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.
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