Day 2: Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The second day we got up early to meet a Mountain Taxi guide, who was going take us on a super-jeep tour of the "Golden Circle"—a ride that passes by three of Iceland's most popular and interesting sites—and then up to a glacier for a little walk. Here was his vehicle: a modified Nissan Patrol (diesel and not available in the U.S.)

The other couple that was supposed to come on the tour didn't show up, which was very fortunate because when Anton, our guide, realized that we were going to rent a car and drive around the country for over a week, he told us that we could easily do the Golden Circle in our rental instead. All the main roads along the Golden Circle are paved, so he said that while we had the enormous jeep, we might as well make use of it for something we could never do in the front-wheel drive, compact rental car. After listening to a few of his suggestions, we went with what he seemed the most excited about, which was a ride up and around Hekla, Iceland's most active Volcano (who's name means "hooded" because it's usually shrouded in clouds).

Here's Hekla as seen from the lowlands.

And here's the mountain up closer, looking out over some lava flows. At one point Anton asked "Have you ever been to the moon?... I have, and it looks pretty much like this!"

Map: we turned off road 26 north of Hekla, and took the 4x4 roads and tracks up toward the summit. We then took a long ride all around most of the 4x4 roads on the map. I think we passed fully north of all the glaciers seen on the bottom of the map, though.

In just the last century, Hekla has erupted 5 times: in 1947, 1970, 1980, 1991, and 2000. I think this is looking out over the 2000 lava.

The path was pretty steep, at times!

Below you can see the actual road (well, track) which we strayed from in our attempt to pass 1000 m (the jeep had a GPS to read altitude), .

This was our first attempt to pass 1000 m. We couldn't quite make it despite trying a few times to back up and build momentum. The jeep would rev up to about 8000 rpm and spin its wheels in the loose gravel before sliding back down. Anton gave up and went around a different way.

Here we finally did make it past 1000 m, by going up the left, turning around, and sliding/driving back down the right. Then we drove over the crazy bumps at the bottom.

It's amazing how quickly the first plants recolonize the wasteland after an eruption, and equally amazing how long it takes to fully turn it all back into grass (hundreds or thousands of years, in Iceland).

Yep, that's a big vehicle.

Here's some 2000 lava overlapping some slightly older lava

Some interesting geography, as seen through the bug-spattered windshield.

This is one of my favorite photos of the trip:

Part of the reason a raised jeep, or equivalent, is needed to traverse the inner parts of Iceland is that the road often goes straight through high rivers, with no bridge. Here's what it looked like driving through one river:

We stopped in this little grassy area to eat the sandwiches we'd picked up at the gas station on the way. Nearly all gas stations in Iceland have pre-made sandwiches and most even have full grills, beacuse so much of the country is unpopulated that provisions are often necessary while traveling. We ate gas station sandwiches a number of times for lunch throughout the trip. Interesting side note: almost all sandwiches in Iceland have silced hard-boiled eggs on them!

Moss, lava, mountains, and then glaciers way off in the distance.

We stopped to use the restrooms at a hiker hut and ranger station with this amazing view:

Our jeep next to a normal SUV.

Some people camping near the hut.

The next few photos are all of a large river carrying glacial runoff (this one actually did have a bridge). You can tell it's glacial runoff because of the grey color. According to Anton, by measuring the conductivity of the glacial water in the river, scientists can study volcanic activity under the glacier.

Volcanoes can make some pretty strange rocks. I liked this one, which looked like a triceratops!

Here's a glacial finger, flowing out of the mountain.

Iceland is dotted with hundreds of farms along the countryside, far from any village.

Looking out toward the sea and this lonely rock formation, we could see the fata morgana (the arctic name for a mirage created by light bending through the warm air close to the ground) along the horizon.

What I thought was interesting about this story were the dates. (We were here on Tuesday, August 15, 2006. The car trip began on Monday, August 14, 1927. Weird!)

We had seen an ad for a Spanish tapas restaurant while in Reykjavík the day before, and were thinking about trying it. When Anton learned that Liz is a Spanish teacher he said "¿Dónde está la playa nudista?" and "Una cerveza por favor." He explained that he, like most Icelanders, went to Spain for vacation almost every year while he was growing up. So when we got back to the city that night, we decided we had no choice but to give Tapas Barinn a try.

It was delicious! And, according to Liz, muy auténtico, even though many dishes used Icelandic ingredients like native seafood, and puffin (one food we refused to try was puffin). The waiter recommended 3 to 5 tapas apiece, so we got 9 total (we were pretty hungry), but it turned out to be much more than we could eat. Unfortunately, taking the leftovers home is apparently unheard of in Iceland, so some of our amazing (and expensive) meal had to go to waste.

Don't worry, I did not buy these.

I loved the mosaic on this random house

Eventually we figured out that these were exit signs!