous rein-pulling, thigh-squeezing, and heel kicking that was required. Also, I have some heinous ankle bruises to show for the bang-bang-bang of the metal stirrups. Though definitely worse for the wear, I still loved it. It's hard to beat horseback riding through the Icelandic countryside.
We've been on the road the rest of the afternoon, stopping a few times to check out some interesting things on the roadside. For example, an ancient house built into the mountain side (so awesome) and a seemingly endless field of ash-covered, moss-covered lava rock. We are currently parked at said lava field while Thayer naps and I write. It's time we were on our way, though. Methinks we will lodge tonight near Skaftafell National Park. Perhaps a glacial lagoon boat tour is in our future.
Later!
-H
[After stopping by giant cliffs, wrapped at the bottom in a flowy green grass blanket -- possibly the most beautiful sight I've ever seen, complete with sheep]
Hayl: If I were someone else, I would totes envy us right now.
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