We’d left our Reykjavik digs at 6AM and hiked to a downtown pick-up point.
At 7AM we got on a small bus/van with 10 others… for a long ride to Landmannalaugar. “Landmannalaugar….Land…land, manna…people, laugar…pools. Land of the peoples’ pools. Easy to remember.” So said our guide as we headed out.
We were glad we’d opted for a guided hike because the road getting us to Landmannalaugar included three serious river fords and a fair bit of slimy cliffy/drop-off road with nary a road sign.
It was so so worth it.
Yep, the ground is steaming.
Those are braids of a river (not a road). Nick (our guide) said this part of the river never got very deep, that the more water there was, the more braids. He’d never seen the river get wide, it just split into lots of channels.
I would have happily stayed in at any one spot along our hike and stared. I felt like the land was alive. Moss (actually lichen) grows in patterns that look like fresh snow– sometimes the green stops at an elevational line, sometimes it runs down the mini-ravines of the hills.
Only later did I read that there are almost no native animals on/in Iceland (the Arctic fox being exception). I had been wondering because I didn’t see any tracks as we hiked. Also interesting to contemplate there are no native people either. Nordic “settlers” seem to have shown up in 800s, bringing livestock and human residents.
The end of the hike’s fun was a soak in the Peoples Pool, a lovely hot spring in a lower part of the river. No pictures, just memories. There is a longish boardwalk to the pool. No changing rooms anywhere, which keeps the riffraff at bay. We soaked. A few folks skipped the pools, one woman was undecided. After she soaked she thanked me profusely for her new understanding of why soaking in a natural pool is cosmic.
During our short time in Iceland, except for this hike, we were in Reykjavik, not far from the port and pedestrian walkway that runs along the shoreline. The city was pleasant, partly because it was the first time we got any taste of fall, and could walk around in jackets etc.
This weather made us LOVE the public “swimming pool” close to where we were staying. “The [geothermically heated] pool is made up of hot pots, a cold tub, children’s pool, a large swimming pool, sauna and a steam room.”
We went every day and focused on the hot pots, the sky overhead, and people watching. No cellphones or camera allowed. Amen.
(Above) The shared backyard of where we stayed. Almost all the building were made of concrete (including the gutters), with a stucco finish. A bit austere, partly because not that many trees and even shrubs survive Icelandic winter. (Mountain ash seems to.)