On our drive to Lake Myvatn we of course saw more waterfalls :) There were ancient Nordic cairns, used to travel across Iceland that we saw along the road. It was neat to see them stretch across the plains for miles.
Our next stop was at Namaskard Pass where we saw boiling mud and smelled the worst case of rotten eggs that we have ever experienced! Even though the smell was bad it was very cool to actually see the mud boiling up. The whole lake district was filled with boiling mud spots, steam being released from the earth, hot water caves, pseudo volcanoes - so cool!
They have made electric generation stations using the steam from the earth to power the generators. There were a few beautiful bright blue lakes - I know they are from the salt content in the water but they sure were lovely.
We had a picnic lunch at some hot water lava caves. It was neat to go exploring and "find them". We surprised a local man swimming in the caves; it was nice to chat for a while.
Patrick said we had to climb a volcano so off we went to ascend Hverfjall, a tuff volcano (pseudo volcano). This is not a volcano that would have lava flow out of it but one formed when lava runs over an aquafer, producing steam. The steam then builds and erupts, blowing the earth away and then as the pieces fall down, it forms a crater.
Dimmuborgir is an unusal shaped lava field that folklore says is the dwelling place of the elves and trolls. Samantha and Patrick are sitting in the chair that the magical Yule Lads come to sit on at Christmas time. There were a lot of cool lava rocks and formations. The bottom middle picture is where the eleves turn to stone during the daylight hours unless they catch children alone, in which case they come out and play tricks on them - at least that's what we told the kids :)
Pseudo-volcano islands... Wouldn't it be nice to live on your own volcano island? Patrick and Sam sure think so.
Our last stop of the day was at the beautiful Godafoss. These falls reminded me of Niagara Falls but on a much smaller scale.
