Saudarkrokur, Iceland, Europe

We got up this morning and went out to check out some of the sites near Lake Myvatn. The first place we checked out was called Dimmuborgir, which was right across the street from our cabin. It is this strange rock garden kind of place with a couple of caves. The whole thing was covered in snow, so some of the walking paths were closed. We walked through for a little while and then headed out to see a real cave. We only had about a 10 minute drive down a dirt road until we found Grjotagja. This was pretty cool thermal hot spring in a cave that was covered in snow. You could see how crystal clear the water was in the cave, and the water was so hot that you would no even be able to swim in it. It doesn’t seem real that it can be that hot naturally, but apparently it is.

Our next stop near Lake Myvatn was the volcanic crater, Hverfjall. There are only a couple of places you can use to hike up the side of the crater. We found the easiest one to access from the parking lot, and started heading up. There were no real paths, it was just a side of the crater that didn’t have too much snow on it, so you could dig your feet into the rocks. It was a tough hike up, and once we got to the top, I realised how absolutely freezing it was. The winds were really strong up at the top, so that made the cold cut right through you, but the view was stunning. We walked around the ring at the top of the crater for a few minutes, and then had to head down. Luckily it was a much easier trip down the side of the volcano than it was to get up it.

We drove to our last stop at Lake Myvatn, Hverarond. This was a place that looked like it was on Mars. It was a thermal hot spring area, but not one you would ever want to swim in. There was smoke billowing from the ground, and there will little mud pools of boiling hot earth. The smell was absolutely atrocious. We took a quick walk around, trying to cover our noses and mouths with our scarves, and then got the heck out of there. The gases coming out of those things must be toxic. Melissa felt really unwell after we left the springs, and I can only guess that the fumes had something to do with it.

We started driving west toward Reykjavik and stopped at Godafoss waterfall on our way. We walked down the path to get to the falls, and it was a pretty impressive view. This was another really powerful waterfall, and we couldn’t stick around for long because the mist coming off the falls was very cold and very wet. We hit the road again and had a few hours to drive to get to our hotel in Saudarkrokur. We went through a city called Akureyri, and it was the first place since leaving Reykjavik that looked like an actual city. We decided this would be a great place to save some money and get our pizza fix, so we found a local Dominos Pizza and grabbed some pies. It was delicious.

We arrived at Hotel Tindastoll in Saudarkrokur by about 6pm and checked in to our very cool room. It is an old traditional Icelandic house, and our room is massive. It has a bunch of old furniture in it, and no TV. It is really old school. It is cool though. We just finished our pizza in the room and chilled the rest of the night. We had quite the adventurous day, so we are both very happy to get some rest. Tomorrow we head back to the big city!