Rishi Sankar: Ah Trini Travelogue / Ah Trini Traveller

Two days ago, our intrepid travellers braved the dangers and stupidity of crossing a slightly dried out river bed downstream from a glacier. I of course, fell into a nice little sinkhole but bravely jumped out and ensured no catastrophe, while Lev decided that Ice Caverns were his things, thinking he was a mountain barashka, hopping from boulder to boulder, realized that you couldn’t hop, if a boulder disappeared into the river. We passed test 1 of Iceland, which would be Glacier diving and falling!

Yesterday, we attempted the Super 4X4 relay, where an adventurer decided to go hard core off road driving, but in an attempt for Bonus points for the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, we decided that off roading was too tame for us, we would create our OWN road through foot high rocks, crevasses and soft mud with a Santa Fe Hyundai (Korean made) 4×4. This in the end left us with mild heart burn, took 4.5 yrs off our lives, when we realized that in doing this, we could destroy the axles and be stranded 50km at the end of nowhere with only some sheep and horses to keep us company. Oh yeah and how I could forget the gales… oh the lovely gales!!! In the end, we passed test 2 of Iceland, which would be exhibiting superior driving skills and not destroying the undercarriage of a vehicle.

Well today, since everything comes in 3′s, it was time for the Toyota Rock/Wind Challenge, where our intrepid explorers will attempt to sightsee across Myvatn and environs with Hydrogen Sulphide gas in their faces from mud volcanoes, climb volcanoes with 85 km/h winds whipping pebbles and stones at their skin and faces, walk across lava plains and sulphuric pits with -5C wind chills caused by the 85-100 km/h winds.

So today’s path will lead our explorers through the following terrain and areas of Iceland from Myvatn to Blondous. Take a look from the Center of the Map to see where  Myvatn is… and then we are heading to the end of the Map.

The Myvatn area looks like the following

Things to see and do in Myvatn would be on our list include:

• Höfði, where one-of-a-kind lava clusters rise out of the lake
• Dimmuborgir, where the interaction between the magnificent lava formations plays with the imagination. Dimmuborgir sports a lava formation that can be walked into and looks like a church dome
• Grjótagjá chasm is yet another wonder; it has an underground flow of hot water and can be explored on foot.
• Hverir are natural clay springs with boiling clay. They are quite a remarkable sight.
• The volcanic area Leirhnjúkur, which last erupted in 1984, is a breathtaking area where you can explore the lava fields and see how new life emerges in the fresh lava. This route has been called the “diamond route”. Trips to Herðubreiðarlindir and Askja with a stop in the great Drekagil canyon are also available. The astronauts involved in the lunar landings were trained in Drekagil before their historic voyages to the moon. These trips are available either in organised group trips in super jeeps or in a sightseeing flight (only available during the summer time). 
• Whale watching is offered from Húsavík and has become extremely popular. Since the whale watching started, 12 whale species have been spotted in Skjálfandaflói bay. There are various reasons for the good whale watching conditions in the bay, one of which is that a deep current runs through the bay, which is 755 feet deep at the most, relatively close to shore.
• Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall, and Jökulsárgljúfur national park within which you will find Ásbyrgi and Hljóðaklettar
• Herðubreið mountain, which is considered the queen of all Icelandic mountains and Askja mountain, which has Askja lake and Víti crater.

So this was the path today, yesterday we went to Dettifoss, but the high winds made viewing it quite tough, Lev and I walked down the path and within two minutes our pants were soaked from the high winds carrying the mist from the waterfalls. Dettifoss is quite the waterfall, but having seen so may waterfalls here in Iceland, it kinda just looked like another of all the others. It is quite the huge waterfall though.. it is the most powerful in terms of Volume in Europe. The roar is quite loud!!! Due to its size and the canyon it comes down from, you can walk right down to the bottom like most of the other waterfalls.

So really our day started with two things, the Hverfjall Volcano Crater

If you look closely in this picture at the center of the road, you can see a white dot .. that is our trusty 4X4… but this was the first part of the challenge, since the winds and pebbles taken by the wind served to hinder us… not just hinder us, but smack us around ..literally… Lev has a video of his hat and everything being taken off by the winds.

and back to the mud/clay volcanoes at Hverir…. but anyway .. time to head out back on the road <to be continued>

This should be watchwords for everyone… regardless of circumstances, but today on day 6 of the Icelandic Express passing through. Getting out of the house this morning was something else, especially since blogging for two hours since 6.15am. So on the way to Fontur, the road is quite rough but we thought hey this car is a 4X4 and it should make this road with no issues… well we did make the road with no issues aside from a blown fuse for the cooling fan which caused the engine to overheat but we saw it and flipped a fuse and we were good to go.

It was windy as hell yesterday and going to the end of nowhere in Iceland, since Fontur is the most northeastern point of Iceland, off the Ring road and truly off the beaten path, it is kinda scary in someways. If you shut down or anything happens to you out there, you are pretty much SOL until someone comes by, which could be in an hour or 5 days. However is it beautiful out there and there is something enchanting about there being nothing between you and the North Pole except the Greenland Sea.

The wind was that strong that I could try to fall over and the wind would keep me upright!

Hanging over the cliffs at Fontur when there is nothing separating you from the wildness of the Ocean and the North Pole, it is truly an exhilararing experience. The waters were so rough….

This is the direction were heading into…. to the END of Iceland!!

Just so one has some context of where in Iceland we were… I love the big wheel Icon of the 4X4

The cliffs and the water combined for a truly surreal experience out there….

However leaving all of this and heading down a road that doesnt exist on your GPS… well it did exist on the GPS, but it didnt exist in reality… maybe not such a good idea…..so of course we decided to take the road less travelled… BY ANYONE…. and then for the next hour and half, proceeded to pray to someone that our car would not break an axle, get a flat, overheat or generally shut down at the edge of nowhere!

The rocks on the road were “Yay high” and after bashing the crappiness of the SUV in terms of our A/C shutting down earlier in the trip, we were petting good old 4X4 and praising her for getting our asses out of a tight bind. I can’t really convey how tense that 90 mins was to us, since it wasn’t the fear of the car breaking down, but rather the consequences of breaking on the End of nowhere…..our contingency plans included

• Breaking into the lighthouse for shelter if we stalled… although it was now 10 km away
• Breaking into a farmland stable which was about 4km away
• Jogging in a 40mile headwind to the only campers we saw on the way… about 30km away
• Waiting in the SUV till help arrived

Thankfully none of those scenarios played out….. but everytime we hit a rock or spring, or the axle crashed into a rock, there was palpable wincing and pain in the car. I grimaced to the point, I had to get out of the car to help guide Lev over rocks, but also not to hear the car creak and groan!!!

Lesson for this trip : Go back the same damn way you came! Even though Trinidadians invented everything, we have our limits at inventing roads from nothing!!

So after that experience, we were just glad to get back to the main dirt road … at which point we happened to see some Sheep Shearing…