Weird And Glorious Terrain

Sleep apnea jolted me awake early, despite my jaw insert. I was hit with every fatigue factor at once: I was cold, my breastbone hurt from sleeping unsupported on my side, my ribs hurt from the hard ground, my face mask couldn’t block all the light, I was thirsty, and I needed to pee. Arrgh!

I stuck my Airpods Pro in with the noise cancellation on to try and block the yelling of the other campers, but it was too late. Sleep would not return until evening. Time to pack up my gear and get riding. It would be a long and interesting day.

Today I would be making the journey out of Fjallabak Nature Reserve and losing almost all my altitude, hopefully getting to the Hólaskjól Higland Center before nightfall. I expected to cross many rivers along the way, and still had no idea how difficult that would be.

For a while it was easy riding. The road was still gravel but it was blessedly flat as it weaved gently between strange treeless peaks and skirted a dramatic blue lake.

For a while I got a gentle downhill slope across a valley, and observed that one of the reasons this terrain felt so strange was I could see so much of it at once, with zero trees blocking my view. Even the deserts I’d crossed had sagebrush and cacti complicating the foreground.

Alas, the easy riding wasn’t permanent. For short intervals, gravel lost out to sand in the battle of erosion, causing the bike to pitch out of control and putting a spike in my heart rate as I flailed to regain balance.

But could I complain? Naaaah! Just after skirting the lake, I rode along the edge of a gorgeous flat valley covered in flowers, and it was time to stop and have a little picnic of crackers and tinned sardines in the sunshine. Bloody hell, this is the life.

After a lazy half hour I was rolling again, but soon I was forced to stop by something way more compelling than flowers or sunshine. On the left side of the road I beheld a giant living carpet of bright green moss, vaguely circular in shape, exploding across the loose rocks and gravel. The color was so intense it was hard to believe I was seeing something natural.

I’d seen carpets like this before, usually growing alongside streams, but this one was interesting because it was so flat. That gave rise to a much stranger phenomenon: There were tiny puddles of rainwater floating in the hollows of the carpet, suspended there with surface tension.

And they were … vibrating … in the wind.

I’ve been around. I’ve seen a fair number of weird landscapes on this planet. But until today, I hadn’t seen anything like this. Not even in nature documentaries.

I crawled around this thing taking pictures and watching all the insects trekking across it for nearly an hour. I was mesmerized.

But I had a destination to reach, so I couldn’t linger there forever, tempting as it was to set up camp and sleep next to this thing, and maybe photograph it in sunset light.

Just a few hundred meters ahead, I found a much more conventional snowbank, and chilled out next to it for a little while.

As I sat by the side of the road, a dude in a huge red truck went blazing past, riding on enormous tires. Probably a rental. He left a plume of dust behind him ten meters high. I doubt he even saw the mossy patch that had so captivated me.

A bit farther down the road, I came across the first fording place. It was basically a giant puddle, with a bottom made of loose rocks that caused my narrow bike tires to flounder.

I resigned myself to getting wet feet, and carried the bags across, and then the bike in a second round. It was inconvenient but I was still pleased because it was’t dangerous.

Near me a guy was having his car pulled onto a trailer.  It probably had an electrical short, or maybe water soaked through the air intake from too much splashing around.

That was how some of the fordings went. There were twelve in all — four more than the eight displayed on the tourist map. With about half of them I could just dismount and push the bike around the margins of the puddle without removing any bags. The rest were more serious, and I had to move things in stages while pushing against troublesome current. I wouldn’t say they were actually dangerous, but they were risky, because if I slipped and dunked the bags I could mess up some of my equipment or even lose it downstream.

I reckon if I’d been traveling in the springtime, all these crossings would be much harder, and some of them would be quite dangerous indeed. Rushing current up to my waist, and I’d have to carry the bike over my head just to drive my feet down against the soil and avoid being knocked over. Not good.

As it was, I did fine, and was rewarded with even more strange terrain, this time in little sections between short hills.

Some time in the afternoon I stopped again for crackers and sardines, sitting next to a tiny stream bracketed by more of those perfect tufts of moss.

I’m usually paranoid about drinking unfiltered water, but the temptation was too great. It was delicious!

The terrain was so jumbled that I lost track of my progress. I had a line on my GPS that I could vaguely match with the line on the map, but that couldn’t tell me whether the route ahead would get easier or harder. I could be out here for the rest of the afternoon or the rest of the day. There was one road, and all I could do was follow it, as it sank into rivers or elbowed its way up hills.

Every now and then the hills would pitch really large things close to the road, expressing their rage at being tamed.

As I moved east the ground opened up a bit, and I even saw some grass. Where there was grass, there were sheep, so of course I had to taunt them!

To punish me for enjoying the grass so much, the road threw larger hills into the mix. Joke’s on the road, because I loved those too.

Even the river crossings became fun, once I was used to them. I got overconfident at a smaller one and tried to plunge through it without dismounting, and just as the front tire cleared the water it drove into the sand. I laughed and laid the bike down, getting the outside of one arm and one leg wet, amused at my own folly.

Just then I heard the rumble of tires on gravel and realized a car was approaching. They would spot me easily with plenty of time to stop, so I wasn’t in danger of being run over, but I was in danger of looking like an idiot to a motorist. Cyclists are weirdly sensitive to that. I scrambled the bike upright and got on my way, feeling like a cat who has just fallen off a shelf.

The land opened up again as I drew near the last river crossing in the highlands. I passed a long row of rocks, placed to make the road visible when it’s covered with deep snow. I’d be so screwed if I was biking this in the winter!

And then there it was: The last river crossing on the map, before a very long downhill shot to the lowlands. There was one more after this, but it had a trail and a footbridge around it, so this was probably the last river I would need to push through in my Iceland journey.

Easily done! On the other side I paused to consume the very last of my food: A bag of dried fish snacks. They were horrible.

In fact I found it very hard to eat the last bite. They were my Dwarven Bread: As long as there was any left, I knew I wouldn’t starve…

Just before the long downhill, the land rose slightly, making a lip. In the dust of the road I found what looked like a crushed animal skin. Closer inspection revealed a destroyed pair of pants. Hmmm. Iceland stole someone’s pants.

I had to ride the brakes on the downhill. I was worried that the lumpy road could tear a hole in one of my tires, leading to a nasty crash and a really long walk down to the coast.

I was treated to a panorama of a valley sliced and diced by hundreds of versions of the same river re-routing itself over intervals measurable in human lifespans. Again, the complete lack of trees enhanced the weirdness of the view.

As I went, I got more worried about tire damage, and went slower. This hill would have been an absolute nightmare to climb.  Glad I came at it from the other direction!

At the base of the hill I was pleased to find the terrain was just as wonky as before.

In due time I came to the last river crossing. It was annoyingly deep. A path led to a bridge on the west side, so I tried that, and the path turned out to be so lumpy and slick that a slog through the river looked like the smart choice after all.

But I’m stubborn, so I just grunted and swore my way over the bridge, taking pictures to document my suffering. Well no, it wasn’t that bad. I’m being dramatic. The bridge itself was adorable.

Beyond the river, more wonky terrain. The sun was getting low, so instead of taking the cue and hurrying up, I slowed down to get photos of nicely backlit hills and sheep butts. Gotta have your priorities.

As I neared the campground the land flattened and the road got more stable. Over one low hill I found some interesting formations:

At first I thought these parallel ruts were made by animals. Then I realized they were previous versions of the road.

People drove their trucks over the hill in the same ruts, year after year, until the ruts got plowed too deep and began scraping the underside of the vehicle. Then they started driving up a fresh patch of ground on one side, adding another rut. Do that for fifty years on a fragile landscape … and the results remain visible for another century.

Whoo! Made it, finally! And with a decent amount of daylight!

I’d been planning to grab a campsite and set up my tent, then pay in the morning, but I was early enough to catch the attendant and ask about the lodge — and food.

She walked out to greet me. “As soon as I saw that bike I knew I had to ask you about it,” she said. I gave her my usual spiel about how comfortable it is to ride, but how awkward it is to haul around so much gear. She was intrigued.

We turned to logistics. “I have water, and some drinks to sell, but no food,” she said apologetically. “Not even candy bars.” But there was some good news: The lodge had plenty of space and the beds were quite reasonable. After a couple days of roughing it, I decided to open my wallet and get a real mattress.

There were three other people in the big house. A pair of Icelandic women who chatted quietly over tea, and one solo bicycle tourist.  He was writing determinedly in a small notepad.  I wonder if he’s writing about fording rivers?

I wonder if he’ll mention the weird guy who came in with a huge pile of gear off his weirdo bike?

I sorted photos on the laptop, taking advantage of the power sockets and table space. It seemed to get dark all at once. Exhaustion threw a cloak over me and soon I crawled gratefully into the bunk.