Drake and I LOVED Iceland - the people, the culture, the food, the music, and most importantly, the land.Iceland, by far, has some of the most geologically interesting land I have ever seen. Immense, inland glaciers are sprinkled throughout the island and volcanoes are the ruling force encountered over ever knoll. Driving around southwest Iceland was an experience just unto itself. Highways cut through miles and miles of lava fields covered in green moss only to deliver us into miles of jutting grassland. Puffing peaks in the horizon is a common backdrop.
We took a beautiful hike up to Mt. Esja, one of the more popular volcanic mountain ranges. I was most impressed with the lichen-covered rocks.
Every day offered so many highlights, but my two favorite were Pingvellir and Landmannalaugar. Pingvillir is where the original parliament started. But it is also the place of the Mid-Atlantic ridge where the North American tectonic plates meets the Eurasian one. I felt as if I were standing at the inception point of the world as we know it.
Landmannalaugar is a region near Hekla, one of the more active volcanoes. It could have taken us days to cover that diverse region, so we only took a few hours to hike one section of it and boy was it worth it. The ground is made up of black lava stones so light you sink a bit when trekking through it. The plant life looks as though it belongs undersea. We made our way atop one mound to look across an expanse of gigantic rock clusters (probably rhyolite). If it weren’t for the occasionally squawking bird and grazing sheep I could have completely lost touch with earth – that’s how alien it is.
Other highlights were: Gullfoss the iconic, tiered waterfall with a rainbow; Geysir, the geyser for which all geysers are named and is also larger than Old Faithful; and Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa known to cure psoriasis with its unique mineral-rich makeup.
Oh, and I heart Reykjavik. The personalities are a pleasant dichotomy of political cynicism and pioneering fervor; much like their architecture. One of the four TV channels there is a 24-hour Christian, evangelism channel with the likes of Billy Graham and crew. Ironic since the majority of citizens consider themselves atheist and the prime minister is the first openly gay head of government.
We ate the rotten shark, we drank the Brennivin, we danced our way through the Runtur. Takk fyrir Island.
We uploaded the entire PHOTO album here. Just a warning, there are about 400! I think I deleted about 200 that were just sheep. We dug the sheep.
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