Day 9, June 24, 2005: the drive to Höfn
Another beautiful day, as you can probably tell from the pictures.
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We had breakfast with Jose and friends from the Canary Islands. They were going the other direction,
so we gave them the contact details of the guesthouses we've been staying at so far.
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The owners of the guesthouse at Eyvindará. They were very friendly and nice to us. They let us stay in a really
comfortable room downstairs. As we were leaving, they insisted we write something particular in their guestbook.
We couldn't figure out what they wanted until their daughter came in and explained they wanted us to write something
in our own language. We gave them some Bahasa Malaysia and some chinese characters.
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The man even played us some music on his accordion.
Click here to listen (590 Kb WMV file)
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We went back to nearby Egilsstaðir to get more photos stored on CDs.
We found a small trail leading to this nice cliff and sat there while we waited for the photo shop to finish.
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We were supposed to head down south towards Höfn but we decided to take a detour northeast to Borgarfjörður
to find some puffins. The drive was quite scenic.
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The journey took us up another mountain pass.
This is quite a typical view down the slope of an Icelandic mountain.
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The top of this mountain pass was the start of a hiking trail
and there was a place to park, so we made a stop for some photos.
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Finally, we arrived at Borgarfjörður and we ruffled a few feathers when our car came close to the water.
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Borgarfjörður
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A pair of fulmars nesting on the near cliff.
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A kittywake takes wing.
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This is the main cliff where the birds nest.
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A puffin, up close. They don't fly like other birds. Their wings are quite small for their weight, so they have to
flap them really quickly to stay in flight and they maintain a pretty straight course through the wind,
instead of gliding and swooping. They actually look like little airplanes in the air.
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The bay.
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The fishing docks.
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Some horses sleeping.
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Just outside Borgarfjörður is this rock which they call Alfholl (Elf Mound).
The queen of the elves is supposed to live here.
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Borgarfjörður from another angle.
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Some kids playing in their backyard.
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A turf house.
We're still in Borgarfjörður and we just can't stop taking pictures.
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Finally, we got on our way again and, of course, the first thing we saw was another beautiful waterfall.
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Not sure where this one is.
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A big rock by the side of the road halfway towards Höfn.
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The clouds in Iceland do the weirdest things. This one made an 'i' in the sky.
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A house by the sea.
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Apart from waterfalls, another thing Iceland has plenty of is strange looking mountains.
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As we drove on, we suddenly saw clouds rolling down the top of the next mountain. It happened so fast, we were quite
sure we couldn't make it pass the mountainside before it came down and blanketed the road. But then, a minute later,
the clouds crawled back up the mountain almost as suddenly as it had appeared. I took a video of the tail end of it.
Click here to watch (296 Kb WMV file)
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A lupin field.
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We got there late, but Höfn was a beautiful little town in the light of the summer night sun.
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