There was a party in the evening, but plenty of time yet, and Logi (pronounced, roughly, "loy-i") and Már (pronounced exactly as the Welsh "mawr") offered to show us round some more. We jumped at this, and off we set. We began in Reykjavík and perused the tourist shops to dry comments from Már about "see all the furry hats and gloves? As if we had a single native species to get the fur from" and "that pink picture there started off red. It's been there for so many years that it's faded". Then we went into the indoor market -- the flea market -- and they bought some shark to munch. They offered us some. Hint for the future: distrust any foodstuff which begins with an explanation about the ammoniacal taste thus: "well, the shark cannot excrete its urine. So.." They offered us some and we declined, only to have the seller of the stuff overhear us and shout to them that they should force us to try it. Eep. We visited an art show run by a friend of Már's, and we also visited the local beach, which defies description. Most of the sand locally is black. But apparently someone decided they needed a 'real' beach. They created two small prominences out to sea and then filled the resulting bay with warm water from the run-off from yet another geothermal source. The entire thing is less than 20x30 metres, but it's definitely a little beach, complete with warm water!
We then decided that Alan and I could in fact see all this ourselves without a car, so took off for the Reykjanes peninsula. This is the south-west corner of Iceland which has Keflavík at the end of it. We didn't get quite as far as that, though. First we drove up to the house of the president, ("because we can. You can just make an appointment and visit him"). What a view. Then we drove through more lonely roads to where they mine sand (it hasn't quite finished turning into sandstone yet) and reached Kleifarvatn, a large and very dark lake. It's quite eerie. The day had turned faintly gloomy, and this made the lake gloomy too. My guidebook claimed it held a monster, but they laughed and told me "That's for tourists". We continued along this road, and then reached -- oh joys of joys -- Fúlipyttur, another area of hot springs and glooping mud.
Alan of course had forgotten his camera, but I'm not convinced it could have captured any of it. Like the area around Geysir, there were clouds and clouds of smoke and steam billowing from the ground. They clung low to the ground and drifted across our view. And the ground was incredibly colourful. Different minerals and chemicals had been at work: there was green, and deep bright red, and the dirty yellow that characterises sulphur. In fact, there was so much sulphur in the place, it used to be mined here.
At the car park there was a big board with a plan of the area (pre-earthquake) and Dire Warnings about staying on the path, hot spurts and jets, and the usual. We followed the path and passed on the right a large flat mud -- something. A pool? A plain? with a central depression from which emanated loud plops and gurgles and spurts of mud. On the left was a pale blue cloudy pool. You couldn't see through the water at all. And steam hung over it, and little centres of activity were visible as small areas ticked the seconds with plub-plub-plup noises. It was a huge pool, with a dozen or more of these little areas. The ground was full of the same soft sticky mud we'd met at Gullfoss, only deep red. Then the path turned into a raised walkway a few inches off the ground. The flat ground has stopped and we were between two outcrops of the hill in a small gulley which twisted.
You absolutely could not see where that path was leading. There were clouds and clouds of sulphurous smoke. The air was thick with it. Apparently Fúlipyttur means "foul pit". I can see why, given this. Just as you through your nose was getting immune to sulphur, a new wave of it hit you. The sky overhead was cloudy and unhelpful. All there was for guidance was the sound of moving water and "plub-plub-plup!" noises beyond the curtain of smoke and the pathway disappearing into it...
Naturally, we went in. The smoke still hung around us so that if we separated, we often couldn't see each other. More mud spurted in little spouts. Some of it was directly underneath the raised walkway. Others were by the side. Water fountained in tiny little jets, up to a few centimetres. You could lean right down and watch the water level filling up again in the hole (rather as Sigurjon and Einar were leaning right over Geysir to look at the water level, but on a slightly different scale) and it being expelled out in a gush, and then the water filling up slowly again.
All of this was being repeated everywhere we looked, some hidden by steam and smoke, some visible, some audible, and the scope and scale different for each one. The colours varied everywhere. No "it's just a grey rock" here: grey, red, brown, yellow, stripes and streaks across and through, tiny pebbles, great outcrops of stone. Már came bounding up with a handful of red earth from the mud, admiring the colour of it on his skin. (Art student, I suspect...but it was a bright bright red, I have to agree.) "I just had to stop tourists jumping in", he said. We boggled appropriately. "One wanted a photo of another in the mud pool where it was bubbling. I told them not to go in and that it was boiling in there, but I don't think they believed me."
We waited to see whether they followed us along the walkway, in hope of more "and then he put his finger into the scalding steam" stories, but alas. (Perhaps they had gone swimming in the cloudy blue pool instead.) We carried on along the path, surrounded by more plops and gurgles and bubbles, vents of smoke, the stench of sulphur, and the colours of the rocks against the streaks of snow (Már tried to clean his hands of the red mud on this, and the result of red slashes of colour on the snow will probably worry the next people to see it) and the path eventually began to rise and return back.
This area ranked right up with Geysir and seeing the fox on the sheer unexpectedness scale. I am sure I caught a cold from messing around here, but I don't care. Apparently it was closed off after the earthquake in summer, because it changed somewhat. Már and Logi remember it differently from before then. It is well worth seeing.
On the way back we discussed earthquakes and weather. Icelanders seem to be rather blase about earthquakes. They get small earthquakes all the time, and sometimes are not sure whether it was just the rumble of traffic. And they get a more noticeable one every ten years or so in southern Iceland. On the other hand, I was shocked to discover that thunderstorms are so rare in Iceland that both could recall the last time they'd seen lightning. ("Ah yes, there was a storm about seven years ago..")
Már talked about Siglufjöður, and how the region it's in (up in the north) is different in geology again. It is another of the "there are parts of the year when there is no sun" collection, because although it's not in the Arctic Circle, it's bounded by mountains on three sides.
We arrived back in Reykjavík, and Alan was still feeling drained from the night before, so we bowed out of the party and went food hunting. It was Saturday night, which is quite an event in Reykjavík. We walked up one of the main streets. We didn't find anywhere we wanted to eat, but someone tried to make friends with me. By walking up, embracing me in a giant bear-hug, and trying to kiss me. As I disentangled myself, Alan turned into Big Scary Alan and Loomed at him. I wasn't so worried as Alan, I think. I've worked in bars before :) I've never seen Alan in Stop Bothering Me mode before though. I was more worried by that!
We eventually wound up in the hotel (where I'd eaten in the night before, yes) and ate there, to the accompanying strains of a singer who ranged from Sinatra to, um, Queen. Alan appeared to be getting better: he managed all courses.
In the evening, we visited Eggert and Sigrun for a meal and evening with the family. Wonderful evening, and more lamb: and a form of potato preparation I have not met before: cook, peel, sauté (I think) in sugar so they have a caramelised outside. Lovely. Why don't we have this here?
Everyone could speak some English, even the youngest daughter. So now I am very embarrassed. We'd been there nearly a week, and I still couldn't pronounce the language at all.
Then it was back to pack. Waah. I sneaked into the bookshop again, and Arni appeared behind me with a CD for us. Oooh. Listened to that instead of packing, then realised you could do both at the same time and did so.
Eventually could not fit in any more food or coffee and saw that soon it would be time to get the bus. At this stage, Alan developed the urge to go and take photographs of the view because the weather had lifted a bit. He took me on a long long trek through parts of Reykjavík we had not been to before, leaving me convinced we'd end up lost and miss the bus. ("I have been here! Two years ago... once...")
Eggert caught us waiting at the hotel to give Alan a present, a lovely book (which he has not yet read, and I am trying not to until he does, sigh), and we scrambled for the bus. On the way back I was torn between finishing my book and staring at the landscape. It was strange: only a week before we'd been down this road and it had seemed desolate and dark. On the way back, it seemed full of colour: the glowing mosses and grass on top of the lumps of lava, green and even orange and the skyline with the shapes of the mountains in the distance. We made it to Keflavík with plenty of time to spare, did the duty-free dance ("If we take one of these instead, then that's 5cl less, and that keeps us in the limits.."), and flopped onto the plane.
At the other end, we arrived early, leading us to think we'd get onto an earlier coach than the one for which we had booked tickets; but alas. Baggage retrieval put paid to that. Oh well. Alan entertained himself in the two-hour wait playing WAP games with his phone. I... didn't :) I read more of my book. Surprise. Eventually the coach arrived and we piled on, slept through the rain, wind and snow, and arrived back home to a -very- cold house at 4am, to wish we were back in nice warm Iceland. Sniff.
We had a great time. I am told the conference went well. I hope so, anyway! Various people have taken various photos which are rather better than mine, so I shall put links up if they don't mind getting hammered by hits. Alan is now off again, but for once I am glad just to be home :) No reflection on Iceland or the people, whose dry humour and unfailing hospitality were much appreciated. All the guidebooks say Icelanders are quiet and reserved. It's a complete fib: those that I met seemed far more sociable than such descriptions would suggest. And they were wonderful, taking us all over the place, not laughing too hard at my attempts to differentiate between þ and ð, and generally being good company. Thanks to all. It was truly appreciated.
I also now have a list of all the rest of Iceland's amazing landscape I want to see. One day. But my word, what we saw was impressive enough. And of course, if we ever go back, then I have to get Alan onto a horse. With all that snow, there is at least a soft landing...