Day 2
Door: Elke
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elke
08 Augustus 2017 | IJsland, Hvolsvöllur
We started by visiting the sites of the golden circle; the parts that all tourist that only spent a day or so in Iceland will go to see. We first stopped at Thingvellir. This site has hosted the first parliament ever, being founded as early as 930 AD, now marked by a flag. This sense of history also lead Gorbatsjov and Reagan to meet here to discuss the end of the cold war back when Freya was still young. Thingvellir is located in the mid-Atlantic ridge; the crack between the North American and Eurasian plate. The plates are drifting apart at literally ground-breaking speeds of 2 cm per year, which had recently caused part of the path that we were supposed to walk on to collapse, but apparently Iceland will try to kill you in any number of ways, so you’re just supposed to ignore this and walk the board-walk that had been constructed since. Despite being aware of the enormous forces being at play here just below the surface, the place looked amiable; there were rock formations but also little streams making their way through sloping fields filled with fresh grass and delicate flowers.
Our second stop was at a lake site to pick up some supplies for lunch. Along the black sandy beaches of the lake you could see flares of sulphurous steam emerging and spots where the water was literally boiling. Traditionally people would dig a whole at such boiling spots and put a pan with dough in the ground for about 24 hours. When we were there, one of the breads was done and we took it with us for lunch. It was quite cold during lunch and a small drizzle had started that evolved in rain when we were visiting the geyser called Geysir; the geysers that gave this phenomenon its name. A few decades ago, Geysir stopped geysering, but its adjacent little brother is still active, erupting about every 7 minutes allowing us to see a number of these spectacles. Our last stop was Gullfoss a large waterfall. As with any big waterfalls it was impressive to see those large amounts of water falling down and disappearing in a canyon, but what really struck me was that this water was not falling down from a mountain. Instead the waterfall and river canyon seemed to be carved into the landscape and even from a little distance you would only see sloping fields without even a hint of a river let alone a large waterfall and canyon.
Then, after doing some groceries in the supermarket and vinbudin (the Icelandic equivalent of systembolaget), we made our way to the first camp site at Thorsmörk (valley of Thor). For at least one hour we followed the path of a large river through an amazing landscape of canyons, passing through a number of the side streams with the truck. It hadn’t stopped raining since we visited Geysir, but luckily it was only raining very little by the time we arrived at the remote campsite and had to make camp. After we successfully mounted a freakishly annoying light in my bathroom three years ago, I figured our ability to work as a team had approved considerably since our student days and luckily Willem and I also managed to put up our tent without difficulty. For our camp we also erected a large community tent, a solution to provide shelter from cold and rain during the day that I had not thought of in my visions. After a relatively late dinner we figured we would not go through the hassle of showering in the campsite facilities. We were told it would cost little over 4 Euros to get 4 minute of hot water. I figured that for that kind of money I could stink up the place for a while. I’m not denying this is strange coming from somebody that had just spent 80 Euro’s on 12 cans of beer and 3L wine, I’m just telling it as it was. Our tent was quite cramped, but we managed to get our two mats in there with a ridge of our bags in the middle, that would allow for a hearty handshake before we’d go to sleep and I was quite happy to find out that my intricate system of thermo-underwear and layers of fabric between me and the ground were successfully keeping me warm during the night.
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