Iceland Continued -- Another Day, Another Photo Dump

 

Actual trees. Lots of birds chirping from this little clump of habitat.

Might be easier to see the crack here.

Basalt. Here we are literally standing in the rift, the crack between the European and North American continental plates.

Lake reflections

In Florida or our part of Maryland the concept of geology isn’t obvious; it’s mostly flat and covered by trees. But here as in Colorado, you can’t NOT think about how the landscapes got that way.

Lake in a volcano crater. Huge and deep.

We’ve seen bigger geysers in Yellowstone, and bigger waterfalls in Niagara, but we haven’t seen them so close together as here — only about 15 minutes drive apart!

Geysir the place, where our word “geyser” apparently comes from.

The sun came out during the afternoon and the vibe of the landscape changed completely for us.

Iceland Rye Bread -- "Baked" (well, actually, steamed) in a Geothermal Hot Spring

 We followed a set of phone directions that I was sure were taking us on a dead end, but were actually correct, for a rather unusual adventure -- “baking” bread by burying a pot of dough in a geothermal spring. Before and after pix with our fabulous guide whose name sounds like “Philip” but actually uses some of those exotic Icelandic characters that look like elven runes that I don’t have on my phone. 

Here’s the bread pot being dug out of its geothermal “bakery.”

The hot spring here is boiling at a few spots in the center and 80C at the coolest spots.

It’s always a bit of a surprise when the tightly-wrapped bread pot is dug up and opened; will it have risen perfectly, nice and rounded? If it was too hot that day in the thermal, the bread might have risen too quickly then collapsed, if too cold you’d get a wet brick. This loaf promises to be perfect.

The bread warm enough to melt the local butter, served with a bit of smoked trout from the lake.

Iceland Day 1 Photo Dump

 When we were kids my brother and I loved to take photos of each other that looked like we were on another planet (science fiction nerdiness runs in the family). Oh if he could have seen this!

Yikes! Somehow I think we took a wrong turn and ended up on the moon!

The route

Leaving Baltimore

Sunrise just before landing in Iceland

The landscape is so harsh and forbidding they trained for the moon landings here

More moonscape. I kept stopping to take pictures thinking it couldn’t get any weirder…and it kept getting even more so!

Close up. It’s not quite lifeless here, there’s lichen, moss, some scrubby brush or grasses rarely. Once we saw a small clump of pine trees in the shelter of a hill.

Steam from the geothermal power plant…and the hot springs that was our first destination of the day.

There was one stretch of road with warning signs not to stop because the road was hot. It crossed a lava field. Obvs you couldn’t walk there or pause for pix either, but it was fresh and black even more dramatic than this.

Life abides. Teeny tiny plants establishing themselves.

The water is hot, comes from 2 km deep, saline, and filled with fine silica that gives it the milky appearance.

The hot springs “Blue Lagoon” we soaked in. The water supposedly has healing properties for psoriasis. After a long flight it was very relaxing.

Somehow this scene echoes the rock stacking that drives my Arubian friends rightfully crazy. Except on Aruba it's warm and sunny, and on Iceland it ... isn't.

Milky blue and white water is NOT reflecting a sunny sky — it was heavy overcast all day. This is just the mineral water from 2 km deep.

Brown and gray, silvery green and black, are the only colours we saw all day except the mineral blue and white water.

After all that a filling meal was called for. We happened on this small cafe with wonderful fish and chips (haddock, yum) and Icelandic fish stew (cod, potatoes, cream, and cheese). We decided to skip whale, puffin, or fermented shark meat (!!) all of which we saw on other menus. Yikes!

And heeeeeere we go!

 And heeeeeere we go! (April 22, 2024) Planning a bit of tourism before we start our 3-month gig on El Galeon. First stop: Iceland! We found a sublease tenant for our apartment, a very nice ER nurse, so we’ll have a bit of extra cash to explore with. Good friends at the marina are keeping an eye on Cinderella for us. And we’ve got a phenomenal itinerary planned—this is the first time we’ve used a higher-end travel planner for a trip and decisively won’t be the last; we’ve got adventures in store that I never would have found on my own. The first adventure is that getting there is an overnight flight—haven’t done one of those since I was in my 20s, hmmm… I’ll try to keep posting and writing but I may be too busy **having** adventures to write about them in real time!

(Edited to add: can’t say enough good things about The Boho Traveller LLC if you want to do more in depth exploration than the standard tourist spots!)

"Then and Now"

 

On April 20, 2016, I posted this photo of El Galeon with the caption "Headed out ... and with a dolphin escort. Fair winds!" Ironically 8 years later it popped up in my memories just as we were scrambling to go to the airport to meet the ship to work again. I posted that I still get heart-flutters when I see this ship.

Currency Conversion Confusions (getting ready for the next adventure)

(Capturing all the FB posts from our European adventures last summer. This was from April 18.)

Went to the bank to get a bit of cash to start our summer’s adventures. Ordered $250 in Euros, $250 in British pounds, and $50 in Icelandic Krona. Only the bank teller got it backwards and we didn’t notice right away. Gave us €250 and £250. The exchange rates made the amounts similar about 1.1 for euros to dollars and 1.3 for pounds. But when she got to the Icelandic krona she gave me a funny look. “Um, the cash you wanted for that part of your trip? It just debuted your account for $3.75. What are you planning, to buy a single cup of coffee the entire time you’re in the country?” Oops! I had wanted to buy $50 worth, not ISK 50! $50 turned out to be ISK 6500. Okaaay, got that sorted. Travel adventures and we haven’t even gotten started yet. Hmmm…