Perhaps you can't really appreciate just how majestic this place was, is. I think it's odd that I couldn't really appreciate its majesty until I'd seen the pictures after I'd come home. There is something so amazing about a place that is largely uninhabited, uninhabitable...it reminded me just how small I am.
Surely there is more to it than just this, but the island is made of fire and ice (volcanos and glaciers), formed by dazzling white and conversely stark black. There isn't much in between: the brown quickly fades to green when it gets wet, and the black ash ("lava fields upon lava fields upon lava fields", as our guide was keen to say over and over again) shines through every surface.
Every so often, our guide would pull the bus over and we'd all reluctantly pull on hats, scarves, gloves, tie hiking boots tighter, and head out into the frigid cold. But then it would always be worth it: this waterfall? Stunning.
Then again, the hats, the scarves, the boots, the mitts...for the geyser: a giant shooting fountain of hot sulphuric water that pops out of the ground every eight minutes or so. Serioulsy? Stunning. This was the best shot I could get in all the excitement. It shot up to about four times this height!
Oh, and Iceland doesn't import many of its fruits and vegetables. They use geothermal heat to grow their own all year round in green houses like these.
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