22.08.08 – Reykjahlíð – Landmannalaugar
By Garik and Lena

• It was rainy during the night, so everything was wet in the morning. We packed our stuff and went to the kitchen at the camp site, to have small breakfast – tomato soup.

• At 08:30 we put our bags on the bus and went on the road. We didn’t stop at our first scheduled stop (near the craters we saw yesterday) where we thought once to take this bus. Lucky us – we changed the plans and took it from Reykjahlid. So our first stop was near the Godafoss waterfalls, there we saw a “N1” flag  (local gas station and supermarket) and new immediately, that this is our last chance to buy supplies for the 4-day trek. We got 40 minutes to take pictures of the waterfall; we spent only 10 minutes for that, the rest of time we spent in the supermarket… We couldn’t find normal bread in the store, so we had to take the black local special bread… We wanted also red caviar, but they didn’t have one. We did bought Bologna sausages, hot dogs, cheese, butter, cookies, water and batteries. We paid about 5000 ISK for all. With lot of plastic bags we ran toward the bus then.

• It’s a long ride to Landmannalaugar, so I slept a bit, listened to music, Lena took a nap too. We ate some of the cookies we bought. At some point, the bus took a break near some waterfalls, we didn’t know what are these waterfalls, and we didn’t care, they were just beautiful, no more words to say. Our bus driver, remembered us and asked whether we want him to take our bags to Reykjavik, so we had to explain him (it wasn’t so easy – he barely spoke English) that we need our bags for tonight, and that we’ll have to send them only tomorrow…

• As we approached Landmannalaugar the weather got worse, suddenly rain started, at time when we parked at the last station, the rain was pretty harsh. We paid for one night in the camping zone in the hut; also we bought a map of the trek, 2000 ISK for all. We hoped for a place in a hut, but it was full with Italians we met at Askja… :) Lena asked some warden, if we can leave our bags here tomorrow morning, so they will handle and deliver them to Thormork via bus to Reykjavik. The warden said it’s possible (if they won’t forget), she only asked us to put a note on the bags, so she will know where to send the bags.

• After we set the tent, we went to the kitchen, we had pasta with hot-dogs. Then we walked around the place for a while, we saw a natural swimming pool with people in it. It was funny to watch those people running almost naked in the rain from their tents to the pool and back… crazy people! We didn’t know whether tomorrow we will have time for this or not, but maybe in other huts we thought we might be successful in taking a bath in such a pool…

• So the rain still on, we are going to sleep now, goda nott!

The Godafoss

View from the bus on the way to Landmannalaugar

Somewhere on our way to Landmannalaugar

The waterfalls we saw

Another view on the waterfalls

We are not the only ones that had no place in the hut...

That's me the morning after