Much rejuvenated after a good night's sleep in Höfn. We arose around 7:30 and Rebecca went for a run while I tried to get at&t to figure out why I wasn't getting texts when I paid handsomely to get them. After Rebecca returned to two of us had a good breakfast (usual stuff) and she took me to a promontory near our hotel. Our room actually looked out onto it. Here is a video we shot of it. As a point of interest, the guy you see sat on the bench we think is the guy I put my arm around on the first day.
Before we left town we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on skyr and a liquor store and stock up on beer. While I'm on the subject of liquor stores, let me say a few words about drinking in Iceland. I always had the idea that Icelanders were big drinkers like the Scandinavians I've met. It turns out, it's an oddly conservative country when it comes to drinking. They too had prohibition in 1915 but liquor was again legalized in 1935. Beer remained illegal until 1980 but could then only be bought in the duty free shop in the airport. It was finally legalized in 1988. Furthermore, alcohol is taxed according to its alcohol content so it's crazy expensive. A normal lager or pilsner in the liquor store costs $3 or $4. A bottle of vodka is about $48. I was talking to an Italian guy in the liquor store who we sat next to in the restaurant last night. He was looking at the wine selection and told me that the wines were twice the price as back home. Now, add to all that, there are only 49 liquor stores in the country, they keep odd hours and in the smaller towns the selection is silly and are not allowed to sell beer cold. Most close by 6:00.
The last errand we ran before leaving town was to fill up.
We have a discount card for this place which allows us free coffee which isn't bad. After all, you can't get through a day without -
Our card doesn't get us free smurt but we can't figure out what it is anyway.
It was a stunning day today which was a blessing since our plan was to drive up and down the eastern fjords before heading up to Egilsstaðir. There was a very good chance we were never going to get to our destination as we started stopping every 10 miles. Every time we rounded a corner there was another beautiful vista. Here are a few samples though as always, the pictures don't do it justice.
First was a stretch that looked a lot like California except with black beaches. We decided to stop since we liked the look of this rock
While we stopped a cute little town along the way, the town where the old man is above, I took some time to do a little instructional video.
We doubled our waterfall sightings in the first hour. It would be impossible to guess. Certainly a hundred. I mean, this was a constant sight.
Rebecca counted one mountainside with 13 waterfalls.
I haven't really written about driving on the ring road but let me say, it's a bit treacherous. It is raised about 5 feet from the ground and is two lanes wide with no shoulder, just stakes that stick up every 20 feet or so to show your what the road is. The fastest speed limit is 90 kph (56 mph) which until today has been ridiculous because we've been driving for long long straight stretches. Today, through the fjords the speed limits seemed almost too fast. And when signs say to slow down, they're not kidding. Today for the first time the ring road ran out of pavement and we were stuck on an incredibly rocky surface. Oh, and when I say the ring road (rte 1) is two lanes I mean it's two lanes except for when there is a bridge, in which case it's one lane. Usually this works out because we probably only passed 2 or 3 dozen cars on our 6 hour drive today but there are times when a sign says there is a one lane bridge ahead but your going up an incline and can't see what's over the crest. It gives you a shot of adrenaline. There are even times when there isn't a bridge but you can't see over the crest and sometimes when you get up there the road turns. It's a rush man. To add to all of that, there are sheep everywhere and you never know when they're going to cross over the road. We had to do an emergency braking for these derelict no goodnik bastards -
I'm going to include the next few pictures though they won't give a great sense of what I'm about to tell you. At one point today I started seeing signs to slow down and signs which I think were trying to convey uneven pavement. Here is what it all looked like.
It turns out that at high tide, the water in the fjord comes up and over the ring road so it is basically under water or just sticking up. I'm a bit sorry we weren't there then.
There were a few towns and we opted out of the last fjord and took a 6 kilometer tunnel to bypass.
After we were through the mountain we headed north to our stop for the night. We didn't take any pictures of it because I don't think we knew how to capture it. It looked to us like a normal Colorado picture of a river valley with steep snowy mountains on either side. At various times the river was on one side of the road or the other and for a while it was going toward the sea and then was going the opposite direction. In other words, it looked like a river valley but it was just melting snow water going through a glacier created valley and going down - whichever way down seemed to be. It was yet another landscape. I'm losing count of how many completely different kinds we've seen.
Dinner was a burger and a pizza at a place in town. We asked the waiter if there was a bar in town and he said something like, "They don't really do that here." Ah well.
More tomorrow.
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