Day 4

We woke up with sunshine and sore muscles after another warm night. The plan was to hike a trail on the other side of the river, but we had to cross a wide (mostly dry) river bed first. There were two temporary bridges across large streams, but the day before there had been another stream the was too deep and wide to cross without getting your feet wet. Very few of us felt like getting our shoes wet this early in this trip, but we figured we would walk up to the river and see if it would be possible to cross with socks only and with enough margins to account for the increased water flow that was expected on our way back later that day due to the sun melting the ice of the glaciers. When we got there however, this third stream had completely dried up. According to our guide, this difference in water levels could not be explained by day-to-day variations in precipitation, he thought it was most likely the result of the activity that had been reported for Katla the days before and that had even caused officials to close some roads in its vicinity the week before. The additional steam that had emerged from Katla in the days leading up to our visit, most likely melted more ice than usual resulting in a brief but intense increase of water levels in the rivers downstream. Of course this was nothing compared to what could be expected from a real eruption, in which case the entire valley would probably fill up with water and we were advised to literally run for the hills.
The first trail we walked was a strenuous but convenient path to a view point over the valley. After this hike I decided to join Willem and a few others for an additional hike and this is when we started to see a pattern in which our guide would downplay the difficulty of the trails that he recommended. The path was less flat than announced and although pushing through when I’m tired is something I know I can do, doing so by choice knowing that I can also choose not to go through with it provided quite a new psychological struggle. On our way down there would be a ‘difficult part’ but this was announced to not be a problem for our group. Here also, facing death is one thing, but I got quite upset with myself for voluntarily getting myself into this situation yet another time. At one part we had to squeeze ourselves past a boulder on the corner of mountain next to (again) another steep drop. It made me cry behind my conveniently large sunglasses and from what I understood most of the other group members were not too happy about it either except apparently for one of them (who only wants to be mentioned online with a ‘gefingerde naam’). He somehow managed to position himself such that he was between the passing people and the abyss. I was glad he was there, although I thought it was incredibly stupid, because if one of us would have slipped, there would have been absolutely nothing he could have done to prevent it and he would have been gone as well. When squeezing myself past him, I did manage to ask his opinion on my fragrance and whether he liked the name ‘mortal fear’ that I had in mind for it. Shortly thereafter there luckily was something he could do and he did. There was a steep drop that was not very deep, but it was part of the actual trail, so we were expected to somehow make our way down, just not as quick as I did before I was stopped. I still got a cut on my wrist and a nice bruise on my hip though (right at that spot that hits the ground when you’re sleeping on one of those inflatable mats). Later people pointed out that despite my fear I ‘did it’ anyway, but I don’t see this as a big achievement or something to be proud of, because whatever I did after the first stupid decision, I did not do by choice anymore, it was rather a matter of sheer survival. You just don’t want to go back to the scary part that you already know, so the alternative is to force yourself forward, as that’s the only remaining way out, while beating yourself up on the decision that got you past that first scary bit.
We arrived back at the camp (luckily still with dry feet) after about 8 hours, although I have to admit that we had taken ample opportunity to enjoy the sun at every available picnic table that we came across and even with factor 50 sunscreen oil, I managed to get a (slight) tan. Upon arrival I did not only enjoy a nice shower but also a clean set of garments. The information that we received on required clothes did not cause me to prepare optimally for this trip and as a result I carried around a few kilos of useless stuff in my luggage while I was forced to ‘recycle’ the remaining useful outfits a bit more than anticipated.
To relax we had another beer or two (not more as it is the leading cause of having to leave your tent during the cold nights) and enjoyed again a nice dinner with fresh herbs and berries picked during the day in the mountains. Our driver even came to play his harmonica for us and when he played his favorite Icelandic song it apparently required him to take off his shoes.
After two warm nights, I was quite optimistic about the night ahead of us. It’s a well-known fact that it is almost impossible to get warm when you’re cold when you go to bed and since campfires were unfortunately not allowed at any of the campsites, we took a stroll to the river, jumped up and down a bit and then retired when we were warm. Pretty soon however the built up tension from our hike started to release, so first I was shivering with fear, which then seamlessly transitioned into shivering of cold (turned out more people had been particularly cold this night) and when by 4 am I stopped shivering, the blister on my foot started to hurt. Still I guess 2 good nights out of 3 is doable and maybe still better than anticipated.