Big waterfall, big meal

I awoke refreshed, but hungry. As I re-packed my bags and hauled them to the bike I discovered a tube of salted peanuts in the depths of a pocket. This would be my breakfast.

Running out of food in the midst of burning thousands of calories on a bike tour is just miserable. I decided to chomp the peanuts early in the day and hope I passed some other source of snacks. My target was the city of Kirkjubæjarklaustur, nearly 40 miles away and 1000 feet down. If I could get there at a reasonable hour and catch a restaurant or a supermarket, I would stuff my face. In the meantime I tried not to think about it, to keep my stomach from turning into knots.

As I readied the bike I was dismayed to find the front tire very low. That meant a slow leak — probably too slow for me to find yet, even if I disassembled the tire and put the tube in a sink inside the lodge. I would have to re-inflate it, then ride on it until I either got where I was going or the leak got serious enough to make the bike unrideable. Then I could do my best to patch it on the side of the road, using a couple rough techniques to find the more obvious leak. Not fun.

Next to me I noticed a man gearing up his own bike. I hadn’t seen him in the lodge. He said hello in French-accented English, and we struck up a conversation. He’s been on tours all over the world, sometimes bringing his daughters along, who are in their twenties. A very friendly fellow who reminded me a bit of my Uncle Denny. We traded photos as we left, but I completely forgot to ask him his name, or give him mine. That’s rather silly.

Speaking of silly:

I bet I’m very wrong with my rough translations, but I think these say:

Go to sleep as long before me as you can, so I can spread upon you all the better.

Unknown Author

And:

How about that?
Lína, who lives at Laugaveg,
(now I neither lie nor spew)
I love her dearly
although it is a pity
she is so ghostly.

Hrólfur Sveinsson

I can’t tell if that’s a poem about a sick person, a pale person, a dead person, or something else. It’s probably got several Icelandic-only cultural references that a local would need at least ten minutes to explain.

Speaking of locals, I also chatted with the two Icelandic women from the lodge as they loaded their car. They mentioned there was a waterfall behind the campsite and enthusiastically told me to check it out. “It’s only a ten minute hike,” they said. “And you can eat breakfast while you see it!”

Of course, for me that meant it would be half an hour or longer, because I’d stop to take photos every 20 steps. Sounds good!

The cool rocks started just as I found the trail. I paused to text an image to my nephew James. Much later, when he was awake, we had the following exchange:

Soon the river appeared. The sound grew louder as I tromped into the hills, and the air grew thick with mist.

In about half an hour I was standing over a thundering waterfall that had been entirely invisible from the road.

I sat down and ate breakfast: A tube of peanuts and some water. Well, the setting was fantastic even if the meal wasn’t.

A rainbow hovered perpetually over the spray.  I took a video but the camera wrote to the wrong card and barfed, so I took a few more. My clothes were quite damp when I finished.

It was a glorious space and I had it entirely to myself, which struck me as odd. I imagined the area crawling with onlookers just a few months ago, holding phones up to the railing or stomping excitedly around and chatting with their friends. I stood there hearing only the water, closed my eyes, and drew the mist into my lungs.

Aaaahhhhh!

On the way back to the parking lot I had another of those “only in Iceland” thoughts: Usually I would be extremely paranoid about leaving my bike next to a lodge, fully loaded and unlocked. I couldn’t think of any other place in the world where I would feel fine just walking away from it for an entire hour, let alone doing what I had just done, which was to walk away from it without even thinking about what I was doing.

I shook my head, put a bit more air in the front tire, and started pedaling.

For a while I passed through gently rolling grassland.  I could see warm air ripping on the hills. In the far distance I saw a broad flat plain of snow on a shelf-like mountain.

Then the downhill bits got more serious, and I had to lean on the brakes. I worried about the front tire. It was losing air, but still too slowly to attempt a patch. There was also a curious vibration – or, a ghost of one, I couldn’t quite tell because of the lumpy road – and that worried me even more.

When I did pause to add air, the view was always lovely. It helped to distract from my hunger as well…

I didn’t fall over today, but I was very cautious on the descents.  There was less loose gravel on the road, which was better for my balance but worse for the tires. Lots of small rocks can push each other out of the way when a wheel comes, but a few rocks on a hard surface, like the baked mud of this road, have nowhere to go and press into the tire much harder. Sometimes they get launched off to either side with a “ping!!” and collide with stuff.

I passed a gang of five cyclists going the other way, up the hills on big-tired bikes with extra-long racks, carrying lots of gear.  I couldn’t tell if they were electrified, but there was so much gear and the frames were so heavy that they must have been.

There was a bit of car traffic. Usually I tried to increase my safety by pulling over and stopping as each vehicle approached. While bike tires can throw rocks on this kind of road, car tires can sometimes fire them hard enough to break glass. Best to get some distance, and turn your head away for good measure if the car isn’t slowing down. It sounds paranoid, but over the years I’ve actually had little rocks crack into my helmet as cars went shooting by.

Some of these cars did pass rudely, without slowing down, kicking up walls of dust. Then one guy rolled carefully to a stop next to me, complimented my weird bike, then continued going. That might have been a bit too polite…?

The road stayed rough. Lots of bouncing around in the seat. For a while I took a break in a field, leaning on a furrow of grass and sipping water, resting my butt a little.

I rolled around a bit, and saw little bumbly spiders walking around on their overland adventures. So much happening, even on what looks like quiet terrain…

Some of the things bumbling around were quite large. This hay-munching beetle, for example.

And then there’s this creature… A combination truck, road sign, supply depot, and parade float?

After rolling around that thing, the road flattened out. I was down at the coast again.

I passed over a cute little bridge and turned left, and I was on the Ring Road again. Suddenly the traffic was five times more dense, and much faster.

It was a long, straight shot to my target city. I started an audiobook and pedaled doggedly along, with visions of sandwiches dancing in my brain.

And sandwiches there were!

The hot chocolate vanished so quickly I was momentarily confused and couldn’t remember if I’d even bought some. I cleared all the plates in about 20 minutes, except for a handful of fries, which I wrapped in some napkins and crammed into a mesh bag along with the candy bars.

After eating all that food it was like turning a furnace back on in my body.  Suddenly I was making heat inside my clothes, and could turn the pedals without gasping for breath. Bodies are amazing.

I struck out for the campsite on the edge of town. It was bustling but I found a nice open space among the other cyclists.

A guy at the campsite right next to me said “I think we passed you on the road coming in.  Much respect to you!  That is a long way to go!” And it was.

The french fries vanished before I even set up the tent.