Southern Region of Iceland

Happy Anniversary to us - 45 years!!

I'm really struggling with pronouncing the location names let alone spell them. A couple of words I've picked up are: foss is waterfall, vic is bay, eyja(aya) is island and jokull (yoo coolt) is glacier.

Today was waterfall and volcano day. We started by walking behind the Selfoss aka Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. It drops 65 meters and has a large space behind it where many people walk. The other wasterfall is the Skogafoss. Its not quite as tall but we climbed up 429 steps for a view from the top.

Between the two falls is the site and glacier of the 2010 volcanic explosion of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano that spewed so much ash that airports in Europe had to shut down for fear of damage to jet engines. We watched a film anout the family who lives at the base of the glacier and the trials they endured from all the ash and the melting glacier.

After lunch we learned some of Icelands history from the past 200 years at the Skogar Folk Museum. This Southern Region has no coastline or inlets for over 200 miles that will accomodate ships other than small fishing vessels. There are no trees, there were no roads and the people had to made do with what they had - dried fish shoes, wooden food bowls and spoons made from horns to name a few. Homes were made from stones and sod built into a hillside for protection. One house was made from driftwood. The homes were all very small and would house 10-12 people so that the bodies would keep the home warm as they didn't have firewood.

Our favorite stop was on the Black Sand Beach - Reynisfjaron. We saw a hill covered with Puffins who have not migrated out to sea yet, some unique rock formations created by the sea and ice, and a black sand and rock beach. The rock formations in the sea are said to be trolls caught outdoors at sunrise.

The road to our hotel was through 100 km of lava fields covered with moss. This was the result of the 3rd largest lava flow in the world and happened from June 1783 to Feb. 1784. Simona, our guide pointed out many volcanoes and glaciers in the distance which we will get to see up close tomorrow.