The video

Stuck in the Middle with You

Iceland is a country where the tectonic plates for North America and Europe are visible above ground and below water.  And you can touch them.

Jan and Mary are pointing to the North American plate.

Europe is the plate on the left in this picture.
If you don't mind cold water (in the 40s) you can don a flotation suit and snorkel in an area where the plates are submerged, but really close together.  You can touch both at once.  As long as neither plate moves while you are doing that you won't be crushed to death.

Another spectacular waterfall.  Gullfoss is part of the "Golden Circle" which is apparently a marketing term.  No matter what you call the area where the falls is located it is stunning.

The video of the falls is special but you will need to wait until we return home and I am able to edit the video version of our vacation.  We fly back tomorrow.

Since the geology of Iceland is similar to Yellowstone there are geysers.  Here's one.  Again, there is great video and because it erupts roughly every 4 minutes it's easy to get multiple takes.

The Road to Thingvellir National Park

We are headed back towards Reykjavik as the vacation days remaining are dwindling.  Our journey showed us parts of Iceland that many visitors from the USA don't see.  Most come to the big city, do the "Golden Circle" and go home.  Our itinerary took us to many other places that are both spectacular and beautiful.

On our way to Thingvellir National Park we saw more thermal features.  Iceland is geologically active.  There are many spots where liquid hot magma is just below the surface heating groundwater.

The same forces creating that bubbling cauldron of water heats 85% of the homes in this country.  It also provides 25% of the electric needs.  Most of the rest of the electricity needed is generated by the falling water.  Near this geological feature is an energy station and another therapeutic pool.

The source of the water for the falls is snow melt and glacial run off.  This falls seems to appear from the side of a cliff, though a thick collection of trees.  The water is moving fast because it rained on Thursday and it is "hot" today.  Blue skies and the temperature reached 65.  While I want to characterize that as atypical native Icelanders tell me there is no such thing as typical weather in this country.  It is different all the time.

The National Park is the largest in the country and blessed with a large variety of topography and geology.  We only scratched the surface of the park today in our driving.  Saturday will give us an opportunity for more exploring.

Tomorrow's adventure includes some geysers, the tectonic plates separating North America and Europe and other wonders.  Incidentally, we tried the geysir bread as part of our lunch.  It's probably an acquired taste.  No one stopped eating their slice but there were no requests for seconds and we aren't likely to eat the rest of it.  It does possess a rye bread flavor, but with 200 grams of sugar in a loaf it is sweet.  The baking method is more like curing so the resulting bread is very dense and very moist.  Perhaps it tastes better right out of the "oven" because we did not enjoy it.

Other delicacies consumed on the trip:  Hot dogs.  Iceland loves hot dogs.  Their variety is not spicy.  It is simply ground or pulverized meat in a casing and usually boiled.  They put ketchup, mustard and crunchy onions on it.  The ketchup and mustard is sweet, not tangy or spicy.  Mike tried cod liver oil with his breakfast two days ago.  There is always a large bottle available with every breakfast.  I am not trying it and Mike does not plan to repeat the tasting.  We all decided to pass on fermented shark meat (like beef jerky - sorta), lambs head stew and horse meat.  It's on the menu as foal.

Whales and Waterfalls

Our July 4th showed us some shock and awe but not the kind that you are hearing outside right now.  Our entourage boarded a ship called Gadar to look at whales in the North Atlantic.  Iceland's Humpback whales adopt similar migratory patterns to Alaska's.  The whales "summer" in the colder waters near Iceland to eat their fill, which is considerable. As winter approaches the whales migrate to warmer waters to give birth.

One big difference I observed during our whale watch in Iceland is that the boats get much closer to the whales.  Alaska prohibits tours from getting closer than 100 yards and the tour operators honor that.  In Iceland they will get right on top of the whale, which is probably not a good thing.

Unlike our Alaska whale watching adventures we shared this one with nearly 3 dozen voyagers.  In Alaska we typically tour with no more than 8.  At least a dozen of our passengers were not sea worthy and did not tolerate the motion of the ocean.  

Following whales the Land Cruiser drove us to yet another spectacular waterfall.  It seems that each one is more beautiful than the other.

We are over-nighting in a quaint little Iceland village and staying in the vintage 1930's hotel.  Tomorrow our itinerary is long but exciting.

Fire and Ice

Iceland is called a land of fire and ice because of its active volcanoes and its glaciers.  The country makes great use of the molten lava beneath its surface.  Icelanders use it to bake bread, called Geysir Rye.  The bread is denser than what you think of and sweet.  In the parts of the country where the tectonics made it possible the dough is put into sealed containers, buried in the hot ground and left there for 24 hours to bake.  I bought some.  I will report back to you on taste.

The thermal action creates energy for the country.  Power plants use the heat to generate steam and spin turbines.  There are also hot springs where people come to appreciate the therapeutic benefits of the waters.

There are three vacationers who seem to be enjoying the water.  Temperature is quite warm depending on where you are in the pool.  There are thermal hot spots.  I saw a posted sign warning of a water temperature near 100 degree centigrade.  That's boiling!  It is the section of the pool to the right of the lower picture.  No one was in that area today.

We visited an area of active thermodynamics.  No geysers but plenty of mud pots and fumaroles.  Yes.  It smells like rotten eggs.

 Elsewhere today we traveled to Dettifoss.  One of Europe's largest waterfalls.  You can get very nice views from both sides without crossing an International boundary.

 I've got lots of video and different angles on this falls, including a pretty shot with a rainbow but the internet connection in this area is very slow.  That doesn't bother the sheep.

There are over 800 hundred thousand of them in the country.  They are allowed to roam freely, anywhere, including into a hotel parking lot.

They don't mind people as long as they can eat their grass.  All of the sheep we saw are tagged.  In September sheep ranchers go out and herd all the sheep in their "region" into pens.  The sheep are sorted and returned to the ranchers.  The country stages a festival around the activity which goes on for several days or even weeks.  Iceland sheep are hearty.  They can withstand the winter.  They are disease resistant and they end up being a staple of Icelandic diets.

There is a desert in Iceland.  It's not an Arizona roasting type desert.  To find that kind of heat you dig downward.  It is arid there.  Not many sheep, although we saw some.  Apparently the only place the sheep do not venture is the glaciers.

Iceland surprises:  There are lots of bugs this time of year in certain parts of the country.  Our travels this morning to Dettifoss gathered many onto the car.  Fortunately at the N1 petrol station you can wash your car for free.  The water is cold.  Frankly it is glacier cold, but they provide a brush and it gets the job done.  At N1 you cannot buy fuel with your credit cards.  You must buy pre pay cards from them and they are sold in 10,000 and 5,000 Krona denominations.  Gas is about 2250 Krona per liter.  If it makes it easier for you it works out to around 8 bucks a gallon currently.

When we rented the car, which Jan and Mary arranged through a travel agent in Reykjavik,  we were encouraged to take something like a Toyota Highlander.  It's large enough to carry 4 adults and their luggage.  Cars that large are powered by diesel engines.  It gets reasonably good mileage.  As part of the package the car comes with a handy, mobile internet device.  Basically it uses the phone network across the country as you wander.  It provides a wifi signal in the car for up to 10 connections.  If you are in a 4g area the connection is fast.  Tonight we are in a 3g area.  Not as good.  You can take it with you into a hotel room.  I did two nights ago.  It's proved to be a handy device on the trip.  Warning:  There are areas without cell coverage and the device just waits until you drive into one before it handles your request.

Tourism is now a huge part of Iceland's economy.  Not too long ago 500,000 tourists visited.  Now, Iceland hosts over 2 million visitors.  As a result, in a country of roughly 300 thousand people, half of whom live in Reykjavik, there are not enough laborers to work in the hotels and other tourist support businesses.  Our wait staff tonight hailed from Serbia and Portugal.  Our waiter this morning proudly talked about his Italian roots.  They come here to earn money as a summer job.

Tomorrow we are whale watching.

Rolling Hills and Breathtaking Landscapes

Day number 2 of our solar outbreak in Iceland.  We needed to shed layers again and double our sunscreen protection.  Preliminary forecasting calls for rain tomorrow.  After that it may return to sunshine.  What a bonus.  The temperature is in the 50's but when you bundle up for rain and 40's you are more than warm. 

We made our way across the so called "northern" part of Iceland.  It included a long tunnel through an extinct volcano.  Then our journey required using a gravel through across one of their volcanic mountains.  The road challenged me with many turns, dips and twists.  Mike and I alternate driving chores and today is my day.  Luck of the draw.

The first picture in my post is what Facebook uses for the "thumbnail" image. I'll give it to Mike and Mary.  We hiked a long way up to reach the falls behind them.

The falls looks like this:

We can even see our hotel from atop the ridge:

We are surrounded by beautiful vistas like this one:

And from the balcony / deck of our hotel room it looks like this:

Not too shabby.l
Jan's watch says we are walking / hiking over 15,000 steps per day and the equivalent of 40 stories of stairways. 

Glaciers Make Waterfalls and Little Icebergs

The north east section of Iceland is home to a huge glacier, or lots of big glaciers.  It depends on how you interpret them.  It is summer.  Even though 45 degrees does not sound warm to you it is warm to a glacier.  It makes them melt.

Freshwater glacier "calve" into rivers or bays and make icebergs.  Hanging glaciers melt and make waterfalls.

When we toured today we also found that the icebergs float down rivers to the ocean and the wave action drives them back onto beaches. 

These are new arrivals on Diamond Beach.  If you want to know why it is called that look at this ice chunk after a few hours under the sun.

The sand is black and that makes the ice chunks look like large diamonds.  While I photographed these chunks a nearby seal stopped by to offer some advice on proper framing.