Yesterday I encountered the most harrowing section of the Ring Road.  While driving across what might be most of Northwest Iceland en route to Akureyri (I have no idea how to pronounce that one) through what must have been 30 mph gusts of wind and occasional rain.  After nearly six hours of driving I came upon Manaskaro.

In case I have not already mentioned it the scenery in Iceland is otherworldly.  And on this stretch it slowly transformed into more of a lunar landscape, with stark grey and brown mountains and much less vegetation than what I saw in the Southwest.  The ground appears to be rippling fields of lava with odd cone shaped hills irregularly dispersed across the fields.  Truly people it looks like Mordor (I had to say it – apologies).  Basically I was climbing continuously until it felt like I was above the world on a dreary plateau that goes on for miles.  All of this bombards me as I’m striving to keep my compact Mazda on the road, battling the buffeting gusts of wind.

I did not stop much on this trek, because I was tired and anxious to get to my next destination – the fabulous Lava Apartments where I would be spending TWO nights.  A rare treat on this crazy whirlwind driving tour of Iceland.  However, I did record in my reptile brain all of the very interesting sights that I planned to revisit the next day, like waterfalls and all of the funky geothermal areas, including Krafla the geothermal power station (way cool by the way!).  I should mention that the scenery did shift some and return to the rich green slopes with small farms and even a lake (Lake Myvatn) interspersed with the Mordor landscape.

What happened next is somewhat unclear to me.  Low blood sugar?  Lulled by the (eventual) sunshine and the purr of that Mazda motor?  Inured to the near misses that occurred frequently on that dicey two lane Ring Road?  I’m not certain, but as I was about 20 minutes away from Akureyri, I had a momentary freak out.  I was cruising along (say 100kph, yes, kilometers, it’s THE Europe people) proud of myself for flying by the slow-moving tour bus on a steep mountain pass, where we were going up, up, up …  and I knew we probably had to go down, down, down, because Akureyri is on a bay – which is probably not on top of a mountain.  Again, I’m moving fairly quickly on this steep mountain pass, when quite suddenly the road ends.  At least, this is the message that was sent out to the autonomic nervous system, which went into stomach churning, sweaty palm, light-headed panic.  You see, all I saw was a short guard rail and blue sky and water. Nothingness.  Perhaps it was the sun reflecting off of the bay, because it seemed ethereal, and perhaps the immediate sharp turn and instant steep grade had something to do with it as well.  All I know, is that there was literally nothing next to me but, let’s be real, an extremely short guard rail and the sky and the water.  There was no ground that I could discern and remember this is a two-lane highway, with plenty of oncoming traffic.

I seriously thought I might freeze up and stop the car.  I can’t remember a time when I experienced this type of abject fear.  It was like riding one of those amusement park rides when they drop you, and your stomach plummets to your toes.  But your system knows, that you are perfectly safe.  Those rides are a fun kind of terror, not a I-may-die sort of terror!  Nauseous, check.  Shaky hands, check.  Cold sweat, check.  Yeah – it was bad.  And this is not a short downhill, this is several kilometers.  At one point, they don’t even have guard rails and you are driving around a curve that goes out towards the water.  Oh my.

Those who know me will laugh, because I only got through this by talking to myself all the way down the hill.  Sometimes I think it was only mournful animal whimpers (mostly when a big camper came by), but in the end, I made it.  Big sigh.  I was so rattled after that experience that I could not find my hotel and had to pull over and just sit.  Yeah, people it was bad.  And I’ve been driving for three days all over this island, which has plenty of other challenging areas!  I’ve decided it was a weird vertigo experience… ack.  The sad thing was that I needed to go back on that same route to reach all of the cool waterfalls and stuff!  Sob.  I stewed about it for quite some time, because I seriously did not think I could come down that pass again.

Day five dawned and I did my best to prolong my leave taking.  In the end, I decided to face Manaskaro pass again – because I had to see Dettifoss, Krafla, Namafjall, and Gooafoss.  Which I did and since I’m writing a short story here, I’ll save those for another post.  Let’s just say that there were multiple pep talks and ‘practice’ on how I would focus on the road and not the great beyond when I came back down the pass.  I also carefully noted that there is land underneath that guard rail, it’s not just a highway floating in space.  I scoped this out on my way back up the pass in the morning.  I tried to tell myself that my brain was playing tricks on me, that this irrational fear was based on an illusion.  I worried so much that my guts went south.  No further explanation needed, those who understand the Minkey gut know of what I speak.

Eventually it was time to head back up, up, up.  I did what I could to have a clear path on the road, meaning nobody is really close behind me and nobody is right in front of me.  This is trickier than you’d think.  And, I slowed down (insert cheesy grin here).  When that sharp turn appeared, with the supposedly floating guard rail, I handled it just fine.  I went down the entire hill without that abject fear (with a few palpitations, but MINOR, compared to the day before!).  I own that hill now.  You might say, that hill is my bitch!  (inside joke, ask the Minkey about Italy some day)

Stay tuned, I promise to share more on all the fabulous features that I saw on Day 5!