Meanwhile, back at the ranch...(returning to the Iceland narrative)

Friday morning. I breakfast at the hostel with a pompous but somewhat interesting older Irish man (whom I have to disillusion in regards to my own Irishness) and his Taiwanese traveling companion. Decide that as far as traveling encounters go, interesting suffices.

After wakening a room of hostelers to fetch a drowsy half-dressed A., I leave Reykjavík Friday morning with E. and A. in a little Honda Jazz that we have rented somewhat illegally (the only one of us old enough to rent doesn't have a current license).

We drive out of the city around dawn, east into Iceland's interior.

Icelandic horses.

The interior sort of reminds me of parts of New Zealand (as I've seen it in the Lord of the Rings movies, anyways).


We enter Þingvellir National Park, the first stop on the Golden Circle. There is so much ice on the roads that I am currently incapable of letting a statement about Iceland being green and not icy pass uncorrected.

Here's Þingvallavatn, Iceland's largest natural lake. The country's parliament was formed on its northern shore in 930.



In the rift valley of the park , you can see how the continental drift is (very slowly, obviously) pulling the island apart.

Here I look down and see the clearest blue-green water, and thousands and thousands of coins glittering at the bottom.

Looking down the gorge in the other direction.







This gorge is getting wider very, very gradually.




Next stop: Haukadalur Valley.