Iceland Day 3 - "Mountain Legs"

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Adam went West, back to the glacier, but we stayed behind, slept in, made breakfast (peanut butter, bread, dates, coconut). We had a slice for Adan when he returned.

Caravan to Vik (back to Vik for us - but Adam was circumventing the island clockwise, so it was new for him). On the way, we stopped for pictures in the tumbled bouldered landscape. Susan found a path into the boulders. A carpet of soft moss, dead and brown from foot traffic. We were indulgent to walk the path.

Vik got bread, groceries, lunch, and a beer (.8 percent!) at the Kronor then drove around the seaside cliff to a black sand beach. In fact, it wasn’t so much sand as it was tiny black pebbles, smoothed and soft. I spread out my old travel poncho and we ate on it. Susan spied puffins floating at sea. A crowd gathered down the beach at the basalt columns, and we walked down there too and imagined the gigantic lava flow that would have created them.

We parted. Susan and I climbed Hellgafell, Holly Mountain. Just the kind of mountain hike I needed. In my mind, I worked out a simple melody, a round, inspired by an Icelandic folk music podcast that I set to repeat on our car trip. Cresting the mountain, we walked into the lichen, lava desolation. In the distance, the ice of Mýrdalshreppur buckled and fissured as it slowly flowed down to the sea. We rounded the peak and heard a pitiful bleat from a sheep stuck out on a patch of grass. The poor guy! Susan couldn’t stand the sound, so we turned back. I wonder if he ever got out of that predicament.

When we came down the mountain, we went West to our Tuesday waterfall and checked into the campsite below the falls. The camping field was wet and muddy, but we made it in. Adam soon reunited with us.

Dinner. Shower. 300 kroner for three minutes, with an abrupt end. Dried with my tee shirt because I forgot a towel.

As we lay in the van under solar powered LED lamps, the wind howled and Seljalandsfoss roared. The van shook with biting Iceland cold.

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