Iceland 9: Fishing village, tundra and the most powerful waterfall in Europe

The clouds began to lift little by little as we drove up through the fjords of east Iceland.

Finally beginning to see the mountains silhouetted against the fjords.

 We were enchanted by the fishing village of Stöðvarfjörður.

(I had to cut and paste that word!!!) 

 The little fishing boats all lined up on clear, reflective waters.

I finally saw a puffin!!! ..in this lovely mural

(way on the right)

 Another stunning church view.

In a rather colorless landscape, I love how they paint their churches to liven up the scenery!

 Finally,  an absolutely gorgeous day!!

Now we began driving across the north-eastern "tundra". Very barren landscape. Much of it volcanic rock.  But still beautiful.  

Absolutely no trees but the grass and brush has an autumn tinge to it.

We kept seeing these stone cairns at exact intervals across the landscape. These old stone cairns acted as beacons for people travelling in Iceland, a kind of a GPS system of the olden days. Pretty amazing to see in such a barren place. Unfortunately, tourists want to build their own and it's quite a problem over there.  Some of these date back to the Vikings!!

Then it got more colorless and volcanic.  This was the path to the largest (volume of water-wise) waterfall in Europe

And suddenly..this!!!  Detifoss! 

It plummets 45 meters, the approx height of the Statue of Liberty!

 And then..a rainbow!!

So there were a few things I really wanted to see in Iceland:

-a rainbow by a waterfall (check)

-a puffin (too late)

-northern light (too early)

-Icelandic horses (coming up soon)

-glaciers (check) 

 I got my rainbow!!

 You can't even fathom the amount of water pouring over the edge!

And you really can't see the bottom due to all the water spraying up

 We hiked up a bit to get this view

Then, you walk upstream over volcanic rock and see a peek of Detifoss's younger sister Selfoss.

 It is a horse shoe shaped waterfall, quite beautiful

 Appears to be a whole row of small waterfalls with the main flow in the rear.

Stunning. 

The craggy basalt chunks and columns lining the edge are quite beautiful in their own right.

 What a day! Your mind can hardly take it all in. So much beauty.

Iceland 8: Glaciers and Ice

I was really looking forward to seeing glaciers. And we were not disappointed, although the inclement weather kept us from getting the full experience. We arrived at Glacier Lagoon just as the fog lifted temporarily.  The blue ice was so lovely!  The black streaks are lava sand that comes with the ice. We were able to spend just under an hour taking it all in and then, once more, it started really raining. But at least we got the thirty minutes of amazement!

Random ice floating around

Beautiful ice chunk

The background should be a glacier but all we saw was fog

 Love this one. Looks like a white mama with a grey and black children

Now do you see it? 😁😁😁

Varieties of blue

Ice rabbit

 Ice sculptures

 a model boat?

Crystal clear ice

Ice chunks on lava beach.

 The temperature was not freezing but the ice stayed frozen. 

They told us to look for seals. We saw one.

 Then we saw three.  barely.

We did have some blue sky to be able to see some parts of the glacier

Majestic!

Most glaciers we saw were not blue and lovely but rather had the black lava mixed in

Looks dirty but it's just the lava sand leftover when the glacier melts

This glacier also had some hunks of ice floating at the base

This photo clearly shows the flow of a glacier..and the recession.

This whole valley used to be filled, but not anymore.

An eruption and subsequent melt of parts of the glacier ripped this bridge to pieces.

They left a bit there so people could see the force of nature

A little Photo-shopping makes it look prettier :)

Iceland 7: Green does not mean diesel.. Djupivogur

Another fabulous breakfast which included cod liver oil. Apparently they drink it regularly in Iceland for good health. And seeing as they have a top ranked longevity of life, maybe it's a reason. I am game to try everything. But this,I will never partake again. UGH!

Time to leave this small town of  Djupivogur on a Sunday morning. All is quiet. Also, time to fill up the gas tank with diesel gas (most rent cars are diesel). There are many gas "dispensaries" which are free-standing and only take credit cards. So, pulled up to one. There was a green handle and a black handle NOT MARKED (we discovered soon that was the ONLY pump we ever came across that was not vividly marked) so out of instinct, Dave reached for the green handle to put in what he assumed was diesel. About a quarter mile down the road, the car started lurching badly and I asked "Did you put in diesel?". "Yes, of course" Dave said. But, well, we couldn't go on so we lurched and jerked back to the gas pump.

There, around on the side of the pump was a little sticker.

And I mean little.

 Black =diesel

When we called the rental car agency, they didn't seem too surprised. (I have since found that this has happened to many people.) But they warned us: help might be quite far away. And it is Sunday morning. We lurched back to the Inn so I could use the bathroom (always use a bathroom when there's one available). Dave told the Inn-keepers what was going on, they immediately called the local mechanic. Believe it or not, he met us at his garage within 15 minutes. But it was going to cost $270 cash. Little village. Sunday morning. I had $20 in cash. No worries. There was a little bank with an indoor accessible-at-all-times ATM machine just one block down the road. ( Now we are almost wondering if this is all a set up!) But we are grateful to the mechanic and while he drained the gas from the car, I wandered around and took pics of this little fishing village 

A rock artist selling a really nice array of rock sculptures

 The light house.  There are hundreds of lighthouses in Iceland and many are bright orange, red or yellow.  

 Hmm. Wonder what this was.

 It is wet much of the time in Iceland (my own personal observation).

Lichen grow everywhere in many colors, almost flower-like.

 A very famous artist made this egg sculpture display that represents the eggs of all the large birds in Iceland.

Due to the fog, we couldn't see the famous mountain protecting the city.

 Very Fuji like

 Only 500 yards from our Inn was the mechanic's shop.

The car in the back did not inspire confidence but he got the job done and we were on our way just thankful to only be delayed by 3 hours, not a whole day.