resurfacing

I´ve never been so happy to see a gas station convenience store. Beef jerky?! Yes! that´s what happens to you after 5 nights in the interior with only the groceries you bought in reykjavik when I posted last.

þorsmork was beautiful. Peaceful and serene. Well, peaceful and serene after the first night. We were "lucky" enough to have two troops of swiss scouts, the late teen or young adult variety staying with us at our campground. There are scouts everywhere in iceland... they´ve taken over the country.

Thursday night jessa and were lulled to sleep by choruses of kumbaya and awoken early friday morning to que sera sera as they packed up their camp and headed on the þorsmork- landmannalauger Laugevaguer trek. A four day trek from the two places I have just been þorsmork (pronounced-- thorsmork) and landmannalauger.

My last day with jessa was spent hiking around the þorsmork area and haivng a singalong bonfire with the other campground guests (sans scouts). Then i was on my own and on my way to landmanalauger. As I neared the place I realized, the half day I had budgeted was NOT enough time. It was like nowhere I have ever been landscape like none I have ever seen. The best way to attempt to describe it is like a cross between the badlands and mordor (otherwise known as the area the tongariro crossing in NZ that Dawn and I visited in 2003).

I´d been itching for a place to slow down for a bit. So i decided if i could by chance get a few more nights in the hut I had booked there I would stay. I was in luck! Unbelievable as they say you need to book these huts months in advance. So I stayed til today. Hiking, sitting in the natural hotsprings there and just soaking in the beauty.... and a bit of mayhem as well. It a major tourist site and the beginning (or end) of the Laugevegar. People are constant coming and going and taking pictures. With large cameras and zoom lens of you sitting in the hotsprings... Really? And english is not the primary language. I feel like I have been to france. Or france when it is frequented by a lot of german tourists as well. But not an american to save my soul. Except a few northeastern college kids i overheard talking in the bathroom about how they couldn´t wait to get back to reykjavik for a shower and the mall. Really?

The one downside to the area is that the store (which was housed in a green bus) had nothing except some crackers, chips, and apples for 2o0kr. No meet just some dried fish. So I had nothing but backpacking pasta and pb&j and trailmix and 2 expensive apples during my time there. Hence, you can see my excitement at some beef jerky, doritos and a banana! I feel like I´m in heaven.

But Landmannalauger was beautiful, and mystical. And I only thought I was going to fall to my death maybe 3 times. Hiking on gravely lava up steep slopes is a bit sketchy. Don´t worry I didn´t take too many risks but I did take lots of pictures.

Anyhow, this is all to say that I have only just now arrived in Myvatn. After a 10 hour bus ride through the interior. I was really looking forward to seeing the landscape but now realize it is just hours and hours and hours of back rocky sand deserts. I could fall asleep and wake up and nothing was different. But it was beautiful in this desolate sort of way. And we surfaced to two beautiful waterfalls the second of which was called goðafoss-- which means waterfall of the gods.

And so now I sit in the house next to my campground. squeezing out my last three minutes of internet use. After this I´ve told myself I´m going to get a hamburger or something good to eat. As a reward for many many nights of backpacking food. The only thing I´ve bought out in the last few days is a boat sandwich in reykjavik and those apples. So I´m starved!

Tomorrow and the next day I´m supposed to squeeze what I can out of this area and then I will be off to Akureyri. Only 6 nights left....


PS-- Although I haven´t had internet, I have been writing my typical blog posts in my journal so once I am back I will add those. I found I didn´t want to let the lack of internet keep me from writing to you all.