Walk up to me and erase my memory

Got up early and decided to walk to the airport, taking a stroll through some neighborhoods of Reykjavik I hadn’t seen before. Flight was less than an hour long, so the puddle jumper dropped down in Egilsstaðir around 11:30, on the other side of the island.  My orange Kia Sportage was ready to go, and I was on my way.

First stop was into the town of Egilsstaðir to go grocery shopping for the essentials, and then the driving began.

It's a waterfall
It’s a waterfall

This is what a lot of the land looks like. I think it’s called Hverfjall or something.  Or maybe that’s specifically the crater.  I don’t know.  It’s a lot of rocks and mountains and lava things.

Stupid rain
Stupid rain

Through this area are the Krafla Lava Fields, which are just fields of rocks that used to be lava. Would be fun to wander through, but slowing down a little while I drove sufficed given the weather.

Then there is the Namafjll area.  It has a lot of hot things in it, like these Mud Pots.

It's hot
Not hot enough to warm up the surrounding air, though.

It also has Hverarondor Hverir.  Fancy name, but it’s just this whistling hot bit of rocks that smells a lot like sulfur. I did put my hands in the steam and warmed them up. There are a bunch of litle ones like this in the area.

Smelly
Like a natural, smelly campfire
Sulphor
More weird namafjall type ground. Basically diseased earth.
It smells bad
I’m sure the mud is therapeutic or something
Another picture of bad smelling thing
Another picture of bad smelling things

They made a geothermal power plant and have this lake, lake Viti, out near it. Pictures here don’t really do it justice, as it was an interesting green color, and was once again steaming.

Viti
Viti, Vini, Viti

Take another moment to ooh and aah and appreciate the fact that I walked a mile in freezing cold rain without gloves or waterproof clothing to look at this.  The lava rocks around it were cool too. I should have taken a picture of those.

Viti
Are you not impressed?

Next is the Dettifoss waterfall.  It’s described as the most powerful waterfall in Europe. Maybe they should have it negotiate with Putin.

Dettifoss waterfall
Basically like Niagara Falls without the casinos
Dettifoss waterfall
Not a very far drop. Could definitely go over in a barrel
Dettifoss waterfall
Look how much more boring the water gets afterward
More Detifoss
Whatever I liked it I took a bunch of pictures

Then you can walk back upstream a bit to find another waterfall.  This is as I’m walking upstream, which is just a nice crevice of water in general.

whatever river that was in
500m great for kayaking between waterfalls

This is Selfoss Waterfall. The big one, not the tons of tiny ones. Seems nice, wish I could have gotten closer.

The other foss waterfall
I think it’s prettier than the other one, TripAdvisor.

After these, I decided to take the Sportage through the back roads of the National Forest.  That’s why I got it, right?  It was a slow drive through rough roads, but the scenery was lovely and I got to sit in the heated car for a while.  I even got to drive through a construction zone like some guy on a truck commercial.

Just some nature
It was a lot of colorful nature, some mountains, stuff like that.

Once though the park, the main roads took me up around the Northern coastline of Iceland.  Here’s a pulloff with a couple pictures.

It's an ocean
Cliff coastline, ocean. It’s like a colder Ireland.
It's still an ocean
I could sit here for hours. But it was raining so I stood for 3 minutes instead.

Then finally to hostel Arbot, which is a small hostel on a farm in the middle of nowhere.  But it’s quite nice – the kind of place that makes me think running a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t be so bad.

They didn't make me do any chores though
They didn’t make me do any chores though
Goðafoss waterfall
Goðafoss waterfall
It looks cold
No ropes? Just jump in I guess
It's not even raining today this is so weird
It’s not even raining today this is so weird
This is a picture from far away
Just in case you didn’t know what waterfalls looked like from far away
Lake Ljósavatn
Lake Ljósavatn. There’s a monster in there I think.
Driving to Akureyri
Using my panorama skills
Lots of little churches like this
Take me to church, and leave me outside
They little house things were meh
The Laufas (farmhouses) were meh in my opinion. You can see a grassy part of one on the right.
Drive to Akureyri
Drive to Akureyri
Drive to Akureyri
Drive to Akureyri
Akureyrarkirkja church
Akureyrarkirkja church

I got two parking tickets in Akureyri in the matter of a couple hours, which is a pretty good accomplishment in itself. Stupid Icelandic parking system.

The rest of Tuesday night consisted of wandering around Akureyri a bit, followed by trivia night in the hostel bar/cafe. A bunch of English people living in German sat with me and they had too many people, so one of them and I joined two Icelandic guys next to us for a team. That turned out to be a winning combination, as there were a few Icelandic questions that they nailed, then the rest was a solid team effort.  We won a free round of beers and some weird Icelandic shot.

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