Okay, not really, but everything here does feel like it's straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie. Yesterday morning we decided to rent a car and we've been exploring the areas to the north and south of Reykjavik ever since. We've driven approximately 450 miles in the past two days and, man, what an adventure it's been! On day one it seemed that Iceland was one big flat lava field covered in thick moss. Yesterday, however, we headed north along the coast and we definitely found our mountains. The weird thing is that the mountains come straight up out of the flat plains and there are hardly any trees on any of them. This is definitely not Western Washington! As we headed north along the coast, I kept hoping to see a whale but sadly that dream has not yet become a reality. A whale or a puffin...I've gotta see one before I go!
Anyway, after heading north for a while, we followed a fjord to its inner-most point where we went hiking up an old trail to a waterfall. It's supposedly the highest waterfall on all of Iceland. We actually couldn't make it all the way, though, because we were stopped by a river that I'm sure people walk across during the summer without getting their feet wet. However, we decided to come in early spring and, as a result, the river was much too high for us to cross. Instead, we found deep caves and caverns, abandoned military and farm houses, huge fields of thick grass to frolic in, and all sorts of other interesting things. By no means was it time wasted!
Today we headed out again but to the south this time. The terrain is much different heading to the south than it is to the north. We encountered the lava fields that we saw on the first day but eventually found more mountains, like in the north. It was so weird because if you looked out one side of the car the landscape was completely flat and led straight to the ocean. People actually farmed this land, but we're not quite sure what they're farming because it just looks like a bunch of grass and Icelandic horses to us. If you looked out the other side of the car it almost looked like eastern Washington, or maybe Utah. Huge stacks of rocks and sharp mountains protruded from the earth in varying shades of brown, black and green. You could see on the sides of the mountains where the earth had fallen off of the side to make sharp cliffs. Every once in a while a pillar of steam would rise from some random spot on the mountainside. The hot springs are anything but few and far between around here. We actually saw a little one about a foot from the road yesterday with no covering or barrier or anything keeping people from walking right up to it. I guess it's common enough around here that they don't have to worry about kids touching the literally boiling water.
Though the hot springs are interesting, the main attractions from our drive today were two large waterfalls. Since the mountains seem to rise out of the ground in complete randomness, it was easy to see both waterfalls from miles off; however, getting to go up close to each one was absolutely amazing!
We were able to walk behind the first waterfall. Petra (Ben's sister) and I stood on the edge of the path right behind the water and the power of the spray nearly knocked us off our feet! We were not able to go behind the second waterfall, but it was about twice as tall and twice as wide and we climbed a huge staircase to the top, providing an amazing panoramic view. Looking to the right, you could see the mountains just near Reykjavik - a couple hours drive away - and to the left was a faint gray outline of a small island (our third stop of the day) and a natural arc out in the water cut from the rock big enough for ships to sail through. This part of Iceland actually looked a lot like the Oregon coast except the beaches are stark black. The contrast between the white foam of the ocean against the black sand beaches was breath-taking. If you've ever been to a black sand beach, you know that they're usually pretty coarse - more like small rocks than actual sand. These beaches were as soft as white sand, but as black as if someone had dyed them that way.
Apparently this small island was made millions of years ago (or maybe just many thousands) by an underwater volcano that erupted and let out enough magma to reach the surface. Because of this, the rock formations are really unique. The rocks come up in thick geometrical pillars in black and gray. Not much grows here, as you can imagine, but much of the island has started growing a thin grass that really adds to the beauty of the contrasting colors.
At about this time, the rain finally came. We've been blessed to have nothing but sun since we got here and the forecast was set for 100 percent rain. This gave us a good excuse to head home, though, which brings us to the end of our day. It's amazing how quickly time goes by when you're on vacation! We've already been here nearly half of our trip. I just can't believe it! I'm looking forward to many more adventures ahead of us, however. We're not slowing down for anyone!
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