Laugar

I've been taking white on white pictures all day. Yesterday's blizzard around Olafsfjordur never let up and we woke to snow everywhere. Thank goodness Iceland does a better job clearing the roads than Denver. Still, it felt like a fierce, winding drive around the cliffs overhanging the fjords, back down to Akureyri.

That, however, was nothing compared to the drive I just undertook back from Myvatn Nature Baths this evening. The white on white landscape, where the ground, mountains, and sky all bled into one, turned into complete darkness, where only the driving snow 10 feet in front of my face was visible. To the right: nothing. To the left: nothing. Above me: nothing. Ahead of me: nothing. To either side of the road, the little snow posts had pieces of reflective tape at the top, the only things guiding me through the vast void I was driving through. As the road sloped up into apparent nothingness, I felt like I was slowly driving into heaven.

The nature baths, themselves, were also a bit transcendent. Situated at lake Myvatn, the sulfury water had that unreal blue, slightly opaque tinge to it. The cold snowy day created steam off the water obscuring everything and casting it mysteriously. Jennifer and I soaked and soaked. The hot water coming out of a pipe felt like a deep tissue massage. We followed it up in their cafeteria with a sampling of the local geyser bread - rye bread baked in the ground geothermally. It's a flat, dark rye, which is covered in butter and smoked trout. Very much hit the spot.

A lovely end to a beautiful day of driving through this exceptional landscape. On the way we stopped at Godafoss, meaning waterfall of the gods. While not the largest or tallest, it is considered one of the most beautiful, crashing through a lava field. In the year 1000, the law speaker Porgeir was forced to decide on Iceland's national religion. After 24 hours of meditation, he decided on Christianity. Afterward, he tossed all his pagan carvings of the Norse gods into the waterfall.Leggi altro