Iceland review - 2002, Qupperneq 19

ICELAND REVIEW 17
though they don’t actually run the light-
house. “I’m a weatherman,” explains
Smári.
A tour guide from Reykjavík wanders in
under the Chinese good luck charm at the
café door. On break from shuttling around
a bus tour from Maine, he’s visibly relieved
to see Smári and Nína’s familiar faces and
to speak to somebody in Icelandic. I ask him
if this group is high maintenance. He sizes
me up. “Earlier today, a man asked me if it
was okay for him to take a picture of a
geysir.”
Back in the saddle
Soon after passing through Landmanna-
laugar, F208 exits the Fjallabak Nature
Reserve and continues through lunar cliff
faces and high, fast-moving rivers toward
Eldgjá. Life on the road is more visible
today as motorists pass at regular intervals
and hop out at every scenic spot for pho-
tos. Electronic poles stretching out along
the south side of the road break the spell
of solitude that yesterday’s leg of the jour-
ney cast. I miss it a little bit.
Eldgjá is another frequented phenome-
na that this island mustered up circa 900
AD. It is a long, wide volcanic chasm that
runs 40 km, north to south. At its northern
end, where you can park, the gorge is 200
m deep and 600 m across. On the other side
of the chasm is Ófærufoss (‘impassable
waterfall’), a spectacularly elegant two-
tiered waterfall. It used to be a highly tout-
ed tourist attraction before 1993, when a
natural lava bridge spanning the lower fall
collapsed after a bad winter. Now Ófæru-
foss has to get by on its good looks alone
to draw the crowds, which can hardly be a
problem.
Down the road at Hólaskjól, another
waterfall graces the landscape, but this one
has no name – a mind-boggling fact con-
sidering that every turn in the road has
both a name and a spot on the map. Next
to the anonymous falls is a mountain hut,
the only sleeping accommodations on F208
from Landmannalaugar to the Ring Road.
Unannounced, we pull into the gravel
driveway just before midnight in front of a
one-room cabin where a small group sits
around a candlelit table. A young man
named Broddi ambles outside and says
there’s room in the hut – a comfortable,
barn-like structure lined with sleeping-bag-
ready bunks.
DAY 3: Hólaskjól to the Ring Road
Less than 48 hours ago, F225 charged into
the arctic winds of a volcanic desert. The
morning of day three brings a full, gracious
Ice and boiling earth share common ground at Hrafntinnusker, in the heart of Fjallabak.
The river Skaftá in early August’s 11 PM twilight, near Hólaskjól off F208.
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