8/3/15: An Afternoon of Debacles (aka: wrong turns)

Day 5 - Monday, August 3 continued...

Here is the crater we are hiking to.... 

How many people does it take to figure out if you've made a wrong turn??

We don't know... The 3 of us are still trying to figure it out!  We are 3 relatively educated people and we must have made no less than 10 wrong turns today!  15 might even be more accurate. I named this post debacle for a reason. 

We made it to Reykjahlid where we probably made 3 wrong turns trying to find the information center. It seemed clearly marked so we stopped at the building where the bit information sign was only to find out it was across the street. Once there, we asked where the hike started.  We then took about 3 more wrong turns to find that. We ended up at Myvatn hot bath.  We thought we saw where the trail started so we're off. For about 50 feet until we realized this clearly wasn't the trail. I ran inside to ask about the trail.  It did start here... Just on the other side of the parking lot.  What a relief to finally be on the right track! Well... At least for a few minutes.  

We then realized we were just hiking in a dirt road. It felt like we were off.  So, we back tracked. AGAIN.

Finally we found the start where we had to take a little ladder bridge to get over a fence.  Then we saw the sticks that clearly told us we were on the right track.  Finally.  How many wrong turns was that?!  This was a 3 hour hike (round trip) to see Hverfell (a crater) and Dimmuborgir (lava field). Start the clock!  

On our way to the crater, we passed by a sulfer stream and something we called the earths vents. The earth was literally just steaming...  so amazing to see these natural wonders.

We made it to the crater! Not only did we see it, we climbed it! See the path?  Onward and upward!

This was the view after we climbed to the top which, I would say was slightly more than a 45 degree angle.  It was a definitely good workout. But seriously... how cool is this!??

Diego... contemplating where he is going to fly the drone.  

Then we thought... How great would it be to hike down inside the crater! This is what it looks like when you have 2 photographers and a 3rd who is learning to love the camera too.  Diego offered to watch all the stuff so Connie and I could hike into the crater.  We told him we'd "be right back".  It may have taken a little longer than a quick be right back.  But, Diego didn't mind... he had his drone to keep him entertained.  Not to mention, that thing is quite a conversation piece. 

So... Connie and I make the decent into the crater.  We hike down and then up the center.  So crazy to think of where we are and what happened to make this crater.  While there... we decided to build wishes.  We each made one, and then we both made one for Diego.  At this point he had flown his drown down to visit us... we waved and tried to tell him what we were doing.  We weren't sure he could hear us.  He also grabbed my camera and took a picture of us....  Can you see us?  

My wish....

Now it's time to walk the rim and make our decent...  How beautiful is this??  

Connie and I... 

We get to the path to make our hike down the other side.  This is what we find...

A difficult path sign and a zig zag path... because it was so steep!  This is one of those moments when Connie left me in the dust.  I'm sure I would have rolled down the path if I would have attempted to keep up with her!  :)

Check out the view of the path from the bottom!  Yep... it was a bit steep!

Once we get to the bottom, Connie decided to take a short cut.  She veered off to the left because she thought the path went to the right and then came back to the left.  After walking a little bit, I voiced my concern that we were going the wrong way.  I wasn't seeing the same sticks that we had been following on the path.  We looked at the map again and Connie and I were at a stale mate.  I thought we needed to go one way, and Connie felt the opposite.  So, we needed a tie breaker.  At first, Diego agreed with me on what way we came up the volcano... which was important to know so we could determine on the map, which way to go.  But, after Connie made her argument, he thought she could be right.  All of our internal compasses were not properly calibrated!  So... we continued on for another 45 minutes or so.  We finally sat down to have dinner...  Seed crackers with turkey and cheese.  Yummy.   I do think we found the coldest and windiest place to stop though. 

During our quick break... we decided to go back to the end of the path we came down and see if we should have gone the other way.  Sure enough... we found the path again and our way to Dimmuborgir, a mossy lava field. 

Connie and Diego both did a little rock climbing....

 

We also got a good view of our path again from here.... Yep... still looks steep!

Ok... time to hike back to the car.  We figure it should take less time then it took to get there being we made a ridiculous number of wrong turns.  Ha... well... the day wasn't called a debacle for nothing. Of course we had to make one more wrong turn.  Or more so... miss a turn.  Apparently Diego tried to tell us but Connie and I were both too busy talking that we apparently didn't hear him.  We told him that from now on... he had to scream at us if we weren't listening.  We then forced him to lead us back the shortest way possible so he took us through a lava field and eventually found the path again. We were all so excited to see the parking lot.  

So... our 3 hour round trip hike took almost double!   We ended up walking over 15 miles this day. The best part... even though we had made a crazy number of wrong turns and got a little lost or turned around... we all had an amazing time together.  No one got crabby or frustrated.  Instead... we just took it all in!

We parted ways with Diego at this point.  He was headed to find a place to camp and Connie and I were headed back to Samuels for our last night at his guest house.  On our drive back, we went through a little town that had a speed meter.  What was so awesome about it was if you were going under the speed limit.. it had a smiley face.  But if you were going over... it had a frown face.  Of course we wanted to capture it in a photo.  It only took us 4 times driving up and down the street to get some crappy photos...

Back to our guest house for the night....  it was probably around 1 am that we climbed into bed and then we stayed up just giggling!  What a fun day!