Counterclockwise

I had a bit of an argument with myself this morning, deciding whether I should wander in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. I know, I know, I had already decided; letting go of plans can be good sometimes.

First it was time for a good breakfast, the best of the trip so far. Even though I was the only guest last night, their usual breakfast buffet was set up. There were some interesting choices of rolls - a cinnamon and current roll with some blueberry jam jumped onto my plate to accompany my cereal. There were chunks of bananas and melon, and then some Iceland pancakes topped with some sugar sparkle. An excellent taste treat.

I spent some time chatting with Óli (the guesthouse owner) this morning about my travel direction. I almost changed to continue around the island in a clockwise direction instead of doubling back twice - once today and again when I head back to Reykjavik. I would have loved to continue to the east this morning to see more of the volcano's black decorations, the ones that remind me so much of Hawaii. The weather forecast really isn't cooperating, and I let that make my final decision. I still want to see Geysir, Gulfoss, and possibly Þingvellir National Park, all part of what is called the Golden Circle, doable as a long day trip out of Reykjavik. It's north and east of Reykjavik on the south side of the island. I want to get to Skaftafell National Park (home of glaciers), and to the glacial lagoon on the south coast. I thought about continuing east from Akureyri, looping to the south and switching back to the west to (probably) end my day in Hofn. That would mean no doubling back, just completing a circle. I was set to do that until I looked at the weather forecast. Today was forecast to be sunny, the first and probably last day of sun that I will see during this trip. Tomorrow the rain is supposed to start in Hofn and Skaftafell. While the Geysir and Gullfoss area is supposed to be cloudy tomorrow, the rain isn't supposed to start until the next day. Hmm... It didn't take too much thinking to decide to go for the possibly dry day. I headed west, south, and then east today.

No surprise to me, I haven't been very successful with pronouncing the names here. When I hear the correct pronunciations, I'm not terribly surprised that I'm not guessing right. Let's see, how do you think Hofn is pronounced? I figured that sound would come from all 4 letters, something like hof'n. Nope. It's pronounced hup. Short u.

Another mystery... Þingvellir? Or Thingvellir? Which is the proper name of the park? The article on the park in Wikipedia starts with a note that indicates if the character Þ is not available, the name of the park my be spelled as Thingvellir. Are you confused yet?

The sky this morning was pure blue, a wonderful surprise when I opened the shade to let the outside light enter my room. Some wisps of white added some interest. The blue background remained until I headed south from Borgarnes, at which point it appeared that a switch had been pulled. Layers of clouds appeared, grays and whites, still allowing rays of light to penetrate to the ground.

I managed to find a few spots to pull off of the road during my pretty much all-day drive. Sometimes it was a bit past the interesting spot, giving me some much needed walking as I headed back to whatever it was that caught my eye. The Ring Road continued it's shoulder-less state for much of the day; past Reykjavik I noticed that there were sections that actually had a paved shoulder. I wonder how long that will continue.

Borgarnes, a town about 70 kilometers north of Reykjavik pulled me in for some relaxing time near the water, walking, watching the clouds, enjoying the warmth of the sun. Then it was time to jump back in the car for the final bit of travel today. When I drove north on Saturday I drove around Borgarfjordur (47 kilometers according to the signs). Today I shortened the drive by taking the tunnel under the fjord. It's 6 kilometers long, and it started with an 8% (downhill) grade. Luckily there are kilometer markers in the tunnel; that let me know how much longer I would be under the water. No cyclists or walkers allowed... if you're biking around Iceland you will need to take the around the fjord route.

Past Reykjavik, the terrain changed noticeably. The ground was dressed in green, and it wasn't close to flat. Steam rose in places, and I could see long stretches of pipes, pipes that I assume are used to transport some of Iceland's geothermal energy.

As I expected, the drive today took a bit longer than I could predict from the total kilometers. I seem to have a knack for lengthening drives by stopping whenever the spirit moves me. After all, driving without looking around and enjoying my surroundings wouldn't make me as happy as stopping does.

My wanders ended in Selfoss. My home for the night is Hostelling International's Hostel Selfoss, where once again I was able to get a single room. Interestingly enough, there isn't much difference between the hostels I've staying in here and the guesthouses - all have shared bathrooms.

Tomorrow? My targets are Geysir and Gullfoss.

To Mývatn

Yesterday was quite warm at 20 degrees, the only day since I arrived where there was no wind at all. Today? It warmed up to 15 degrees under a sky that wore shades of gray. That was quite a comfortable temperature in spite of the brisk wind. And then... it started sprinkling by about 2 in the afternoon. The rain intensified, dropping the temperature back to 10 degrees, and the wind never stopped.

Do you know I haven't had any non-rainy days here? Not a problem though...

My final destination today was Mývatn. That means I headed to the east in a line curving north, then south, and finally southeast. I climbed through mountains and followed water. I watched as the ground cover changed, showing touches of yellow and rust in addition to the ever-present green.

My first stop came a bit earlier than I expected. It's a good thing that I knew the name of the waterfall because the sign only contained the name - nothing mentioning falling water. The Goðafoss waterfalls were amazing, thundering in multiple pieces, stretching 30 meters across a curved line. I started on one side, then realized that there was a foot bridge down by the road to allow easy access on the other side too. I walked, I watched the water tumble, mesmerized.

On to Mývatn... What a beautiful body of water, populated by many birds, surrounded by rocks that are obviously the product of a volcano. There were similarities to my favorite Hawaii, differences too. I headed down a quiet one-lane dirt road and had to laugh at the bird behavior. I wish I knew who these birds were... instead of flying off when they heard the car, the started scurrying away by foot, eventually taking to the air.

I managed to get in two nice walks before the dry air turned wet, sprinkles morphing into rain. The first was around the pseudocraters at Skútustaðir, a nice walk made even more interesting when one of the cattle happily grazing there decided it might be interesting to see how close he could get to me while I was trying to grab a photo. Yup, I moved!

The next wander was to see some lava formations standing in the water, well worth the walk. The sprinkles started as I was heading back, turning to solid rain not too long after that. I completed the circle around the lake by car, not having much desire to walk in what seemed like a cold rain. Ten degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) feels pretty chilly when there is water flying about.

Mývatn is on my list for a return visit, likely for another trip. You didn't think this was going to be my only trip to Iceland, did you?

After my rain-shortened wander around Mývatn, I headed back to Akureyri. I initially thought about driving a bit further to the west today, but somehow staying still felt right to me. I stopped by the information office in town to find a place to stay. The hostel was fully booked tonight, and B&B's and guesthouses can be a bit hidden if you don't know the town. It makes more sense to ask someone who knows the area. My home for the night is the Skjaldarvik guesthouse. It's 5 kilometers outside of Akureyi, a reasonable jump back to town distance to find some evening food.

Tomorrow feels like a driving day, reversing direction to head first west, then south and east.

Far north

We ended our day in Akureyri. It's the farthest north Denise has ever been, and since I only travel with Denise, it's the farthest north I have been too. It's at latitude 65°41'N. The Arctic Circle is at 66° 33′N. I was thinking I might try to convince Denise to drive that far north, but I just looked at the map to find that the northernmost piece of Iceland is just below 66° 33′N. Oh, it looks like there is an island that crosses that latitude, but we can't get there, can we?

I decided I should learn how far it is from here to the Arctic Circle. I just found out that a degree of latitude is 69 miles, and a minute of latitude is about 1.15 miles. There are 52 minutes between here and the Arctic Circle, so that's about 60 miles or 96 kilometers. So close!

OK, OK, I'll stop playing with numbers and degrees of latitude and tell you about our day. I couldn't help Denise drive since no one makes a car that a little red dog like me can drive. I thought that Denise needed a rest tonight, and I like playing with words too, so... it's my turn to write!

We were rolling out of Stykkishólmur by a little after eight this morning, and it still took us until after five to reach Akureyri. We did drive the long way, but that was because Denise heard that the dirt road that cut some miles off of the route was in pretty bad shape. Because of that the shorter road probably would have taken us the same amount of time (or longer!) than the road that we took. We headed back over the mountain at the center of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. It was dry when we started, but as we climbed higher rain started falling. It followed us down the mountain, then stopped. We headed to the west once more along the peninsula to see if there were better views of the mountains than there were yesterday. The clouds were still hugging the tops of the mountains, so after stopping to look at some reflections Denise turned the car back to the east. We headed to the southeast until we met up with the Ring Road. It was time to turn towards the north.

There were so many beautiful sights that passed by our windows today; most of those were captured in our memories and not in photos. We stopped when we could to walk a bit and to take photos. We climbed a long set of stairs to get to the top of a crater. There were two of them; of course I don't remember the name right now. It's a good thing Denise took a photo of the sign; she'll attach the name to the craters later.

There really weren't enough stopping places today. The road was almost all paved, two lanes wide with no shoulder, and with very tilted ground past the edge of the pavement. Denise did manage to find some pullout spots. I guess she found quite a few of them because somehow we took much longer to drive to our destination than the distance indicated. From Stykkishólmur to Akureyri via Borgarnes is 387 kilometers. With a speed limit of 90 kilometers per hour, that should have taken between 4 and 5 hours. So even though it was difficult to find places to pull off of the road, we did manage to use another 4 hours. I guess we really weren't driving the entire day.

The terrain changed as we drove, from rolling green to craggy mountains with flat green fields between them. We ended our drive in Akureyri, at the end of the fjord Eyjafjörður. We're staying at the hostel, which amazingly enough had a private room for me.

We're going to head a bit further east tomorrow before we loop back around. Denise saw a picture of a lake in a book of Iceland photographs, and she decided that she really wanted to see it herself. At the time, she was thinking of heading along the south coast, and she wanted to get to the lake from there. It turns out that you can't drive through the middle of this island. The few roads that cut through the middle aren't paved, and they often go right through rivers; you would need driving skills that Denise doesn't have, plus you would need a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle. That's not for us! Somehow Denise was thinking the lake wasn't reachable, but luckily she was wrong. It's actually on the Ring Road, so we're heading to Mývatn in the morning.

I thought maybe you'd like to see a picture today, so I included a photo of me on the black rocks of Hawaii (from our wander there in February). The volcanoes here make different colored rocks, but there are some things that remind me of Hawaii.

--- Rover

Changes

The weather wizard was playing games all day today. It started when I glimpsed a little patch of blue peeking out from the clouds early this morning. And then the changes began.

First things first, breakfast and conversations started my day. And then the driving began. My travels today took me north and then west along the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, ending in the town of Stykkishólmur.

It was dry when I started, but the raindrops started decorating the windshield before I had cleared the edge of Reykjavik. The rain was heavy for a bit, easing to sprinkles and then stopping before I headed inland to drive around the Borgarfjordur fjord near Borgarnes. Driving around was quite a bit longer than the almost 6 kilometer tunnel beneath the fjord, well worth the time to see such a beautiful place. I actually found a few places to pull off of the road for a bit of camera play. The sun and clouds nicely decided to join in.

Just after returning to the Ring Road, I jumped off of it again to head to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. The clouds dropped once again, shrouding the mountains, spreading heavy rain. I thought about stopping my forward movement. Nope, not now. I wanted to give myself a change to wander into Snæfellsjökull National Park. Unfortunately when I reached the turnoff, a dirt road 7 kilometers long, the rain was still quite heavy. Driving up a narrow dirt road following the contours of the land didn't feel like a smart thing to do. Maybe I'll head back that way on my return trip, maybe not.

I missed a lot of photos today though; it was so wet that it wasn't possible to keep the raindrops off of the filter I was using. Rain spots on photos really don't work, do they? At one point I was trying to take photos from the car - as soon as I opened the window the raindrops gravitated to the camera. I finally pulled out my baby camera to grab a few shots. The colors and shapes were amazing, volcanic rocks covered with green moss, water, reds popping out occasionally in some watery plant life. The more I think about it the more I know this peninsula deserves a dry day visit. Fingers crossed for the weather and for the time to wander the same road once more.

Waterfalls jumped in front of my eyes today, some short, some tall, falling down the face of rocks. Most of the photos (so far) are in my mind, not in my camera.

Stykkishólmur is my home for the night, a small village on the northern side of the peninsula. I followed the information sign in the hopes of finding a B&B here. That was interesting - the woman who usually staffs the info center was on the golf course, and her replacement didn't see any B&B information. She started looking through brochures, then asked someone who walked in as we were talking. The next thing I knew, a call was placed to Holmur B&B asking if a room was available. It was. Instead of giving me directions, the owner drove over and led me to the house. Ah, no worries, I was quickly settled into a home for the night.

When I first drove into town I saw the harbor and what was once an island towering over the boats. It looked like someone was standing on top of a rather steep hill. Hmmm... how did those people who looked like stick figures get to the top? I walked from my B&B to the harbor, playing with the reflections of boats in the harbor, finally getting a chance to exercise my camera. Past the boats, and look! there is actually a staircase leading up. Easy... I walked to the top, saw a light positioned to warn ships. Clouds were strewn in diagonal lines above the water, sometimes reflecting, sometimes not. The light was wonderful.

Food, it was definitely time for food. I headed to the restaurant that looked most interesting. There was a couple sitting at one table; all of the other tables were empty. When I asked to be seated, the waitress informed me that all of the tables were reserved. I was turning to leave when the couple sitting at the one occupied table asked me to join them. The thing that I found interesting is that when we left the restaurant almost all of the tables were still empty.

It was fun comparing notes with my new acquaintances from Helsinki, talking about travel here and elsewhere. I had an excellent meal, couscous and beans tossed with some vegetables and a bit of a light but tangy sauce. Just what I needed!

I'm totally in awe of all of the people I've met here who can switch from their native language to English as soon as they are addressed in English. That's very good for me as I've always been language-challenged.

Tomorrow? The direction in my mind right now is east.

City walking

Uh oh! I had a sort of a restful day in my mind for today, but somehow that didn't happen. I walked, and walked, and walked some more. But first...

The day started with good conversations and breakfast. There were several types of bread, sliced tomatoes, cucumber, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and meat for make-your-own breakfast sandwiches. There were also tubs of yogurt and a selection of cereal, a bit closer to my normal breakfast food. I had a sampling of both for a good energy start.

After food, I chatted with Arna (the B&B owner) and one of my fellow guests about where to wander. When I originally planned to come here I was thinking about heading both to the norhwest and to the southeast without circling the island. Later I thought I'd stick to the northwest, but stories of waterfalls in the south changed my mind. Tomorrow I think I'll head north and west. I'm going to skip the West Fjords area in exchange for heading further to the east on the north side of the island. Then I'll switch directions, heading back the way I came, then traveling to the south and east. It will be two out-and-back wanders. I have my fingers crossed for some dry and brighter days.

Back to today... I spent the entire day walking through Reykjavik. I walked by the university, through a park, and on to the Hallgrímskirkja Church. I know, I know, churches aren't normal visiting spots for me. This one allows visitors to go to the top of the tower for a view of the city. The viewing area is within the building, but exposed to the howling wind. Even with today's cloud-filled sky, it was a beautiful view. I'd love to see it on a clear day.

I headed next to the sculpture garden behind the Einar Jonsson Museum. Beautiful.

The next chunk of my day was wandering without a destination. City streets, people watching, parks, street art, wandering.

Finished with city wanders, I headed to the northeast along the water in light rain, stopping to enjoy the Viking ship sculpture. I walked a bit further before turning back towards my B&B. A quick stop at a supermarket for a stash of fruit, and then I took a break for the better part of an hour. It probably would have been smart to sit still for longer than that, but (no surprise) I headed out again to walk further to the west along the water. Although it wasn't raining, there was water in the air. I could almost see land across the water through a few breaks in the clouds.

I took another short break before heading out for dinner at Icelandic Fish & Chips. That's not my normal choice of food, but the description outside the restaurant intrigued me. The fish is prepared in a in batter made from spelt and barley. I had redfish and roasted potatoes, very nice. And then, yes, I walked again.

It was not a rest day, but it was a good day.

A very short night

Traveling to the east makes for quite a short night. Iceland is on GMT and not on daylight time. That's four hours ahead of my home base. Let's see, the flight left at 9:30PM Eastern Daylight time and landed at 6:30AM Greenwich Mean Time. Four hours of sleeptime disappeared. The good news is that I managed to sleep for most of the flight. The bad? I don't do very well on 4 hours of sleep. Here's hoping I can manage to fall asleep at a reasonable hour tonight.

I managed to keep moving all day, starting with a drive around the southern part of the Reykjanes Peninsula, stopping for a long soak at the Blue Lagoon, driving in to Reykjavik, and doing some walking along the harbor. That should help my sleep situation because I'm quite tired right now. Ah, it's time to walk again, this time to find some food!

My home for the next two nights is Askot B&B.

---

Hey - I think I need to jump in and write today too! Denise is so tired she forgot to tell you some things.

As we were wandering on the Reykjanes Peninsula, it struck both of use how much the landscape reminded us of the Big Island of Hawaii. The rocks from the volcano aren't as black here, but the surface looked similar. It wasn't the swirly flowy lava, it was more of the explosive chunky kind.

At one point Denise saw an empty parking lot in the middle of what seemed like no where, so we jumped into the lot and wandered down a path. We found a bridge with a sign saying that we were standing on top of the fracture line that splits the northern Atlantic Ocean bewteen the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. That's pretty interesting, isn't it?

While we were just about to jump into the Blue Lagoon (and oh! the water really is a beautiful shade of blue) Denise started chatting with some folks from Toronto who are just about to head home. They recommended that we head to the east, towards the spot where the volcano erupted earlier this year. I have a feeling that our non-plans may be changing. Denise still thinks she wants to see a piece of the west, but I am pushing her to go east too. We're going to chat with our B&B owner after breakfast tomorrow; Arna volunteered to help with a brainstorming session on our wanders. It's always a good thing to get advice from someone who really knows the country.

And oh! how the wind was howling! I stayed close to Denise, even hid in the camera bag for a bit. Denise was having a hard time standing still without swaying, and I was afraid that I would get blown away. I wonder if it's always this windy in Iceland. I guess we're going to find out!

Didn't I tell you that Denise forgot to tell you about large chunks of our day? I guess it's a good thing I adapt a bit better to east-bound time changes than she does.

--- Rover

---

And now for the weather report.

It was gray most of the day, although patches of blue started showing up late in the afternoon. It went from dry to "water in the air" to dry to wet again. I walked home from dinner in the rain, and I'm sitting listening to the rain outside of my window right now.

It was cool enough that I was continually looking for the warm spots in the Blue Lagoon. The temperature fluctuations were quite surprising.

Cool air, comfortable when I was adorned in light layers.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Connection confusion

Phew! I thought I might be going through this trip without my usual connections. It all started when I tried to get into Blogger from the wireless hot spot at the Blue Lagoon. I could access Google, I could access Gmail, but Blogger? Nope. I could read my blog, but accessing it to write was blocked. So weird...

I had to ask someone to translate the message on the screen since it was shown only in Icelandic. I ended up chatting with one of the managers at the Blue Lagoon. He translated the message, but it didn't make any sense to him either, something about blocking personal blogs and web sites. How odd. He called his IT guru who said that the ISP had blocked Blogger from hot spots for a reason no one understands. Access is (obviously) OK from my B&B - but I suppose if I'm ever relying on a hot spot my blog updates might be delayed. There apparently are 3 ISPs here; who knows if the other two have followed in the weird behavior I saw today.

Then I tried to use my ZapTel account to make a phone call. Somehow one key number was missing from the instructions I had. I had the right toll-free phone number, and I had my PIN. What I didn't have was a required access code. Oops! They provided two toll-free numbers to reach suport; one works in the US, and the other works somewhere else in Europe, not in Iceland. Yikes! Now what? I sent support an email without high expectations of getting a timely response. Within an hour I had an email back with instructions and the access code.

Success! I'm connected again...

Odd times

I wonder which will make people crazier - if I set my blog entries to the current time in Iceland, or if I let the blog entries default to the current time in my home time zone.

Oh, sorry, I'm not going to give you a choice. You'll see my posts for this trip expressed in the time I am living in Iceland. That means there will be a lag in publishing. It's after 7 right now in Iceland and only after 3 at home. I've tagged this post with an after 7 time. Probably the only person I'm confusing is myself!

No worries

If all goes well, I will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean when this post is published. An early morning arrival in Iceland's Keflavik International Airport will be followed by a bit of a wander before I head to my B&B for the first two nights.

I plan to write and to post blog entries each day as I wander, but first, here's a little "Denise" rule.

No worrying allowed! It's entirely possible that I won't have Internet access every day, so if you don't see a post you should assume that I'm fine, that I just don't have easy access.

I'm not traveling with a cell phone. Instead I found a global phone card carrier with access from Iceland. You might think I chose them because of the name; it turns out they had the best access that I could find from afar. The name? ZapTel... As long as I have access to a phone I should be able to call back to the states.

I hope you enjoy reading over my shoulder as I wander through a small piece of a new (for me) country.

Escaping ahead of Earl

The start of my trip could just as easily have been a day or two from now. There wasn't anything special about today other than better airfares for my flights in both directions in comparison with floating the start or end of my trip to slightly different dates.

Luck is definitely with me. I've been watching the projected path of Hurricane Earl and it looks like it will be brushing by (or through?) the Boston area sometime on Friday.

I know, a delayed start because of a storm wouldn't have been the end of the world, but it's so nice that things are going according to plan.

Tonight? It's an airplane night for me.

Image courtesy of the National Hurricane Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).