Day 191-Dettifoss

   July 13-We drove through north through the Eastfjords this morning.

Getting ready to pack up the campsite and head on.

A church in Daladalur.

   We spent a little time in Reyðarfjörðurso Sally could document the large Alcoa aluminum plant here as part of her Fulbright research project.  The enormous amounts of electricity necessary to process the aluminum ore at this plant is generated by a large hydroelectric dam in the highlands to the west of Reyðarfjörður.  The numerous deleterious consequences of the dam had made the project quite controversial in Iceland, especially since more dams have been proposed.  However, the project is mostly popular in the Eastfjords, since the Alcoa plant provides jobs, which means that people can afford to stay in the area and are not forced economically to join the general exodus of Icelanders to Reykjavík.

   Once Sally was finished, we headed inland to Egilsstaðir.  We filled up the cars and ourselves with fuel in preparation of the two hour drive west across one of the most barren stretches of the Ring Road.  Rocky soil, relatively high elevation (over 1000 feet above sea level for most of the drive) and recent geologic history have combined to make this region agriculturally unproductive.  The presence of few farms meant that there were few animals and few services along the road and we made good time on our drive to the Dettifoss waterfall of the Jökulsá.

The fantastic weather we have enjoyed these past few days finally started to give way today. While the skies stayed mostly clear, the wind blew relentlessly from the north. The area around Dettifoss was probably the least vegetated and the winds picked up large amounts of dust, obscuring our views. We braved these hazards and walk over to the viewpoint for the falls. Unfortunately, the blowing dust got into Sally’s lungs on the hike and caused her to have an asthma attack, but she recovered.

Dettifoss is purported to be the most powerful waterfall in Europe. While we are not exactly sure what that means or how “powerful” is quantified in this case, it certainly was quite the sight to behold. 



Shan and the kids also walked a short distance upstream to see Selfoss.



After a short detour to see Hafragilsfoss, we got back onto Highway 1 and proceeded west to the Hverir geothermal site, where we saw mudpots (above) and fumaroles (below).

   From here we took Highway 87 northwest to our campground at Heiðarbær.  Jean decided that she and Bill needed to sleep in a real bed, so she rented a room in the associated guesthouse.  We all went swimming in the guesthouse’s pool and soaked in the hot pots.  Since the dusty winds at Dettisfoss had made all of us filthy, we really enjoyed the pre-swim shower.  Alex slept on the floor in her grandparents’ room and the rest of us slept in the van tonight, so there was no need to put up the tent.