After leaving Berunes, we made our way up the eastern fjords, past tiny fishing villages scattered across the shores of the various fjords. After passing by a few sleepy towns, we turned inland and pulled into Egilsstaðir - a (by Icelandic standards) a happening town located on a river with a famous Loch Ness like monster (YouTube Icelandic river monster for a video). Story goes that a little girl put a worm in a little box, but it grew so big so fast she freaked out and threw it in the river. The monster continued to grow and attack ships, so the Icelanders imported some swashbuckling Finns to do battle, as is prudent in situations such as these. The Finns battled the monster to a draw, and while they couldn't quite finish it off, they managed to secure its head and tail to the river floor. Occasionally the monster rears up out of the water and is spotted- and has stolen many of the woman who works tourist info's pacifiers. If you see the monster, she asks for them back, please. We learned a lot at the tourist office.
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| Lunch lakeside |
We had a few hours to kill before the bus left for Seyðisfjörður and had a great picnic down by the river, munching on veggie sandwiches and smartie-filled chocolate. Nom nom nom. Around 4, we hopped on the tiny bus and drove up a sweet road that slowly curved up the mountain side- I kept thinking how rad it would be to ride my bike down, as it went for miles as a gentle slope, then Chris reminded me it was the hill ben stiller longboards down in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty! And he winds up in Seyðisfjörður, which is a super picturesque little town, sitting at the base of a fjord surrounded by seven mountains. All of which you can climb.
The houses are all painted in bright colors, and it looks like a Norwegian village- usually the housing in iceland is utilitarian, and that's putting it nicely... But here, they're cute and trimmed in white and quite lovely. The campground was right in the center of town, which was awesome, right by a river that begged to be tubed down- provided you have a dry suit or Eskimo blood, cause it is 100% glacial goodness.
We just wandered around the first evening, checked out a a sweet waterfall in the edge of town, and called it an early night.
The next day we ducked into tourist info where they octogenarian info master sort of kind of told us about a possible hiking trail that may or may not have been closed. Good enough for us! We walked around the far side of town and up into a valley that rose slowly into the massive mountain hills that surrounded the town. Check the pictures, but it was one of those places where the camera can't quite capture the scope and beauty of the place.
It was SO gorgeous, and we had the whole place to ourselves. There is apparently a lake at the end, but just before we got to it (we think), the trail crossed a deep creek and took off into the snow fields. We hiked a bit on our side, but eventually the river cut across our path, and we couldn't see where it went beneath the snow. Not wanting to fall into an icy river 8 km from civilization, we snapped a few pictures and headed back.
A nice 13 or so kilometers, a distance which is fast becoming (or rather, has long been) par for the course. We started keeping track of our distance hiked awhile ago, and we're somewhere in the low 100 range.
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| Seyðisfjörður - town of my dreams |
We made one of our awesome dehydrated meals - a yumm yumm bowl, straight outta Portland. Yumm yumm bowls are a rice and bean base, topped with loads of veggies of your choice, avocado, and then a sauce made of tofu, chickpeas, lemon, nutritional yeast, curry powder, almond meal, probably some other delicious things, and topped off with guess work and eyeballed measurements. And it was SO good. After dinner, as the camp was quickly filling up with hordes of motorcycles and camper vans waiting for the ferry to Denmark that was arriving the next day, we left to check out a local bar which brewed their own beer. Chris had like 18 pints and shut the place down, while I sipped lemon tea all dainty like.
We had originally planned on taking the ferry to the Faroe Islands, but it was super expensive, like $500+ for the two of us, and then we still had to fly out of FI to Scotland. So instead we bid adieu to Seyðisfjörður and headed back to Egilsstaðir which is home to absolutely everything you need in a hundred meter radius. There's the bus stop, tourist info, a supermarket which had awesome mega cookies on sale so I bought a handful (highfive, along with egg noodles, wasa crackers and way too expensive but totally worth it tomatoes which have emerged as our go-to staples).
Then there is a sunny spot inside with free wifi, a cafe with tasty coffee and super weirdly cheap salmon and bread (kinda lox style. I think. I've never had lox, but I assume it's something like Salt Cafe's bread and salmon plate). And then vinbudin. Which we have started taking advantage of going to when we find one of the government run beer and wine stores actually open, as their hours are generally something like 2-2.30 every other Tuesday and whenever an elf sees a trolls shadow. So, all the essentials of Icelandic travel.
Our bus came, and we were on to Myvatn (pronounced me-vahn, except kind of just trail off the end), notorious for a lake, lava fields, and swarming hordes of midgies. Which I shrugged off in my mind - pff, how bad could they be? Man, you know what they saw about assumptions. Or pre-conceived notions. Or whatever. I was COMPETELY unprepared for the tangible clouds of buzzing pests. They don't bite, luckily, but loved committing seppuku, Hari Kari and kamikaze - these guys are trailblazers in the self immolation field. As soon as I stepped off the bus, hundred cannoned themselves straight into my nose, mouth, ears and hair. I'm still picking out handfuls of their carcasses when I pick my nose. It's like reverse blowing your nose, but with bugs. Blegh.
But that's for next time!!
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