Day 3

Day 3

I didn't sleep very well last night, a combination of the time difference and my feet hurt from all the hiking and climbing.  Breakfast at the hotel and we continued heading east along highway 1.  Our first stop was for gas, it was only $8.76 (US dollars) a gallon after the exchange rate. Now I am happy to be driving this under powered roller skate.  Our next stop turned out to be a wild goose chase of sorts.  We spent about 30 minutes driving around but could not fine the location we were looking for.  So on down the road heading for the Skaftafell National Park.  We drove through Skeioarasandur (don't ask me to pronounce any of the places)  It's vast tracts of black sandy desert washed down by the glacial rivers.  We stopped at the park visitors center an watched a video on the glacial eruption that happened in 1996.  Along the road you could still see all the devastation it caused, not so much from the actual eruption but from the glacial floods from the melting snow.  Imagine enough water to float part of the glacier so the water can escape underneath the glacier.  That's a lot of water.  We also stopped at a couple of the Vatnajokull glacier out flows. the coolest one was the Breioamerkurjokull Glacier located at Jokulsarton.  These out flows are huge.  We were able to get up close the the river and see the icebergs that had broken off the glacier and heading out to sea.  This is the second place I have seen a river flowing upstream from the ocean due to  the tidal currents. The other was in British Columbia.  The weather was really rainy, windy and cold most of the day.  I dressed warmer today than yesterday but it still wasn't enough, so tomorrow its even more layers.  Just about an hours drive from Jokulsarton to our hotel in the little village of Hofn, located on the Southeast part of the island.  Its a quant little fishing village.  It reminded both of us of some the fishing villages in Alaska, but with a German style.  Today was a much shorter day we arrived in Hofn around 6:30 PM.

Its looks like some sun tomorrow but still cold, only about 39 degrees.  That might be better than what I hear were supposed to get at home tomorrow 10-20 inches of heavy wet snow.  Hopefully it will all be melted by the time we get back.

Overall my impression so far is that Iceland is a truly unique place.  We have been to other volcanic areas in the northern hemisphere including Hawaii, Alaska and Oregon.  Iceland is very different from all 3.  One of the most noticeable things is the lack of vegetation.  There are very few trees or bushes anywhere. Mostly the flat barren plains near the cost, the tall shear cliffs and the very high snow covered mountains.  There is a lot of nothing for miles and miles.  

One of the interesting things is there is good cell coverage almost everywhere and free WiFi in the hotels and cafes.  Oh and by the way, it gets dark around 11PM and gets light around 4AM.  That makes it even harder to sleep when your internal clock is 6 hours behind the local time.