Þjóðvegur 1. Hitchhiking Around Iceland – Part II

I opened my eyes. The night was chilly, but not such as to not make me sleep comfortable. I was putting away my tent in this black wilderness accompanied by a small rain and a mad wind. Black clouds were above me and I knew very well that the second day of my trip on Þjóðvegur 1, the most important national road in Iceland, circling the whole island, is going to be very, very wet.

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I set off on an hour-long walk from the beach where the wreck of the plane was located to Þjóðvegur 1, consuming crackers and dried cranberries as something of a breakfast along the way. When I arrived to the asphalt road, it was 8 or 9 in the morning, but the main national road was completely empty. On the horizon a single vehicle appeared on average every twenty minutes and somehow no one wanted to take me on board. I didn't feel like standing still in cold rain, even colder wind and staring at the empty road, so I decided to move on the side to diversify my time and warm myself up at the same time. After a dozen or so minutes I was approaching a side road from which the camper was exiting. Car's window opened and I saw the hand waving the invitation gesture!

I found myself in a motorhome full of Italians! And they were very interesting Italians! It turned out that I came across a family with strong and long traveling roots. They travel a lot, both together and separately. Young marriage came to Iceland with their one-year-old daughter, parents of her, and her brother. This brother drove the whole Central Asia with a motorcycle and I had a chance to chat a little bit about it (it's a part of the world to which I'm strongly attracted to). He also visited China and many other countries, traveling like a traveller, not like a tourist. Grandparents, on the other hand, have been with their camper around the world for several decades. They even visited Poland in the 70s (!!!). Mum expressed her hope that their daughter would also travel, just like the rest of the family. What's more, they all spoke Russian, as they once had a Russian in their family, and have been passing this language on to each other up to this day.

I've entered into a wonderful home atmosphere - it was warm, dry and I was treated with espresso and cookies. We switched to Russian for a moment - a conversation with Italians in Russian was a rather surreal experience! We arrived together at the headland of Dyrhólaey, where Game of Thrones was shot! The weather here was really harsh - the wind reached 40-50 km/h and it was accompanied by rain falling from every possible angle. From Dyrhólaey you could enjoy a breathtaking view of the climatic Reynisfjara beach:

You could touch fine black sand there. Somehow, I find these black beaches more appealing than the "ordinary" white beaches. The volcanic sand is hypnotic and I have the impression that my eye was almost relaxing resting on these dark particles. On a dark background, thanks to the contrast effect, the foaming sea waves look much more beautiful! The colour of the sand is, of course, the result of its content - volcanic ash and basalt.

And these waves could be quite treacherous and sometimes one has to run away from them if one does not want to be soaked. Sometimes they unexpectedly even reach the rocks, wetting the whole beach and tourists who do not manage to escape.

Reynisfjara is famous for its fascinating basalt columns, which are said to have been set by trolls. Another story says that these blows are the trolls that did not manage to escape from the beach before the sunrise and turned into stone.

A happy Italian family left me in the tiny village of Vík í Mýrdal (Bay of the Marshy Valley). I've never been to Italy, but I've ever been travelling with Italians several times before, and it's always a journey full of joy and energy, and it's may be high time to visit it one day!

Chris captured me from here. A young American in his Dacia Duster still fresh and empty, straight from the rental. From the speakers I could hear some some rock band which sounded very similar to A Perfect Circle. I asked Chris if he knew them and it turned out not only he knows the band, but also that he is a huge fan of Tool, just like me! I didn't expect to listen to Tool at all while driving through the beautiful Icelandic landscapes, but that's what was happening for the next few hours.

We arrived at a terribly strange field, called Laufskálavarða. It was a place where traditionally travellers were supposed to leave one pebble if they crossed this empty area for the first time. Today it has become a kind of tourist attraction and you can experience hundreds, if not thousands, of such small stone cairns in this place. Together with Chris we set one and went further.

These cairns are a rather controversial issue in Iceland. Apart from Laufskálavarð, where they were supposed to bring luck, these mounds have been erected since the Vikings and served as signposts at that time. Some of them are really big. Today, many tourists put them where they should not be placed, thus destroying nature or the landscape. Other tourists are destroying cairns, some of which are hundreds of years old. The authorities have finally decided to adopt the following policy - do not build any cairn, but do not destroy any of them too. However, it is difficult to guard the crazy tourists, and this ban is not very well exposed. As a result, stone "elves'" cairn are seen quite often in Iceland, sometimes in a complete wilderness.

Along with Laufskálavarð, the landscape changed beyond recognition. We have entered an area called Eldhraun, which is simply a chilled lava of over 565 km² area! It is the largest area of its kind in the world. The lava is covered with light, fluffy moss and personally, I don't know why, it reminded me very much of the first album of Pink Floyd. The terrain is so vast that you get the impression that this magical green world doesn't end at all and stretches far beyond the horizon.

The eruption from which the lava came originated took place in 1783 and lasted for a year (!). It was an event that affected the whole of Europe - volcanic ash haunted areas of today's Great Britain, where sand fogs were seen for many weeks. Similar phenomena were also observed in the United States. Some people believe that the volcanic eruption contributed to, among others, the famine in Egypt, but also to the outbreak of the famous French revolution. It is speculated that as many as three quarters of Iceland's population at that time died of hunger and other effects caused by volcanic ash.

We moved on. We started to talk about psychology when it suddenly turned out that, like me, he was enjoying listening to Jordan Peterson, to whom we returned many times during our journey. From Jordan Peterson we have already freely moved on to politics, Jung, music and all the other subjects, from which it quickly turned out that we had quite a lot in common. We stopped here and there, delighting in the ever-changing, but still surprisingly beautiful nature of Iceland.

No matter where you look, no matter where you stand, a breathtaking view is almost guaranteed in Iceland. The very ride of Þjóðvegur 1 and admiring everything around it from the car window is probably the biggest attraction of this route.

We reach one of the most beautiful and charming waterfalls, which I have seen during those few days on the road. It is Svartifoss, or simply a black waterfall. It is not the largest, but certainly unusual because of the hexagonal, black, basalt pillars on which water flows.

The last thing we reached that day are two glacial lagoons, whiche are simply lakes made of melting glaciers. These are Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón. The latter lagoon is also the deepest lake in Iceland, 248 metres deep.

The photos do not reflect how windy it was and how wet the weather was. Chris and I soaked to the bone. His rainproof pond lasted 15 seconds in this wind. Our asses were (literally) saved by heated seats in his car.

Jökulsárlón was indeed impressive. Some of the icebergs were the size of buildings.

The deep, intense blue colour of some parts of ice is said to indicate that it's older than the white one. You can see also some black impurities on some of the bergs, probably caused by volcanic ash.

Some of the icebergs flow into the sea. There you can find completely transparent ones. On the black beach you can find a lot of small, icy nuggets, which look like diamonds, and that's why they call this place Diamond Beach.

We met two girls here, whom Chris met in Reykjavík. And I don't know how it happened, but in the middle of rainfall and powerful wind we talked together for about 15 minutes, completely soaked, as if it was a casual chat. I think we have just got used to the weather and felt almost like Icelandic!

Chris stayed at the hotel several kilometres before Höfn, a small, charming fishing village. I was completely wet and exceptionally unwilling to stay overnight in the tent. It did not seem to be a dry or warm a night. Luckily, Höfn had a hostel that promised a warm shower and a dry bed at a relatively normal price (there are not too many hostels in Iceland so I was lucky), and Chris offered to take me there. What's more, he said that if I want to, the next day we can continue the route of Þjóðvegur 1 together.

Do you think I agreed with his proposal?

To be continued...