Brian and I have ventured East, and the scenery has only improved. Due to our unpredictable sleep schedules, we awoke at 4 am on July 4th and decided we might as well hit the road, which proved to be a good decision. We had about 8 hours of driving ahead of us and many stops we wanted to make along the way, so a few hours head start would be beneficial. On our itineraries, we had hoped to stop at 2 magnificent waterfalls, wreckage of a crashed plane (I'll explain later), the town of Vik, and a lake famous for it's glaciers.
Now, I am not a geologist, so I will explain the scenery in the most accurate way possible, but no promises. Iceland has over 100 volcanoes. Many are so close together that they form mountain ranges, and atop those mountains sit massive glaciers. As the glaciers melt, they run off all sides of the volcanoes, causing more waterfalls than one can hope for. Less than an hour apart are two of the most beautiful waterfalls one could ever see. Seljalandsfoss allows you to walk all the way around/underneath it, which granted us some amazing photo opportunities.
Further on down the road is Skogafoss, a waterfall with a legend attached to it. According to the story, the first viking settler buried his treasure in a cave behind the falls. We climbed to the top of the falls to gain a different perspective, took some photos, and were back on the road.
Just down the road was a stop I had planned to make since I began my research for this trip. For a nation that never fought in WWII, Iceland has a direct history to that time period. The allies used the island as a base, and the Americans stayed for decades after. An American plane ran out of fuel and crash landed on a beach in the southern part of the island. No one was killed in the crash but the wreckage is still there to this day. Determined to find it, we parked our car just off the road and began what would become a 4 km trek over black sand beaches until we found it. The plane is relatively intact, apart from missing both wings and it's tail. I will attach photos of all the sights at the bottom of this post.
The search for the plane took longer than expected so we decided to forgo the last two stops we had planned and hit them on our return trip in a few days. Once again, we hit the open road, and nature presented us with remarkable landscapes. Jagged mountains carved by centuries of glaciers spilled out onto lava fields which transformed to black sand beaches. Although the island is only the size of the state of Indiana, it takes a long time to get anywhere. The speed limit never rises about 90 km/h (55 mph) although we have a tendency to drive faster than that as there are rarely anyone else for miles and miles. It should be noted, since no one told us, that Iceland installs cameras randomly around the island to catch people speeding. You know because as you drive by you see a flash of red light and your heart sinks. So far, we have gotten 2 tickets, but Brian was driving both times (haha!).
For the last 3 hours of the drive we hugged the perimeter of the Eastern fjords. Each fjord has a small community attached to it, which I believe survives on fishing. We stayed in a hostel that was in the second largest town in the East (which I will not even try and write because most of the characters are not from our alphabet). It is the 28th biggest city on the island with 1,118 people. Fun fact, Brian and I discovered that Las Vegas is the 28th biggest city in the US so we basically stayed at the Icelandic version of Vegas.
The next day we hit the road and retraced our tire marks to the city of Hofn, which is essentially nothing. It is the largest city in the South East, and after miles of solitude I suppose it might as well be a metropolis, but a population of 2,167 is hardly impressive. It was founded by French settlers as a fishing community so it has both French and Icelandic influence. We had time to kill since we couldn't check into our next spot for a few hours, so we walked around town and did some grocery shopping before hitting the road again.
We have a cabin for tonight in a remote corner of Iceland. We did a little exploring today and found a waterfall about 2 km from the cabin. Because of the consistent mist from the falls, a thick layer of moss had grown on the surrounding rocks. It did make the climb up them a little softer than expected but the moss was so thick that it masked the holes between rocks, meaning one misstep could send you plunging between two boulders. Luckily, we were able to get up close without any incident. The rest of our day is going to be spent enjoying the view and planning our final days here. Brian flies back to Portland on the 9th and I am off to London on the 10th.
We plan to head back to Reykjavik on the 8th and do a little partying before we depart. I will have one more post from Iceland before my journey continues.
Seljalandsfoss Skogarfoss
Plane wreck Fjord
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