moonscapes, hellscapes

We set out bright and early for the Myvatn region. F bought an air freshener to clear the residual smell of fermented shark from the van.

It's variety terrain day!

• Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe, amidst a bleak landscape of volcanic rock. Astronauts go on training missions in this area. Also, I didn't know waterfall MPC was a thing. Wikipedia lists Dettifoss as the second most powerful, but every Icelandic source calls it THE most powerful. fight fight fight
• Namafjall, a geothermal area that looks like a cross between Mars and an outer circle of hell. The earth is barren red rock in all directions, with red mountains rising in the distance. The surface bubbles and spits boiling mud and plumes of noxious gas.
• Dimmuborgir, where massive towers of volcanic rock rise into the sky. The northeners claim that the Yule Lads live here, but F doesn't buy it. He doesn't like northeners trying to hog the lore. Nearby, there's a lake nestled among pseudo-volcanic craters with their tops blown off.

Fun fact: Free range sheep are commonly seen in groups of three because it's a mother and her two lambs. The lambs are grown up by now, so it just presents as a trio of sheep.

Fun fact #2: Beds used to be so small?? We visited a preserved turf house (originally built in the 1850s, expanded in the late 1800s) and the beds were TINY. About four and a half feet long and narrower than a twin, and two or three people would've shared each bed. This was in a rich man's mansion; around 30 people would have resided in that cramped dark house. He even had a small chapel and graveyard in his courtyard.

(A note scrawled in the margin: "Soon, we create the universe." I was napping in the van, heard this in my dream, jotted it down because it was important, and went back to sleep.)