When in Iceland, do as the sheep do... (#2)

 

On the road from Akureyri to Lake Myvatn, we had to stop at Godafoss and Geitafoss.  Godafoss is the waterfall of the gods; we never found out what geita means (google tells me it means goat - can google be trusted?? Waterfall of the goats just downstream from waterfall of the gods, I can see it, except there don't appear to be any goats in Iceland...hmm.  Anyone with knowledge of Icelandic, please chime in here!)  Anyhow, both waterfalls were tremendous and thundering.  It was worth a stop in blowing rain and mist! 

 

We made it to Lake Myvatn (midge lake, which true to its name was plagued with midges) and visited Fuglasafn Sigurgeirs (Sigurgeir's bird museum) right off the bat so that we could identify the birds we would be seeing around the lake.  What we found even more interesting than learning the birds was the taxidermy.  So many stuffed birds!  It was a neat little museum.

One of our favorite hikes during our stay at Myvatn was just a little footpath leaving town and following the lake shore for an indefinite period (we eventually turned back to go to bed, despite our non-existent circadian clocks, which up and disappeared our first night camping).  It was even shorts weather for Andy (see below)!  There were lots of arctic terns cavorting in the wind, tufted ducks and Barrow's goldeneyes, green-winged teal, gadwalls and horned mergansers bobbing in the waves along the shore.  Lake Myvatn is a shallow lake with algae and plant life, supporting insect life (those pesky midges), thus supporting a crazy amount of bird life, especially waterfowl.  There were so many ducks and ducklings!

Horned grebe sitting on a nest just off our campsite.

Another area of Myvatn with more ducks!  You may have noted Andy is wearing a headnet.  We spent a fair amount of time in headnets while at Myvatn, due to the midges.  The nets were really just to prevent annoyance of bugs landing in facial orifices, because Iceland is a really benign country when it comes to biological harm - the bugs don't even bite, there really aren't any predators to worry about (we did see a weasel or mink at Snaefellsjokull, so chickens should watch out, and there are arctic foxes, though we weren't lucky enough to spot one), and there aren't any venomous snakes or other reptiles.  The only thing you've got to look out for is volcanic activity, hypothermia, and winter (hypothermia); maybe a ram in rut, but we're not getting into details here.

For dinner our first night we went to Vogafjos - the cowshed restaurant!  Most fun dinner of my entire life up till now!  We had the choice of the lake view or the cow view.  Obviously there is really only one right choice here - cow butts!  It's a tiny dairy and bigger sheep farm that serves farm to table dinners in a restaurant attached to the milking parlor and cow barn.  So we ate salad with fresh mozarella, lamb, and skyr with warm cream and berries (me) and angelica and geysir bread ice cream (Andy)...mmmmm...while watching the cows get milked (4-cow machine milking parlor) and munch on their hay!!  After dinner we were able to walk into the barn and see the calves, heifers, and cows.  Some of the calves had spiky nose rings on, presumably weaning/anti-suckling devices.  Although I've never come across them in the US, I had an idea of their function because we had seen very similar, although a bit more intense, wooden devices in the National Museum, used back in the day in Iceland when people were living in sod huts.  

 

 After dinner we desperately needed to walk off the huge meal, so we went to Hofdi for a nice hike through a little birch forest and out to Myvatn.  Note that in the distance in the picture above you can see a dark landform to the right - that is Hverfjall, the explosion crater that we hiked up the next day (photos to come below).

 

After seeing this impressive crater in the distance for a day, we finally got to the top of it and walked all the way around the lip.  It is Hverfjall, a volcanic explosion crater that was formed during the last period of major volcanic activity in the area, part of the Myvatn Fires.  We felt like we were on Mars, except for the views of the lake in one direction.  

 

Icelanders are proud of their water: there are heated swimming pools everywhere, the drinking water is clean and cold, and all of our Airbnb hosts informed us to use as much hot water as we wanted, running out of hot water half-way through a shower is unheard of.  There was even a free shower stop on the side of the road, with bountiful hot water and unbeatable scenery, as long as the algae or sulfur smell didn't scare you off!

 As part of our day exploring the volcanic activity of the area, we also drove up to Viti, another explosion crater from the same time period, but this one has a brilliant blue lake within.  Steam was blowing out of various crevices in the surrounding mountains.

 Throughout this area was massive geothermal power plant activity.  Just above the crater were space-age looking domes and lots of piping that ran down the mountains to buildings down below.  The Myvatn nature baths are also nearby, but we opted to save our money for horseback riding. 

 After Viti, we stopped at Namafjall for even more volcanic activity - this time geothermal mudpots and sulfury steam vents.  It stunk.  But it was pretty cool.

 Just before we arrived in this region, we had heard the news of a guy going off the boardwalk at Yellowstone, falling into a hot spring and dying.  There weren't many boardwalk areas here, so you just trusted that the lines were set up with purpose and that the mud-caked ground under your feet was safe.  This dude (above) apparently hadn't heard about the guy in Yellowstone and was testing his luck, nudging his foot further and further past the line to get a good shot!

 The steaming vents were the coolest part of Namafjall to me, as long as I was upwind and not being engulfed by the stinking steam like that silly person in the photo above (faint dark figure to the right)!  These rock piles were spewing out steam, with a continuous jet-engine noise.

Our last morning at Myvatn was spent on Icelandic horseback.  I hadn't thought we would spend the money to ride, but after seeing all the ponies and their poofy manes all over the countryside, I couldn't resist much longer.  (Note: they are not called ponies, and I probably just offended many Icelanders.  I understand that they are horses, but they are so small, I just sometimes like to call them ponies, like a nickname!)  My mare was called Loa (top photo), which is the abbreviated name for the golden plover.  Andy's horse had such an Icelandic name that we could never remember it, much less pronounce it even once, but it translated to big brown mare.  Andy's horse was the automatic version and mine was the manual!  Meaning his mare would tolt automatically without any work on Andy's part, just asking her to speed up from a walk, while my mare required some guidance to get into the tolt.  I had to hold her head back with reins way up in the air (very funny feeling; if I rode like this back home I would be admonished!!) while constantly urging her on with my legs.  If she wasn't well collected, she would fall into a trot.  It was so neat feeling her transition from the trot into the tolt, and the tolt was incredible once I figured out how to get her there!  Now I understand why people like gaited horses.  Both of our horses were 4-gaited (walk, trot, tolt, canter), while our guide's horse was 5-gaited (walk, trot, tolt, canter, pace), although unfortunately we didn't get to see the pace.  

 

 *In the next installment: Iceland's largest forest, the South, and the end of the trip.