Wait! What the heck is this? And try to say it three times fast. No way – I don’t think even Icelanders can do that – but it’s part of the trip and there’s a bunch more of those coming up, so get used to it.

I’ll go back to the beginning: I think it was 6 months or more now when Susan said “Hey – what do you do you think about going to Iceland with Leigh and David”, two good friends of ours. Sure, why not? and the adventure began.

Day 1: We’re landing in the capital of Iceland – Reykjavik – a city of 122,000 people – about 1/3 of all people who live in the country. We had a quicker flight than I expected, and sleep was difficult on the plane, so naturally when the 7:00 am arrival hit we were ready for some sleep. Not really going to happen, is it? Nope! We had plans to visit Thrihnukagigur a dormant volcano that last erupted 4,000 years ago. The name comes from a translation of 3 peaks crater and was actually found and entered in 1974 and deemed unimportant. It wasn’t until 1994 that it became geologically more important. It was discovered that all the magma in its chamber had disappeared (back into the earth/ walls). The chamber is huge – it could fit the Statue of Liberty into it as it is 213 meters deep and enormously round. Better yet – it’s claimed that this is the only one in the world that you can go into – to the safe bottom at 140 meters!

So we did.

Think about riding down on something that looks like what window washers use on tall buildings.  It’s narrow enough to squeeze into the top and get lowered by a power winch. Check out some of the photos attached; all the colors are real, not lights:

Our Ride

The Cavern

Looking Up

The Cavern

Of course – the only way to leave the volcano is to walk 2 miles in hard rain!

Welcome to Iceland!