Akureyri and Mytvatn!

Yesterday was my last day of class, yahoo! Last Sunday I flew to Akureyri, which is the second-biggest city in Iceland and is at the southern part of a fjord in the north.


This is Helgi the Lean: the first permanent inhabitant of Eyjafjordur, the fjord on which Akureyri sits.

This is looking out through the fjord to the ocean.

Some interesting buildings:

After two days in Akureyri, I too the bus 99km to the east to a village called Reykjalid which is on the Lake Myvatn. Myvatn means "midge" - the tiny bugs that invade the lake and village all summer. I stayed here:

I was the only guest! The owner checked me in and then set me up with a huge carafe of coffee and told me he and his wife would be back in the morning to make breakfast for me! I had the whole place to myself! He gave me a corner room on the second floor with views of the lake. This is the on the first day:

And the next day after it snowed all night:


The first day I hiked across a lava field:

And then took this road...

to what I thought were the Myvatn Nature Baths....

...but turned out to be a factory. So I walked back to the hotel, had another cup of coffee and settled in for the night at about 4pm. It was pretty dark, and in a village of 210 people in the low-season of tourism, not a single restaurant or business was open! The next day, I had a beautiful breakfast, all laid out just for me. The hotel owner told me Max, the Estonian maintenance man would drive me to the Myvatn Nature Baths anytime, and so that's how I spent my second day in Reykjalid.

It was so luxurious! I had the whole complex to myself; again no tourists at this time of year and the locals don't hit the baths until after work. These baths were really different than the Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik. The waters in Myvatn are full of sulfur and not silica. So while the scent takes a little getting used to, my hair wasn't ruined by silica for the next week. At Myvatn, I enjoyed the mountain views, the falling snow and a better sense of actually being outside in the middle of nowhere. The Blue Lagoon is fantastic, but much more commercial and there aren't any views of mountains or landscape.