Hot stuff is coming out

22.7.99     Myvatn: Reykjahildt, 43 km, 3 h, 17th day

Same procedure as everyday. get up, have breakfast, clean up, jump on the bikes: and here is the difference now, without luggage. We stayed again in this region of Myvatn. Today we went to the geothermal active area. We saw brimstone fields and another volcano (Krafla). The pictures are impressive.

Martin and me in front of a hot lake

First we stopped at a hot water lake. Next to this lake was a big power station. That is compulsive, Iceland gets all the energy from the earth (most with geothermal energy), there are no coal plants and even no nuclear power. This is possible due to the fact that Iceland is on a fault between two continental plates (I mentioned this before).

me in front of brimstone smoke

 

Everywhere in that area stuff is coming out of the earth. The hot brimstone smoke heats up the water above it (if there is water) and so you can see bubbling mud fields.

 

huge area with craters

 

It is really amazing if warm air is coming out of the underground. This stuff constructs a totally different kind of landscape. I haven't seen such an area before.

 

wide viewwwww

 

Krafla

After we walked around in that brimstone field we biked to Krafla. Krafla is a volcano area which erupted the last time less than 15 years ago. It is not a typical volcano area with a huge crater, it is a wide spread area. The lava flow about 10 km's, there is not a huge mountain or something like that. The amazing thing is the color of the congealed lava and the temperature. The volcano erupted 10 years ago but the congealed lava is still warm if you remove the first layer of 10 cm.

Perhaps you can't see exactly what this pictures show. Well, all the black stuff is congealed lava. It is more than black.

the black area

 

some non black dots

 

The view was amazing. You could see further than you can think (well, this doesn't make sense but I hope you know what I mean). I really like the picture below because of the difference between the color of the black stone and my blond hairs.

me on the volcano

 

smoke is still coming out

 

Myvatn is the spot where you should go if you go once to Iceland. There are so amazing things to see. I would have liked to stay there a little bit longer but we had to cycle ...

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