Our fourth day in Iceland was one of the coolest days by far. I'd thought the landscape was pretty cool, neat museums and things to see, and nice people. Our fourth day was mind-blowing.
Close to Husavik is a lake called Lake Myvatn. Besid'es the Golden Circle (Gulfoss, Geysir, and Thingvellir), this is what people come to Iceland to see. If you ever go to Iceland, make it happen that you go see this area, and I promise you won't regret it. It isn't very easy to get there- if we'd driven straight there, it would have taken at least six hours. There aren't trains and I'm pretty sure there's not a bus. There is an airport. No matter how you get here, it was totally worth it.
Our guidebook took us in a circle around Myvatn, starting in Reykjahlid, and I feel like this was a really good way to see it. Each sight was awesome, but they seemed to get more and more fantastic as the circle went on.
The first thing we saw was Hverfell. Some of the signs we saw also said Hverfjall, and I think the story behind this is too funny not to share. 'Fell' in Icelandic means "small hill", whereas "fjall" means "mountain". It used to be called Hverfjall, but an Icelandic citizen went to court over the name. Apparently, it is more of a small hill than a mountain. I don't know why it upset him so much, but he won the case, and now the name is Hverfell. Mountain or small hill, the thing is pretty impressive. It looms up, black and ominous, in the background of Lake Myvatn. It was a volcano that erupted a couple of thousand years ago, but it doesn't resemble erupted volcanoes one might think of. Instead, it looks like a gigantic pile of black rocks. It is almost surreal. There is a path up to the top, and once there, we saw the gigantic crater in the middle. It was crazy! In the middle of the crater, there was a raised circle. I have no idea how it happened, but it was really cool to see.
Our next stop in the circle was Dimmuborgir. Apparently the terrible band actually got their name from somewhere. If I was Iceland, I would have sued for taking the name of someplace amazing and applying it to something shitty. I mean, the name "Shitty Band" was still available. They could have called themselves that. :)
I kid, I kid. But really, Dimmuborgir was really cool. The name means "dark castles" in Icelandic. I wouldn't want to be here at night; this place would be way too creepy. As it was in the middle of the day, well, it was over run with the same old people on buses that flocked to Thingvellir. I understand everyone wanting to see it, but part of our reason for going to Europe in September is that it is the off season, and we didn't want to be surrounded by people. I really would have enjoyed Dimmuborgir a lot more had I not been surrounded by old people talking about how bad the flies were (they weren't that bad, but what do you expect from a place essentially called Fly Lake?), how cold it was (it wasn't that cold, and I'm always cold), and walking really slowly in every possible spot to walk. We broke away for a bit, but by that time, we were frustrated and left. I recommend if you go to go really early in the morning, or maybe later in the day. It would be positively creepy at dusk or later, so maybe not then, but definitely try to avoid the crowds!
The next cool thing to see around Myvatn are the pseudocraters. These look like the craters that are formed from lava explosions, but lava come out there. They are made when hot lava flows over a wet place, like a lake or swamp, and the steam explodes. The pseudocraters are all found in a place called Skutustadagigar, on the southern part of the lake. They're not super cool to look at up close- they just look like grassy bowls- but they're neat to see from the road. Our guidebook recommended walking around on a path, but it took about an hour and we were on a bit of a time crunch, so it is on our list of things to do next time we go! Oh, and the other place pseudocraters are found is Mars. After this visit, I am convinced Iceland is a portal to Mars, so that doesn't surprise me whatsoever!
The western part of the lake is very pretty, but there isn't much to see landmark-wise. There are some mountains, and probably some goregous views from on top of them.
The next place we stopped is no longer on the lake, but off to the east. These next two places are why /u am convinced Iceland is Mars. At least, I now feel like I have a good idea what Mars is like. :)
Hverir. This place was mind-blowing, awesome, and made me want to barf. No, really. Hverir is made up of sulfur vents. The ground is red and there are white deposits everywhere, and steam is literally pouring out of the ground. It smells so awful that I could only stay for a couple of minutes. I don't know if we went on an exceptionally bad day, because the guidebook said nothing about the smell. Perhaps I am just sensitive, because there were other people out among the steam vents, taking pictures and looking around. I really wanted to see it closer, but I just couldn't handle it. We snapped a couple of pictures, including one of Sam pretending to barf, and jumped back in the car. I was really disappointed. Maybe those other people were Icelandic, and used to the smell. Since all the water in Iceland is geothermal, it all smells like sulfur. People wash their dishes and take showers in sulfur smelling water. Maybe due to that, they were able to handle it more than my sensitive nose. Maybe the wind was acting up. Or maybe I am just a wimp! Either way, it was really gorgeous in a creepy, out-of-this-world way, but foul.
Our last stop around Myvatn was Leirhjukur, which really looked like Mars. Leirhjukur is part of the Krafla volcano system, which is still active. As I don't really see the world changing so much, I forget what the Earth is really capable of. This really shook that impression. Iceland reminded me that the Earth is changing and very powerful. This sounds like such a cliche, I know, but it is really awe inspiring to be next to volcanic lava fields, with sulfur steam streaming out of the Earth.
That pretty much ended the most important things to see around Myvatn, so we headed back to Husavik to get lunch and hit some museums we were interested in.
We found Salka, which our guidebook mentioned as having smoked puffin. Fortunately, this restaurant was open, so we finally got to try! It was really good! The restaurant was a little expensive, but then again, most food in Iceland was astronomical. The service wasn't that great- the 5-top who came in after us got their food before we did- but I'd recommend it for the puffin. Cute and delicious; what more could you want from a bird?
Next was the thing I had been looking forward to the most for the entire trip- the Iceland Phallological Museum. Yeah, that's right. A penis museum. This museum was started by this one guy thanks to a pratical joke. When he was a school teacher, one of his students brought him a penis or a whale or seal or some other Icelandic animal. The teacher thought it was interesting, rather than repulsive, and preserved it. Word got around, and people started bringing this guy more and more samples of penises from different animals that would get caught. This museum now has over 270 penises from 46 different species. It is incredible! There's even a human penis from this guy who pledged to donate him when he died. They just got it in July. There are several other men who have pledged their penises as well. It was really really interesting. They didn't go into much more detail than the species, year caught, and sometimes how they got it/ life of the animal. Nothing about different functions or anything like that. I almost felt like I was looking at some guy's penis collection, and, essentially, I was. There were even several stuffed whale penises on plaques on the walls. Absolutely fascinating! Hands down my most favorite museum I've ever been to.
After the penis museum, we headed over to the Whale Museum, which was just down the street. Husavik is tiny- around 3,000 people live there- but they have a good selection of museums. The great thing about Iceland is that although their cities are tiny, they manage to make them feel quite big, with lots of attractions and entertainment. There was no point in Iceland where I felt bored or like there was nothing to do that interested me.
The Whale Museum was pretty interesting, and very comprehensive. They had this really interesting exhibit on display about whaling in Alaska. This photographer followed this group of whalers and showed the whole process. I like it because he did a great job of presenting the thing so that it was objective- one could really take their own opinion if they agreed with it or not. That's really hard to do with such a controversial subject.
While waiting for our hosts to get off work, we went up to a little lake called Botnsvatn behind Husavik. It was really small and cute- a really cute place to take a picnic lunch in the summer.
Our delightful host works for a whale watching company, and she offered to take us on a tour. We were planning that for our last morning in Husavik before driving back down to Reykjavik. Unfortunately, when we arrived back at their house, they had watched the news and found that the weather was probably going to be awful the next morning, and whale watching wouldn't be possible. As we watched the news throughout the night, it was confirmed- no whale watching for Kristen and Sam. We were really disappointed and kind of at a loss for what to do now with our last day in Iceland. We wanted to do something awesome, and really use the best of our day, but what?
Sam has been talking about driving around Iceland since I've met him. I'm pretty sure he mentioned it one of the first times we hung out. I don't know how long he's wanted to do this, but it is a long time, and probably his number one travel goal. Unfortunately, we figured that with only four days and seeing the West Fjords, we wouldn't be able to make the loop- until our whale watching plans we canceled. Sam, never being the person to give up on a dream, quickly jumped on Google Maps and figured that driving the rest of the way around Iceland would only take about 10 hours. Factoring in time to stop for gas, lunch, and a couple crucial sites, we would have more than enough time to drive all the way around and make it back in Reykjavik in time for our 1 AM flight to Copenhagen! Needless to say we were stoked, especially Sam.
No comments:
Post a Comment