Day 2 - Between 2 Continents & Fire below

Thursday, June 17, 2021
Thingvellir National Park, Iceland
Let me start by educating my blog readers on the one fact about Iceland that all of the videos, blogs, articles, etc. failed to mention. State owned stores are the only places you can buy full strength beer, wine, and liquor. These stores are sparce and only open Monday through Saturday, so stock up or you will be dry until you can locate a store on Monday.
We headed out for our trip to Silfra, without a supply of alcohol as I’m sure you have now deduced, to the only place in the world where you can snorkel between North America and Europe. The water was a pleasant 33 or so degrees so a dry suit was necessary. Seeing us all slowly being strangled by the tight rubber seal around our necks, prompted the guide to let us know, “You can either stay dry or breath, but not both”. We opted to stay dry and regulate our breathing. This activity was one of the ones we were really looking forward to and one of my main attractions to visiting Iceland. Aftercall, when can you swim between continents and be, effectively, nowhere. It was incredible to say the least. Water visibility is said to be the best in the world at over 300 feet due the purity of the water. It takes 30 years for the water to filter its way out of the rock. Feeling somewhat like a manatee, bobbing along the fissue, we saw the two continents drop below. I also had the thought that it probably would not be good if the fault picked that moment to spread a little further apart. In the end we made it back to dry land and peeled the suit off that had prevented us from becoming frozen for all eternity.
The same national park where we snorkeled had a few other interesting features. A large rock wall ran for quite a distance and reached 100 feet or more. Come to find out, it was the North Wall from the Game of Thrones. The majority of the show containing scenes north of the wall were filmed around Iceland. Pretty cool if you are a fan. In addition to this, we also visited a local waterfall, Oxararfoss, and had Parliament with the Vikings. Well, not really, but we did imagine that while we were at the location where they first met around 900 AD. Interesting fact, everyone was temporarily protected from retaliation by anyone they had issues with while attending. 
As if this was not enough activity for one day, we continued on. It is the time of year of 24 hour sunlight after all. Quick dinner of lamb and chicken in a pita and off we went to see an eruption.
Back in March several small breaks in the earth appeared and magma from over 20KM deep started bubbling out. After some time, the areas merged and one volcano developed and erupted. Different from the huge eruptions that we hear about that can destroy cities, this is a smaller type where the magma flows out forming lava rivers. In order to witness this great natural event, we headed up the the mountains for an hour and half hike straight up. So picture this, no exaggeration, we are walking up a very steep incline, while at the same time, the wind is blowing against us at around 60 mph. I almost busted it several times just because of the wind. Up we climbed until we reached a vantage point above the volcano, across a small valley where the main lava flows were heading. What a sight, red hot molten lava shooting out of the cone of the volcano and spilling over the side forming what looked like lava rapids down the side of the mountain. We really witnessed a great event. Hobbling back down the mountain, we collected our lava rock from the edge of the new dried lava flow and went back to the van to camp for the night.
I apologize for the length of this blog entry, and told Annemarie, we cant continue to do this much in one day or we will lose our audience. 

Comments

Mama
2021-06-21

I loved the descriptive blog. So much information. I want a picture of the van.

Patricia Hauge
2021-06-22

Never too long for me, it’s an amazing adventure ❤️❤️

Mayor of Iceland
2021-06-30

Nice blog I’d like to give you the key to the city but I misplaced my keys!

2025-02-13

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