7-5-2015: Continents, Glaciers and Geysers Galore

Oh my god, sleeping is not easy in this hotel room. The never setting sun and never closing bar below makes for a sleepless night. And we are paying WAY too much for this room. But another day awaits and we are looking forward to the next adventure.

We head off for our first stop of the day to Pingvellir, which in 2004 was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. Just so happens that Pingvellir lies on the junction of two tectonic plates that are pulling away from each other, Eurasia and the North American plates on the Mid Atlantic Range. The junction of the plates are more clearly visable here than anywhere else in the world. We even walked between two continents, imagine that! This is a messed up place - volcano shoots out black soot and lava covered fields and the tectonic plates literally pull the island apart. The island is growing and being destroyed but how often can we touch two continents at one time. Yep - this place is magic. No troll spottings but magic still.

 

Off we go heading to a glacier where our snowmobiles await. A quick lesson how to survive and keep most of your limbs in case of a tip-over and we are given control of a monster machine.

Funny how Krim and Tina just jumped on the back with us - poor innocent ladies! Give it the gas and we fly off to soon cross over from fresh snow to a glacier and there we are alone as if on the moon. It is barren, no trees and snow white to the horizon. It is a stark beauty that is hard to describe.

We travel for a bit and pull to a stop and like kids make angels in the snow and then tried a jump picture with all the snow gear on, I think someone took a picture?

Off we go and cross a stream running just under the snow. Scrape off the thin snow layer and below is the aqua blue glacier water dividing the glacer and new snow. Beautiful and special. How can a landscape with no green, no trees, flat white to the horizon be beautiful?

We head back to base camp and turn in our snowmobile gear and head off to Gullfloss, a huge waterfall that would remind you of Niagara Falls. And oh my, this thing is huge!

 

Oh what a day, but it's not over yet! Gylfi takes us to see the Feysisstofa Geysir fields, which are amazing! We know geysers from Napa, Yellowstone and stuff but maybe this one shoots ice! Nope, just like ours but frequent and just like ours people stand in the wrong place and get wet. No pumps visible so it is nature at work and is that not cool, or rather hot?

Ah, just like advertised, Iceland is magic.