In which we hike Hveragerði (Iceland part II).

On researching potential excursions before the trip, a friend familiar with the Iceland recommended this hike through the Reykjadalur Valley. Gorgeous landscapes and swimming in a hot river? Uh, yes plz.

After fully surveying our Home on the Dairy in the morning sunshine and cooking up a hearty hikers' breakfast, we hopped in the car and headed back west.

That part of the island is green and mostly treeless, with many horse-filled fields and little blue, snow-capped volcanoes poking above the horizon in the not-too-distant distance. 

As there aren't many roads, it's difficult to get lost and we found the trailhead soon enough. The weather was perfect and brought out all the colors in the hillsides above us. 

For a while the landscape resembled that of green mountainsides of the UK, but then the multicolored, highlighter slime and steam vents reminded me that, no -- don't let the sheep deceive you -- you're not in Wales anymore. But really, check out that geothermal veg!

The trail took us up and up and up, and after a while we had a splendid view of the whole southern part of the island all the way to the sea.

Looking down into the neighboring valley, I took this picture to add to my photo series of "Sheep Grazing in Impractical Places".

The palette of the black volcanic stones against the orange earth, bright green grass and blue sky was quite delightful.

After about an hour of leisurely hiking and giddy photographizing we reached the hot part of the valley. Very hot.

Hot and stinky. Mmmmm, sulphur. So pungently picturesque! 

Once we made it through the fumes and managed not to tumble into the boiling, blubbering hot pots, the hot springs came into view, full of locals as well as selfie-taking tourists. We were tempted, but wanted to keep climbing before our soak, so crossed the little bridge and continued up the mountainside. 

That is where the crowds ceased, and soon it felt like we were the only people on the whole mountain. From there we continued along through the hills, where a soft, grassy plateau dotted with steam opened into a view over the highlands to the north. 

After a Sandwich of Champions (for you, Asaface), we explored the nearby pools of milky blue and green and bubbling mud pots and observed sheep grazing in more impractical places.

It was splendid. Absolutely splendid. 

On the way back we took a different route down that gave way to even more stunning vistas, as well as a rather nerve-wracking section of trail where the narrow footpath ran out and we had to kind of swing ourselves over the cliff face with a rope and iron holds.

By the time we made it back to the hot spring we were more than ready to hop in, and did so. It was like a jacuzzi, but with slimy vegetation, and jets of cold, fresh water mixing with the volcanic hotness. The fresh water cools the spring the further down you go, and we found a nice little lagoon part-way up that was almost but not quite too hot. After several hours of climbing, it felt like hot hot heaven. 

Once dried and clothed again a good while later, we started the trek back down and admired the stinkiest rainbows we had ever seen in the late afternoon sun.

This adventure was off to a glorious start, and we were tired, happy and hungry when we finally arrived back at our cabin in the glowing evening fields. One more wonderful day down and many wonders to go.

In which we journey north (Iceland part I).

Travel back a little over a year to early August 2019. There was no talk of a pandemic, none of this 2020 madness had even been dreamed of, and my good friend Amir and I boarded a plane to Reykjavik, naive, happy-go-lucky, excited for a week of wild exploration. He'd never been to Iceland, and I'd been itching to go back since my first stopover trip there way back in 2010. 

it had been a somewhat spontaneous decision, and after quite a lot of time spent searching for accommodations on a small, tourist-laden island, finally came up with an itinerary that made decent logistical sense. There weren't many affordable places left where we needed them to be and on some days would have to travel far to our beds, but we were feeling up to the journey. Looking out the window above the left elbow of Denmark, I was thrilled, and promptly fell asleep.

When I next opened my eyes, Vatnajökull National Park was waving merrily below, peeking out this way and that from under the clouds with its streaky, slowly sliding southern glacier.

Farther west, milky rivers meandered to the sea through a green and barren volcanic landscape.

The famous Blue Lagoon was clearly visible as we neared the airport, looking for all the world like a sad puddle of melted ice cream on a hot concrete sidewalk.

It was to this ice cream puddle that we first ventured, once we'd landed and managed to get to our rental car through the gusty air. There aren't many trees on that part of the island, and the wind blows at its leisure from coast to coast across the peninsula.  

The Blue Lagoon is a milky-blue geothermal pool and probably the most successful tourist trap on the island, with travel companies and airlines aplenty offering special layover deals to pay a lot of money to swim there between flights to and from Europe and North America. It was indeed visually stunning, with this strangely colored water in the midst of a scorched lava field, though for me just walking around the public paths was quite fulfilling enough. We had a peek into the resort with the many people swimming in the warm pool, buying unfathomably expensive cocktails waist-deep at a built-in bar, and I was content to use the swanky restrooms and continue along the road. 

It was early evening by that point but we still had several hours of daylight left, this being summer and Iceland, and although we had many miles to go to reach our destination we decided to take the longer, scenic route along the south coast to get there.

Before we'd driven far, I noticed a Point of Interest marked on our road map nearby and we took an exploratory detour, where we encountered our first stinking, benching, bubbling mud pots and fumaroles in the geothermal area of Seltún. As we neared the parking lot, we saw billowing steam rising in the distance, and a closer investigation of the picturesque little stream draining away from it, dotted with fluffy cottongrass, revealed that even here the water was quite literally steaming hot.

As it turns out, geothermal areas like this are awesome. I loved it. Except for the overwhelming, nauseating stench of rotten eggs, I loved it. The minerals in the soil turn it bright colors, the pools of mud boil and bubble and produce steam more reliably than any drama club smoke machine, and the whole thing was altogether alien to me. Even when sights like this became commonplace in the week of hiking and adventuring that followed, it still thrilled me every time I saw steam rising out of nothing on a distant mountainside or from the middle of a lush, flowered field. 

The late evening pictures don't really do it justice, but this YouTube video at least provides some electro ambiance.

By that time it was quite late and we were anxious to hit the road again and find our cabin while we still had some daylight. We had 100 km to go and thankfully had good directions to guide us to the tiny house on a dairy farm off a side road of a side road somewhere outside the little town of Hella. The sun settled down as we followed the coast, past the lonely little Strandakirkja in the distance and little fishing villages dotting the otherwise empty coast. 

The sunset hung brightly across half the sky as we parked and unpacked, tired but excited, and went to sleep with the wind blowing through the gnarled and hearty copse around us.