It was extremely windy today, and we were lucky to get in to the dock. Our captain brought the ship in three hours early so that we could be safely tied up before the wind was forecast to rise.
We rented a car in advance and picked it up at the dock. Easy peasy. Then we hit the road out of town. Not hard to do because the town is small. We passed a lot of sheep, some Icelandic horses, some farms, and not much else.
The traffic was very light and after about 45 minutes we arrived at Goðafoss, which means "The Falls of the Gods." One legend says that 1,000 years ago, when Lawspeaker Thorgeir Thorkelsson decided that Icelanders would convert to Christianity, he took all of his statues of the Norse gods and threw them into this waterfall. It is a magnificent waterfall, but it is in the middle of nowhere. Things can change in 1,000 years, but I'm not sure why Thorgeir would have chosen this particular place to abandon paganism. It's not easy to get to.
We continued for another 45 minutes past the huge Lake Myvatn to a place called Námaskard or Námafjall or Hverir - I've seen all three names used. It is an active volcanic area where you can walk right up to fumaroles and boiling mud pits. It smells terrible there and looks like the surface of Mars.
Our next stop was Dimmuborgir, which means "twilight castles." This is a park where you can see dramatic lava formations resulting from a former lava lake. There were a number of trails through the park, so we walked around for about 45 minutes.
The Yule Lads live in a big cave in this area. They are 13 brothers, all vicious trolls. They have funny names like Spoon Licker, Sausage Swiper, Sky Gobbler, and Door Slammer. They can rarely be seen in summer because they are resting and sleeping in their caves. The best time to see them is December, when they are busy preparing for Christmas. To find them it is best to walk down the path to Hallarflot and shout loudly "Jolasveinn!" Or so I'm told.
SInce we had some time left, we decided we would also go to the fishing village of Grenivik. Accoording to our map, the most direct route there from the Myvatn area was Route 1 to Route 836. On the way we passed some unusual hills that looked like small calderas. We would have stopped, but at least 6 busloads of tourists were already there, and it just wasn't appealing enough. We later found out that these were called pseudocraters, but I did not find out more than that.
So, we came to Route 836 and turned off. It was an unpaved road and didn't look like it went anywhere. But it was a shortcut, right? So we drove for at least 30 minutes, slowly because it was unpaved, and wondered at what point we should turn around and go back. All of a sudden we could see the fjord between some mountains and we knew we really were on the right road. We came out onto a main road close to Grenivik. believe me, Grenivik was not worth the effort. It was a small village of about 250 and nothing about it was particularly remarkable. It wasn't quaint and wooden like the fishing villages in Norway. (Wood is not a hot commodity in Iceland.)
After a short stay, we headed back to Akureyri using a different route that formed the third leg of a triangle. We passed an interesting and teeny settlement called Laufas, which consisted of an old church, three sod-roofed dwellings, and a few other buildings. We passed it so fast we didn't have time to stop and we were too tired to turn around, so we just headed back to Akureyri and drove around there a bit before returning the car.
Pleasant-looking houses in Akureyri
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