We set out to the east from Akureyri through glacial valleys and over rounded-off ridges to Goðafoss, the waterfall of the gods. The story behind this name goes thusly:
In the late 990’s the King of Denmark demanded that his subjects (which included Iceland for almost another thousand years) convert to Christianity. There was great disagreement within Iceland whether or not to comply by converting, but not converting would mean war with the king. After long debates at the annual Allthing (a type of parliament) in the year 1000, Thorgeir, Lawspeaker of the Allthing, decided that Icelanders should respond by mostly converting, but still hold on to their heathen Icelandic traditions of eating horse meat, “returning to nature” unwanted newborn children, and still paying respect to the old gods once a year in non-public ways.
Upon returning from the Allthing, Thorgeir ceremoniously threw his statues of the old gods into this waterfall. In this way he showed the people that he was serious about publicly abandoning the old gods, but he also ensured that those old gods would be remembered for being placed into such a spectacular waterfall.
Then we traveled to Mÿvatn, a large lake in the highlands of Iceland. Vatn means lake and mÿ means fly or mosquito, so we were equipped with head nets and prepared for the worst. But first we stopped at a geothermal area with some fumaroles.
Then we walked around in the “Black City”, a lava flow with strange rock formations.
There is one rock shaped like a chair called the Fairy Throne.
We had lunch at a hotel with a buffet which featured some traditional foods like smoked sheep stomach, smoked lamb, and some more fermented shark. (Didn’t need to try the shark again!) This was right across the street from an area we walked around where lava had flowed over the lake, and some process resulted in steam explosions, leaving a series of craters behind.
We headed back toward Akureyri but took a small detour along the east side of the fjord to a turf house built in the late 1800’s as the parsonage for a church built a few years earlier. It was surprising to see how well 120-130 year old turf stood up to the weather. Although some parts of the house had the feel of a mine or a tunnel when going between rooms with very thick walls, it was cleverly designed with gable-end windows which provided a lot of light.
The parson’s daughter gave us a tour and then took us to the church and let us ask questions about various topics afterwards. It was interesting to hear how young people in very rural areas of Iceland socialize. We began to understand better how Margrét seemed to know at least one person in every town we visited.
After stopping back at the hotel in Akureyri we went to dinner hosted by a couple of local families. We split into two groups and arrived like dinner party guests. We had some delicious grilled lamb and potatoes while a gregarious teenager kept us entertained. His parents were a fisherman who maintained robots on a factory fishing vessel and an art teacher.
Their house had a nice view toward the fjord.
Even at 10:23 PM the view from our hotel was nice. There was a campground right next door.
