I find it interesting that when I ask a local Icelander about my driving plans, and I explicitly ask if all the roads in that plan are paved – they all nod and say ‘oh, yes, those roads are nice paved roads’.  Apparently we have very different views on what constitutes a paved road.  I’m thinking it means cement or asphalt was involved.  They must be thinking it includes hard packed dirt and gravel without serious gaps in the road or Volkswagen-sized potholes.  I learned to no longer trust the natives after my insanely long day in the saddle crossing the rest of the fjords on a quest to see Dynjandi and the Latrabjarg cliffs.

So, my second day in the fjords included a substantial amount of driving.  I can’t even tell you exactly how much driving, because google maps can’t figure it out (that’s because of the stinking gravel roads and such).  It was in the neighborhood of 650km (that’s 450 miles for the metric system challenged).  That is about 9.5 hours of driving.  Bad idea number one, in process.  The only smart thing I did was to hit the road at 6:30am.

The plan was to first stop and visit Dynjandi, another dynamite waterfall; and then to skedaddle out to the Latrabjarg cliffs, which are described as the most fabulous cliffs ever known to man.  Ok, so I exaggerate.  Latrabjarg is the furthest west that you can go in Iceland, and these cliffs are home to zillions of sea-birds.  Like the Puffin – of which I have awesome pictures that I need to post.  The last part of the plan was to save the driver’s sanity and take the car-ferry back across the water to some point a couple of hours drive away from Reykjavik.

I woke up to minimal light, pouring rain, and grey soupy fog.  Great way to start my looonnngg day.  I took off and really had no issues at all for a couple of hours except for the sheep.  Strangely, I encountered more sheep crossing the road out here than anywhere else I went in Iceland.  Damn sheep.  Large wooly mutton chops standing in the middle of the road with stupid looks on their faces.  Did they quickly move aside?  Absolutely not…  And what are sheep doing foraging along the coastline?  I don’t know.  I had a nice song that I sang about the sheep, you know the tune, Groove Armada style:  ‘I see you sheep, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that shaggy sheep ass, shakin’ that mutton chop ass, hey, get outta my way’…  That’s how we entertain ourselves in the car … yeah, it’s fun people.

So, I’m singing my song and really flying, when I get to a turnoff and it has one of these signs, the sign that says ‘gravel ahead’ only it says it in Icelandic.  I recognize this sign from my past gravel experiences – it has a big exclamation point on it.  Very appropriate.  I am not pleased.  I think there must be a mistake as the natives told me the roads are paved.  Argh.  It is raining heavily and this road – seems a bit dicey.  I notice that of the little traffic on the road, they are all turning left and heading towards the gravel.  This is the only way to get to Dynjandi.

Now this road begins to climb.  Which in Iceland means I’m climbing right up to the top of a mountain pass.  Unavoidable.  This happens to me at least 3-4 times a day that I climb up something very steep only to go down the other side, surrounded by sheer drop-offs.  This one is worse because of the rain and the mud which is splashing up around the car with each dip that I hit.  Not to mention the grade, which is so steep I’m shifting down into first gear and gunning the car just to get up the pass.  My car does not provide much traction (remember it’s the 2WD kinda car) – which means the 4WD people are getting frustrated sitting behind me.  Occasionally I try to scooch over so they can pass – and then get a windshield full of muddy water which temporarily blinds me!  Very exciting because this road has hairpin turns and nothing but sticks planted around the edges of the road.  I thought for awhile the sticks must be for the snow plows.  And than I laughed, because even in Iceland, I doubt they would ever plow this gravel road!  This went on for perhaps an hour – before I finally made it to Dynjandi.

Is the waterfall cool?  Of course.  Is it worth it to completely cover my car in mud and god knows what else happened to the under-carriage?  Maybe not.  Good news was they had a WC available there, where they ‘asked’ for a donation.  I had some choice thoughts on what I might donate, considering how peeved I was with my continuing gravel road experience.

Besides my car being muddy – I have turned into the grubbiest human on the planet.  I’ve worn the same two pairs of pants like eight times, and now, they are getting rained on and getting new mud stains to go with the previous ones.  I had a cashew bag explosion on those pants, dropped suntan lotion on those pants – you name it, I was wearing it.  This is just adding to my discomfort on day seven.

You guessed it, getting out of the Dynjandi area required further travel up and down mountain passes on that same mud lake of a road.  By the time I reached pavement again I was kind of a nervous wreck.  I nearly got out of the car and kissed the asphalt…   Then drove another two hours to the cliffs …

The weather was deteriorating and visibility was dropping off dramatically.  Now, I’m still doing scary mountain passes, but on the pavement.  Passes with 12% grades, for instance.  I finally get to the turn off for the Latrabjarg cliffs – and see that same gravel sign.  No kidding.  It’s now a windy rainstorm and I can’t see more than a mile in front of me – there is no fricking way I’m driving on gravel out to cliffs that I won’t even be able to see.  So that was it – I threw in the towel – went in search of gas, which was alarmingly low, and food.

This reads like a movie script, right?  Ha.  I threw in the towel at about 2:30 in the afternoon – and decided to drive the four hours back to Reykjavik.  And the day just kept getting longer….  At some point in the endless fjords, I stopped at a random hotel.  This is where I picked up the ‘bean and ham’ sandwich.  Which I thought would be some kind of salad.  Nope.  It was a slice of ham with some undiscernible sour cream/mayonnaise/peas salad.  Yes, peas, not beans.  Lost in translation.  Let’s just say that the sandwich was a mistake.  Eventually – I made it to the big city of Reykjavik (which I have finally learned how to spell without looking it up) and was thrilled to get out of my car and change into my grubby PJ’s.  But the drive lingered, as I felt like I was still moving, swerving around tight turns even though I was sitting perfectly still.

It was a slow morning the next day (thank-you ham and pea sandwich).  I don’t think I wandered into Reykjavik until mid-afternoon – I was that tired.  Needless to say, I don’t recommend cramming that much driving and sight-seeing into one day!