Week 54- Part 1 Brothers in Ísland

Tuesday 24th July, I made it to Iceland, waltzed through passport control with my EU passport and was actually a little worried that I was the only one at the luggage belt. My bag came out 2nd and then I walked to start hitch hiking. I was first picked up by a Lithuanian guy who was fascinated by all my travels and wanted to do it himself later. Not too long after a Swedish couple brought me the rest of the way into town and left me at the supermarket. I bought quite a large amount of food and had great difficulty fitting it all in my bag. I did manage to forget couscous, however. I got directions to the bus, got the bus to the shopping centre, bought a sim card, camping gas, a map, ate my bread and hummus and then walked to the information centre to get a better map. I had to go to the book shop and then got some information about the trail before beginning to hitch to Vogar to meet Sam. I was first picked up by a local tour guide who didn’t have many pleasant things to say about the Chinese tourists. A couple from Vogar then brought me the rest of the way, though I did have to run after them as I left my jacket in the car.

While I waited for Sam, I tried to hit a pole with the frisbee and took a little nap. When I woke Sam appeared from across the field. We shared a warm embrace, regaled travel tails, pitched the tent, cooked a pasta, pepper and beans dinner, paid for the campsite and had a stroll before retiring to the tent.

Wednesday 25th July, I woke at around 04:30 feeling cold to put on a jumper when I saw Sam lying with two bare arms outside his sleeping bag. At 07:00 we made oats, repacked our bags in a rain shower and hit the road. A man with no back seats brought us to the main road and not long later an IcelandAir pilot collected us in his super jeep. He was headed into the inner territory to go fishing for a few days. The jeep was massive and very loud with questionable steering. He dropped us at a supermarket that was closed so we tried hitching again and Tom, from UK, picked us up. He was about to do his 3rd year of medicine and had a five hour layover so decided to hire a car. His whole family were doctors. He left us at the same supermarket that I had visited the previous day. We got the forgotten couscous and walked further down the road where we were collected by an elderly doctor on his way to the hospital.

He left us at the turn off to Thingvellir National Park where we got in with two New Yorkers. They were a bit ignorant about Ireland, both spoke Hebrew and one of them was just out of the Israeli army. They got us all the way to our snorkelling location despite nearly ruining the undercarriage trying to park. We were there by 11:30 and weren’t snorkelling until 14:00 so went for a walk and saw the waterfall where the Vikings used to behead people. After peanut butter wraps and spotting some ducklings it was time to snorkel.

I queued to pee and then we got changed. We were only a group of 4 as two people didn’t show. We were with two brothers from London, 31 and 19, a solicitor and student, and a bearded guide from Austria, Enno. We had an under-suit, dry suit, dog collar, gloves and a head piece to go with our flippers and snorkels. There was a bit of a wait but once we were in it was incredible. The suits kept us afloat and soon our lips went numb from the cold. The water was like looking through air it was so clear. We could see up to 30m down and 150m straight with fabulous green algae growing on the Giants Causeway-esque basalt rock. We were in the water for about 35min before the 20-50 year old glacial melt got too cold to cope with. We warmed up with hot chocolate and biscuits before heading with the English brothers to Geysir.

Geysir is a geothermal plume of super heated steam that shoots up to 35m in the air. It was pretty ‘cool’ but for the crowds. From here we went to Gullfoss waterfall which is the most amazing/large/powerful waterfall I have ever seen. Again, shame about the crowds. We drove to a campsite by Geysir and went for another small walk around in the better weather after having couscous, lentils and soup for dinner.

Thursday 26th July, we woke around 07:00, had our oats and got some advice about our hitchhiking route from an English teacher who was traveling with an off-road Land Rover group. They bring their own Land Rovers from the UK just for this trip. We set off down the road at 08:30 but ended up walking all the way to the next junction for an hour and 15 minutes without getting a lift.

From here, after failing to hit a pole with a stone, we were collected by a German electrical engineer in his van so I jumped in the back. He was big into photography and this was his last trip before he became a father. He drove us South and all the way to the turn off for road 26, which would take us inland to Landmannalaugar, in his efforts to find a particular waterfall. We walked some way down the road with limited traffic, not having much luck when a big articulated truck, driven by the Polish Arek, amazingly stopped for us. Conversation was sparse as he didn’t have much English but he was able to take us to where there were no more houses. He left us at a quarry and after 15 min a German pair had second thoughts and stopped to pick us up.

As it happened, they were going to our destination, down a dirt road with many potholes and a few fords. I thought he did well in his hire car, even if they shouldn’t have taken it there. We were concerned he was going to get it stuck in a river. The long-time friends left us at the trail head. There were huge numbers of cars and people with quite a bit of rain. We discovered, after lunch, that it would be unwise to hike out with the weather so we pitched our tent, using rocks as pegs, on the rocky campsite.

We decided to explore the lava rocks and went on an adventure to some sulphur vents. After this my legs were soaked but we made pasta, lentils and soup and it warmed me right up. We got into the tent, I wore my wet trousers and put my socks around my stomach in my sleeping bag and we played Yaniv and Gin Rummy before making a last dash for the toilet. It was during this last dash that I found a pair of waterproofs in the discarded items box, so I took them for myself. They would prove to be extremely useful.