If you can't pronounce the title of today's entry, join the club, and just refer to it as "Hiking Day 1." We have some Day 17 & 18 fun to share, but wanted to get back on the grid with more adventurous updates.
Turns out that Gummi, whom we randomly met on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, was going to be our guide. It took about ten minutes for us to decide that getting a guide was a great decision. A few obvious (at least in retrospect) immediate tips like putting sleeping gear in plastic bags and needing hiking poles were our first glimpse of this. We got bonus value as he told us informative/interesting/funny tidbits on the bus ride from Reykjavik to the Highlands. Did you know that the pipes leading to geothermal plants have periodic 90 degree turns? An early one was built straight and stretched from 20 to 28 km! DYK that the youngest Westman Island (off the south coast) is less than 50 years old? No one is allowed on it except scientists who study primary succession through such things as birds' seed dispersal; however, Gummi says the tough locals check it out whenever they want and one he knows had to take a #2 one day there. A tomato plant grew in the same spot and the scientists never figured out the anomaly. You won't find that in Lonely Planet. He had plenty to share with us about Arctic Terns after we told him how much we liked them. His grandfather was pecked in the head by one and had a two inch gash that needed stitches. Gummi also knows a biker who cycled through one of the many nesting areas, got pecked in the head, and the tern's beak stuck in his helmet!
Okay, the hike...today was the "short" 12 km hike, but a good chunk of the 56 km trail. Our views were of jagged peaks, shiny obsidian rock, shapely glaciers, steaming hot vents, and multicolored mountains that glimmered in the light. Other worldly juxtapositions like walking over a glacier to be greeted by a steaming geothermal vent will be hard to forget. This all sounds quite glamorous, but we reached a maximum altitude of 1120m as the hike was rarely, if ever, flat. Ascents were tough as we adjusted to our heavy packs and descents treacherous as we adjusted to our heavy packs.
We revealed our selfish subconciouses at lunch today as we tried to pedal the food we were carrying to lighten our loads. Some more laughs came when learning our first Icelandic card game: (phonetically) skeetluhkutluh, or "shit man."
At one point, we saw a monument to a young hiker who died in a blizzard on our trail and remembered it can be dangerous hiking in the fickle Icelandic Highlands. Again, the real story today was having our patient, fun, knowledgeable, well-connected, and funny guide by our side.
Hiking Day 1: 12km; 4:10
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