SOUTHERN ICELAND I: SELJALANDSFOSS, EYJAFJALLAJOKULL, DRANGURRIN, AND SKOGAFOSS

June 13, 2019 (My title is quite a mouthful, don't you think?)

Another day of driving  took us to the southern tip of Iceland, where once more we were stunned by the rich variety and endless beauty of the country.

Erv, our wonderful driver/tour guide, picked us up in this ten-passenger minibus, and we headed out:

Our destination was Vik (pronounced "Veek"):

Our first stop was at Seljalandsfoss--a towering 197-foot-tall waterfall that looks like a bride's lacy veil that has been dropped over the edge of a cliff:

Some smaller waterfalls off to the side are like bridesmaids at the wedding:

There is a LOT of water coming over the main chute:

Look closely to see the natural overhang that allows visitors to walk behind the waterfall:

Here we go!

I'm not sure I've ever seen this shade of green anywhere but Iceland:

Both placid and rippling streams are fed by the various falls and make their way across the meadow:

A two-tiered waterfall is just a short walk away:

Gulls are nesting in the knobby lava rock face next to the falls:

This almost looks like an artichoke, but the flowers were being attacked by an army of black flies. I wonder what kind of plant it is? Does anyone know?

Time to make our way back to our minibus:

. . . but first, a photo to prove we were really there:

And guess what? Justin "The Bieb" Bieber was once here too! He filmed his music video "I'll Show You" in Iceland, with a lot of it at this waterfall. Footage starts about 25 seconds in:

Our next stop was at an information center describing the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, a 5466-foot-tall volcano rising above some pristine Icelandic farmland.

When this volcano blew, it spewed ash several kilometers into the air and caused a six-day disruption in air travel in Europe, including the complete closure of some flight paths. It also caused some intense electrical storms. I believe this is the same video that we were shown in the information center, a weird combination of cataclysmic images and New Age music:

This photo from the information center shows the evacuation of a large team of horses:

The area hardest hit by the eruption and just below the volcano is across the road from the information center. It looks like it has had an amazing recovery:

Perhaps all that volcanic ash acts as fertilizer and is what accounts for the beautiful emerald green we saw everywhere:

Next we pulled over to see Drangurinn. Doesn't that sound like a place where elves live?

Well, that's exactly what Drangurinn is--a large rock sitting in a field that is the home of elves, at least according to local legend. It's hard to tell from the photo below, but that rock with all the angles, crags, and holes in it is completely detached from the hills behind it. How did it get there? Locals say that a famous Icelandic outlaw named Grettir "The Strong" Asmundsson tore it out of a nearby mountain and threw it there.

 

There are caves and passageways that occur naturally in the rock, and there are a few that have been added over the years, along with some buildings. Local farmers used to keep their livestock in the caves, and it was known to all that the elves would help tend the herds and flocks when needed.

Perhaps this is the home where one man, who fell in love with an elvish woman and promptly disappeared, lived his invisible life in plain sight:

Unfortunately, we were not able to get very close to the rock or go inside the houses, but the locals were happy to take our donations:

We saw more spectacular waterfalls in Iceland than we saw in either the fjords of Norway or Alaska, and the waterfalls are certainly what a lot of people travel to Iceland to see. Our next stop was at Skogafoss, or "Forest Falls." With a 197-foot drop, it is about the same height as Seljalandsfoss, but it is much wider and is one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland. It definitely puts out much more spray than we experienced at Seljalandsfoss. Anyone who chooses to go close to the falls is going to get wet.

A full-sized river rather than a meandering stream is fed by this cascade:

By the way, Skogafoss is the largest of over TWENTY waterfalls on the Skoga River. Crazy!

A very long stairway leads up the side of the mountain to an observation platform at the top of Skogafoss.  We had gone to the top of Seljalandsfoss at the beginning of the day and time was short, so we remained below.

An old local legend says that long ago, a man hid a chest filled with gold and other treasures behind this waterfall. Though many have tried, no one has been able to retrieve it. I have to wonder if the real treasure isn't the falls themselves. What could be worth more than that?