I wondered what Rustic Icelandic might be like and I think we found it at the converted farm we stayed at. There were a lot of cross-stitch pieces hanging on the walls, and it sort of had the feeling the hotel in The Shining had except slightly less murdery. Red walls, antique decor, not a single Ikea plate in sight.
After free breakfast (yay!), we left our charming hotel with its sheep and Icelandic-rustic decor and set out to Selfoss, about four hours west of our current location. We left early enough so we could cross Idiot Bridge successfully (and we did!). The iceberg lagoon had new icebergs that had floated out to the river mouth overnight, but we had places to go and waterfalls to see and we sped our way west.
We started seeing the tourist hordes more frequently. We were used to being some of the only people at the places we have visited. Now, we’ve suddenly upgraded to hordes, long lines of traffic on the ring road consisting of giant vehicles, buses, and camper vans. Boo.
First, we headed to Skaftafell to see Svartifoss, a waterfall an hour west of Smyrlaborg. We ended up at overflow parking because there were more than 10 people at this place. The book said the falls were an easy 1.5hr return hike from the visitor center, tucked into an edge of the Vatnajökull national park.
Easy, my butt. Maybe it meant technically easy, as in the path was actually nice and paved or had footholds instead of rocks to clamber on. It was straight up a huge hill for about 30 minutes, with a few stops for waterfalls along the way. The trail murdered Kari and we left her to die another trail at the first waterfall overlook. Please never give us a hard hike, book.
Up and up for days we went, until we finally arrived at the falls. Svartifoss was very pretty, with water falling from the top of the columnar basalt cliffside. I think it was only the 17th most beautiful waterfall we had seen on this trip though. If we had done this early in the trip we would have been more impressed.
Our next stop was a place I found marked in a blog post about hidden gems in Iceland – Feather River Canyon (Fjaðrárgljúfur – no, I cannot say that either). It was down the ring road and then required a 4×4 to visit the top of the trail. Now is Bjuster’s time to shine!
We chugged up and down gravel paths near some sheep and found the top entrance to the canyon. It was amazingly verdant and somehow still sheepy. We started upstream at a waterfall (as you do in Iceland), and ended up at the bottom of the canyon, where crystalline deep blue water swiftly trickled by downstream.
There were a surprising amount of people here – and we found most of them had come up the canyon from the non-4×4 road and a car park at the bottom. Oh. Our road was better anyway!
We headed next to the black sands of Vik, site of many films and, of course, more basalt rocks. The beach at Vik is famous for both its beautiful black sands and very dangerous Sneaker Waves. Sneaker Waves have nothing to do with shoes (if you are American) – they are deadly, powerful waves that aren’t taller than other waves, but come up on shore much farther than usual. They pull everything back out to sea with them. They’re like an attack version of rip tides. Don’t turn your back on the ocean, the signs said. Careless tourists have died in this area.
Despite the warning about Sneaker Waves, tourists were in and around the water. Some people looked like they had been recently swimming. We mainly walked around the hordes and admired the weird rock formations on the beach.
No sneaker waves today – we scurried back to the car as we were quite ready to relax in our ABB in Selfoss. It had an outdoor kitty and featured panoramic views of mountains and horses!
Of note: I put my stick shift driving lessons to the test and drove to the store and back. I only made a fool of myself when turning left and then attempting to get the car in gear leaving the parking lot, but I only murdered the car once. Yesssss.
I will leave you with this beautiful music video we found while watching Icelandic top 40 music videos tonight. He dances on the hot dog stand we ate at.