sleeping under the ice

Jessa and I are sleeping under the ice tonight. It´s cold. And a bit drizzly. But apparently internet is here. I guess they don´t have wifi.

After leaving Vik this morning we spent two plus hours driving through black sand deserts. Sometimes there was moss. Sometimes some green hills in the distance but it was a whole lot of nothing. There were single lane bridges at least a kilometer long. With a few pullouts mid span just incase you got stuck. Earlier today I had to back up off of a bridge cause the person coming the other direction wasn´t waiting. It´s bizzare.

After leaving the desert jessa and i resurfaced to a massive scupture of twisting bridge girders at edge of the desert at skaftafell national park. The girders are at least three feet deep and tied in knots. They´re casualties of a flood they had here in 1996. When a volcanic eruption under the glacier caused a massive flood. It formed a canyon 400 m wide x 7 km long x 240 m deep-- only to the top of the water. Insane!

At skaftafell, we set up our campsite under the glacier we headed on to a lagoon filled with ice. The glaciers here are amazing and even more amazing when you look at a picture of Vatnajökul and realize these massive glaciers I am seeing are just the little pinky fingers poking out.
Jessa and took a duck tour in jökulson lagoon with the blue icebergs floating all around us... luckily the gift shop had coffee and cocoa to warm us up!

On the way back we stopped at a little earthen church. Built on the foundations of a 14th century building. The chuch still has a little tile board where they put up the numbers of the hymns they will sing on sunday. There were more than two ölafs in the church graveyard surrounding it.

And now I sit in the visitor center at skaftafell. trying to warm up but about to head back to camp and eat some backpackers pantry beef stew. Tomorrow we start to make our way back. We may dogsled or horseback ride along the way... we´ll see.