Day 3, Part 1/2 — The North
Damn, day 3 was a long one. So I’m going to split it in 2 posts. The first part continues from where we stopped. Hvammstangi was the place we spent the second night in Iceland. A small (as usual) village in the coast, near to the main route 1 of Iceland. We woke up early and after making a stop at a gas station to refuel the car and ourselves with some much needed coffee to go with the sandwiches we were making with ingredients we bought at the supermarket in Reykjavik on the first day. One interesting thing of living in a car in a place with temperatures that don’t go above 5°C is that we could keep everything in the trunk of the car as it was basically a fridge. We had tomatoes, cheese, mayonnaise and yogurt, and everything was as good as in the first day. Being well fed is a major thing when you’re in this kind of trip. Sleeping in the car is not really comfortable, but being hungry is terrible.
So after refueling we got back to route 1. The road cuts through the north of Iceland skirting mountains and sticking to mostly plain areas in between then, though sometimes we went up some small mountains and usually went down in valleys. The landscape as is the constant in Iceland is beautiful. Differently from the Fjords though, there’s no sea.
We passed Akureyri without stopping, heading to the famous Goðafoss. As we approached it, we saw a trio of girls on the road hitchhiking. We stopped even though we didn’t have space for all of them in our small car full of luggage. One of them climbed in, and we continued to the waterfall. She was Polish, though I don’t really remember her name. She was hitchhiking for a month in Iceland and I just remember thinking “that’s pretty damn cool”. As we were close, it was less than 10 minutes until we reached Goðafoss. We left the car at the parking, which was crowded but much less than I expected, as was the area around the waterfall. Iceland in May is still not really crowded, especially in the North, even though Goðafoss is one of the most famous attractions of Iceland.
It is easy to see why. Being of easy access, Goðafoss is beautiful. Divided in 3 main waterfalls by rocks, with a very large amount of water flowing and perfect viewpoints. Though it doesn’t really seem that large by photos, it is a big waterfall, especially horizontally. There is a path that leads to the rock that you can see dividing the first small fall in the system. It’s fairly easy to reach, though you should be careful with wet slippery rocks on the way as you need to cross a little stream and some melting ice.
We didn’t waste much time as the day was full of things to see, and soon we said goodbye to our hitchhiking friend and headed to the next destination, the geothermal areas near Lake Mývatn. The lake is big, and the nature around it very beautiful. Being a volcanic activity area, there are a lot of different landscapes. There are also an alternative to people who want to bath in the warm and blue geothermal waters of the (in)famous Blue Lagoon. In Mývatn, you can get the same for much cheaper, and with a lot less people crowding in your rest and relax time. As you drive around, you will see geothermal energy plants and smoke or water vapor coming out of the ground. As is with volcanoes and related activities, there is a strong smell of sulfur in the air that can be very not fun, to say the least.
Keeping up on route 1 for a little longer and we reached Hverarond. A volcanic activity area with lots of natural hot springs spewing smoke, water vapor, hot water and more sulfur. It is a fairly alien landscape. It seems like you are walking in some sort of yellowish moon landscape that is breathing hot water and sulfur. Personally, this was my first encounter with volcanic activity, so I was rather impressed by it all.
We took a detour from route 1 here, as we took a small road north to go to the Krafla volcano. Krafla is not active right now, but we were hoping to see the Viti crater of Krafla. Viti is one of those beautiful craters with a extremely blue lake of water inside it. We had seen the pictures, and we wanted to see it by ourselves. The road is fairly good as it crosses a big geothermal energy plant that uses Krafla’s heat to generate energy. After we pass it we start to climb the volcano, and as we reach it we leave the car at the parking lot, which is right at the border. We climb the last few meter to see the lake, really excited. For our disappointment, the lake was still frozen and very much white. As we went down the volcanic crater, we had to deliver the bad news to a couple of roadtripping nuns and a priest (yes, this was surreal. Nuns and a priest roadtripping Iceland also got trolled by a frozen volcanic crater lake).
After Krafla, we headed back to route and kept going East. The next stop was the mighty Dettifoss. Which will be in part 2.
