Virginia:

There is nothing like catching a cab to the airport before the sun comes up. We had an early domestic flight to catch to Akureyri (AH-kuh-ray-ree), the unofficial Capital of the North, and check-in was 6:30am. It was a small plane--the kind that lets you feel every flap of a passing bird's wings. The view from the air, though, was unbelievable! Lava flows, frozen rivers, dormant volcanoes covered with snow...that's Iceland. We arrived in Akureyri just 45 minutes after leaving Reykjavik to find a snow storm and a bushy Icelander waiting for us. He looked like an extra from
Deadliest Catch. We boarded his bus and drove through town, picking up about 7 more people along the way--a small Taiwanese party, two young men from Madrid, and a quiet young French girl. Along the way we passed what we are assuming to be the northernmost bowling alley in the entire world.

Once we were all on the bus we left Akureyri for the Lake Myvatn (Midge Lake) protected nature area, where our actual tour would begin. The scenery was amazing the entire way. Being from Tennessee, we had never seen snow like this--with the possible exception of the infamous Blizzard of '93. Lakes were completely frozen around the edges, and the Icelandic horses were wearing a thick layer of frost on their manes. Our guide, nicknamed Shaggy by Matt, told us stories about life in northern Iceland. We learned that the random yellow posts by the road were a guide system for snowstorms and darkness and that medical emergencies in the country are sometimes reached by helicopter. Every little thing was fascinating, and we had not even reached Myvatn yet.

Matt:

Our first stop was Godafoss. Legend (and history) has it that in the year 1000, a man from the north was given the enormous task of shaping Iceland's cultural history. Christianity had taken hold in the rest of the Norse world and remained at odds with those who chose to worship the heathen gods. So Thorgeirr, the Lawspeaker for the whole of Iceland, retreated among his animal skins for a day and a half, speaking to no one and accepting no food. When he emerged, he ascended the Law Rock at Thingvellir and said that a united Iceland must exist. Therefore, Christianity was declared the official religion of the nation (though those who resisted were allowed to worship their gods in secret), and Thorgeirr returned to the north and threw his idols into the falls. Godafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, was named.

The falls were partly frozen, and though we saw a much larger one later. Virginia and I decided that Godafoss was by far the most beautiful waterfall we had ever seen. Also, as we stepped off the bus, we realized that we simply had no idea what the weather would be like. Snow rose toward our knees as we stepped to the ground, and we could only wonder what the rest of the trip would be like.

Next, we came to a small village consisting of a hotel, a gas station, and a few scattered farms and houses. We parked here and hiked through the snow and ice to the tops of two nearby fake craters. I say fake because they aren't impact craters at all; rather ones formed by implosion. From here we could see a frozen portion of Lake Myvatn (MEE-vah-tin). Surprisingly, though we were on the Myvatn tour, we could see very little of the actual lake. After touring the craters, we returned to the hotel's cafe, where we stopped for lunch. Virginia and I both unwittingly chose the local specialty: smoked trout on geysir bread with smjor (Icelandic butter). The fish, we later found out, was caught fresh from the lake and soaked for 24 hours in brine and then smoked. The geysir bread was made at the local bakery: an odd assortment of holes dug just above a magma chamber, where geothermal energy is plentiful. We later visited this area and saw the very hole in which our bread had been baked. The fish tasted similar to smoked salmon--the flavor overwhelmed by the process, and the bread was sweet--almost as if it was made with honey or molasses. I believe I liked it more than Virginia.

Our next stop appeared to be nothing at first. It was simply a hollow in the ground by the waterfront, but Shaggy pointed out the grid of caves and the fences made of stacked lava rock. This, he said, was an ancient ram pen. The very bottom was once filled with fresh water, and the caves were shallow shelters in which the rams slept. Amazingly, if we had been on the trip by ourselves, we never would have known that this place existed.

Dimmuborgir, a place that possessess other such names as "the Dark Castles" and "the Gates of Hell," was next. Our bus pulled up to a snow-covered mass of land in front of us. The only indication that something was actually here was a short metal gate with the name Dimmuborgir on it. Nevertheless, we leapt out to knee-deep snow and entered the park. At first we were descending a path, and our climb down was more similar to skiing without equipment than it was to hiking. At the bottom we first saw the formations--tall, black towers of rock rising from the ground. Geologically speaking, it was all due to lava cooling very quickly on the fields. But we saw this place as the Vikings had seen it, and we knew what lived here. Trolls.

To the Norse, life was a constant battle against trolls. Ships caught in heavy storms were besieged by sea trolls. Children who were lost or who disappeared were stolen away by trolls. With the sunlight, however, trolls are turned to stone, frozen for eternity. When one sees the enormous rock formations, complete with distinct heads and faces, it's easy to see why the Vikings believed trolls were real. Here in the park we saw several. There was a giant one shaped vaguely like a bear. Across the path was another, less distinct but certainly there, and beside it stood the lovers, holding each other forever. We came to the site of a troll party, where the trolls stood all around us, the result of a drunken celebration that lasted until sunrise. We also saw lava tubes, natural tunnels in the rocks carved out by the ancient lava flow. At one point, we could partially see a large crack that ran through the ground, though it was mostly covered in snow. Our guide told us that this was the continental rift between North America and Europe, the seam where the two tectonic plates were drifting apart. We had to be careful now. There was a bridge ahead that crossed them, but with the deep snow, now waste-high at parts, it was impossible to see with the naked eye. A moment later, the lower half of Shaggy's body had completely disappeared. He had missed the bridge. The closest members of our group hurried to him and pulled him up, and he warned us to move a little to the right. Our guide had fallen between continents and then carried on as if nothing had happened. As beautiful as it was, I could not wait to return to the safety of the bus. Anything could have happened here. We braved the Gates of Hell.

Virginia:

Leaving 42 square kilometers of the most perilous land I've ever set my feet upon, we pushed onward down the white roads of northern Iceland. In an attempt to visit a large steam vent, our bus became wedged in a snowbank--a snowbank that had once been a road. Shaggy, the driver, and the guys from Spain tried to free the wheels using chains and shovels. We eventually had to call for help from the nearest village and got towed out. Snaking past volcanoes and their ancient lava flows, Shaggy told us more stories of life in this land that has all appearances of being impossible to tame. We stopped at a small parking lot next to a field of mud. This was most interesting, as the snow in the Myvatn region was at least 2 feet deep everywehere we had previously been.

This was Hverarond, a geothermal area in which the earth's crust is so thin in some areas that straying from the path can easily result in being severely burned. Shaggy instructed us to follow behind him--an order no one wanted to disobey after the Dimmuborgir experience. Mud pots boiled and steam vents spouted thick plumes of sulfur-scented warmth into the freezing air. Shaggy gathered our posse around one of the highly active sections of the field and brushed an inch or two of soil away with a rock. Reaching in the hole, he picked up a handful of pure sulfur. Another "old Icelandic trick" he showed us was how to warm ourselves using the steam coming from the ground. Another couple kilometers down the road, we took a short break to visit a geothermal power plant that harnesses the same energy we had just seen first-hand. It was impressively large and had the same distinct smell of sulphur that was found in Hverarond and even in our hotel's shower.

Hverarond was our last major stop of the tour. We backtracked to a fork in the road, where we would be on our way toward the Myvatn natural baths. The visit to the local bakery was the only detour we made during this leg of the journey. As Matt described before, this is where bread is baked in holes underground using only the heat from shallow magma chambers. The natural bath was a smaller version of Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon, which we will be visiting on our way to the airport before we leave the country. Geothermal pools and heitt pottars (hot pots, or hot tubs) cover Iceland, allowing for the incredible experience of swimming while snow is falling. Our hair was covered with ice, bu we were warm in the naturally heated waters at the bath.

We left the bath and returned slowly to Akureyri. There, we were to board a plane back "home" to Reykjavik. We asked Shaggy how to get our boarding passes, as he had collected our voucher for the tour. He said to just tell them our names and they would give us one...that is how they do it in Akureyri. We were skeptical, but we tried. It worked!! After a snack of tunfiskur samloka (tuna sandwiches) we headed back to our Icelandic home, flying above the snow clouds.

Despite how tiring a trip like that can be, we went out in Reykjavik for drinks and dinner. Weekends are, after all, the time of the runtur: the most famous pub crawl in the entire country. We started at Restaurant Reykjavik for a drink at the Ice Bar. Made from blocks of ice, itlived p to its name. We sipped on the local specialty known as Brennivin, or "the black death," and a signature cocktail. After finishing our drinks and snapping a few pictures, we crossed the street to Tapas Barinn for dinner. We ordered a meal called the Icelandic Gourmet, which featured whale, puffin, lamb, lobster, and multiple types of fish, in addition to Brennivin and chocolate cake. It was only 4900ISK, which was less than $50!! They were out of puffin, unfortunately, but everything was great. Around midnight, we walked up Laugavegur back toward our hotel, dodging the runtur along the way. As fascinating as it might have been to stop by a few pubs and people-watch, we needed our rest for the tour of the Golden Circle we had planned for Saturday morning.