Exploring Mývatn// Paris & Iceland, Day 6

Friday, October 6, 2017
We saw that there were several other hotel guests fixing their breakfast in the restaurant area of the North West Hotel & Restaurant, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the innkeeper if it was possible to get some coffee for the road. He encouraged us to sit while he made the coffee, and he preferred that we didn't use up his few remaining to-go cups.  We chatted with him, and he shared a portion of his life story with us. We really appreciated his hospitality!
North West Hotel & Restaurant
North West Hotel & Restaurant View
Hotel Parking Lot View
We back-tracked a little bit in the morning, but we still made time to pull over and greet some more Icelandic horses.  These guys all lined up for me to get some amazing shots.
Icelandic Horses
Icelandic Horses
Francisco stayed in the car, but he took a picture of me getting in my quality horse time.
Icelandic Horses
We continued our backtrack to Kolugljúfur Canyon, a gorge in the river Víðidalsá.
Kolugljúfur Canyon
Kolugljúfur Canyon
We had the place entirely to ourselves.
Kolugljúfur Canyon
Let's face it, there were no small driving days in Iceland as our plan was to drive the entire Ring Road in less than a week. We loved every minute of it!
There was no shortage of amazing scenery along the way.
Akureyri
Love the heart-shaped red light!
We drove through Akureyri, Iceland's second largest urban area. We thought about stopping here for lunch, but we ended up just running into Bónus instead for more picnic fare.






Not a bad picnic spot!
It was evident we were a good deal further north as we were starting to drive by more snow along the road.
Our first official planned stop was Goðafoss waterfall, which translates to the waterfall of the gods. It is closely linked to the conversion to Christianity in Icelandic history.
Goðafoss
In English, Dimmuborgir translates to something like "the dark fortress". This was a large area of unusually shaped lava fields, and we took one of the paths to the rock formation known as The Church, which has a large enclave you can walk through.
Dimmuborgir
There were a lot of natural attractions around the Mývatn area, so we just hopped around to each one in the vicinity.  Hverjfall is an ancient and near-symmetrical crater. It's a steady climb on a gravel path that will only take about 10-20 minutes. We had definitely reached the point where we had to will ourselves to hike up another steep hill, but we always remind ourselves that we'll regret the things we don't do.
Hverjfall
Hverjfall
Looking down the hill & the inside of the crater
Grjótagjá is a small lava cave near Lake Mývatn with a thermal spring inside. Icelanders used to bathe in the cave until the Krafla eruptions from 1975 to 1984 caused the water in the cave to rise above 50 degrees Celsius.
Grjótagjá
The Námafjall Hverir Geothermal Area features hot springs and fumaroles.
Námafjall Hverir Geothermal Area
Námafjall Hverir Geothermal Area
The Krafla Viti crater is a circular crater filled with blue water and surrounded by a geothermal area and colorful mountains. The name signifies Hell, and it was formed during a 5-year eruption of Krafla in 1724. It was absolutely stunning, but we were freezing. There was a good deal of snow on the ground, and it was very windy. We got some pictures, but we didn't linger in the area.
Krafla Viti crater
Viti Crater [Sony]
Krafla Viti crater
Viti Crater [iPhone]


And hey, when it's cold outside, that's always a great time to change into your bathing suit and head into some water, amiright? We'd made the decision to skip the rumored over-priced and over-crowded Blue Lagoon back near Keflavík and instead stop at the Mývatn Nature Baths. [To be fair, I think we would have done Blue Lagoon if everything didn't need to be pre-booked ahead of time. We'd worked out that the best time to have done it would have been right after we arrived, but we worried that by the time we went to pick up our rental car and all that jazz, we might end up missing our booking.] Both areas offer man-made nature baths, but the Mývatn site is smaller and much further away. Since we were traveling around the entire country anyway, we had more flexibility to just do Mývatn.
Mývatn Nature Baths
We got changed and headed into the beautiful blue water.
Mývatn Nature Baths
It was a bit windy and cold outside, so we sought out the warmest spots in the water we could find, but the warm spots would shift away, so we moved around the pool a lot. There was even a second pool you could explore after taking a short staircase up and over to this area, but we found the water to be colder on this side. Overall, the water was nowhere near as hot as I had anticipated.
Mývatn Nature Baths
We got checked into the Skógar Sunset Guesthouse, which was the nicest place we stayed at in Iceland. It was spacious and modern. And at $160 for the night, it was definitely the priciest place of our trip. The pickings get pretty slim in the more remote parts of Iceland. 
Skógar Sunset Guesthouse
We had our fanciest dinner yet since we now had access to a full kitchen and were able to make some Broccoli & Cauliflower Cup a Soup, Soja Nuggets, and a toasted cheese sandwich. Many jokes about our gourmet meal were made. 😀
Use this link to save $40 toward your first Airbnb trip: www.airbnb.com/c/flopez157.

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