Iceland, Day 7: Birds and Waterfalls, ah what a life!

After breakfast we left our hostel.  I forgot to mention yesterday that the owner of our hostel, while he was helping me with the gas grill, told me that he used to import cars from Virginia and that he has imported the gas grill from America inside of a jeep that he was importing!  He was very proud of his grill.

In front of our hostel

En route

Then we drove west, first on paved roads, then on gravel roads.  We stopped at Dynjandi, an historic and nature sight.  It is a gigantic complex of 7 waterfalls, working together to get the water down the mountainside.  There were records from the middle ages of a farm being at the site.  They have traced a farm being there from the 1500s to the 1950s.  Only a few traces remain.  They enlarged one of the pools, probably for washing clothes and bathing and a few stones from the retaining wall remain.  The temperature of that pool was recorded as being an average of 26.6 degrees Celcius (almost 80 degrees).  Other than the retaining wall, all remains of the setttlement are gone. But the waterfall is fantastic!  Randy described the top fall as a wedding cake, and I have to agree.  Volcanic basalt formed there in layers, which causes the layers of the waterfalls. (Sorry for all the photos, these are but a subset of what I took!).  

Joshua

If you look carefully, Shelby is on the right hand side of the cliff.

Shelby

Joshua

family selfie

Then we found our hostel by mid-afternoon.  We had to go through the town to see our next sight and thought we'd check in and get groceries before heading out again.  We weren't sure if the grocery store would be open when we returned.  No one was at the desk of the hostel until 5:00, but we called the number listed to see if we could just let them know we were there and see if the key was in the door.  The woman came over from her house to fully check us in (the keys aren't in the doors here like they were in most of our other hostels).  Then she directed us to a small grocery store across the street with "most of the basics."  Well, it was tiny!  Like the size of my bathroom tiny!  (and I have a very small bathroom).  Well, we finally agreed on hot dogs (I know, really?) and fried potatoes.  The potatoes they have here in Iceland are tiny!  Two together are the size of an egg.

We dropped off our bags and food, had a snack, then back on the road.  Some paved roads, then gravel roads most of the way to the cliffs of Latrabjarg, Europe's largest bird cliff.  The birds nest in the cliff and you walk along the top, hoping to see them.  We saw literally millions of Iceland Gulls wheeling through the air and in nests.   They are so graceful!  It was full seeing them fly to the edge of the cliff to catch the updrafts and then seemingly float straight up!  We also saw literally millions of Common Guillemot.  They were mostly clustered on the shelves of the cliff walls.  Then, the primary reason we went there, we saw 4 puffins!!!!!!  Many, many photos of the puffins were taken by the four of us--I'll just share a few of mine.

Common Guillemots clustered on the edges

Common Guillemot

Joshua and Shelby

PUFFIN!!!!!

Two puffins, from another angle

Two Common Guillemots nuzzling beaks

Icelandic Gull

PUFFINS!!! in front of their nest

We returned to our hostel around 7:30 to make dinner, then the children took showers and headed to bed; they were very tired.  I'll try to get to bed early tonight too!

This was on the edge of  a small town by the cliffs.  The cup says "Safe Puffins", I think they meant "Save the Puffins"

A few tidbits of interesting facts (if you're into things like that).  One is the question of whether Iceland is part of North America or Europe.  It is usually include with Europe because of historical, political, and cultural factors.  But it sits right on the meeting point of the two tectonic plates.  So technically, it's East side is part of Europe and it's west side is part of  North America.  Geologically, it is part of both continents.   The other interesting fact is that every hostel has signs up stating that Iceland's tap water is spring water.  It is not treated, and is therefore free of chemicals such as chlorine.  And I have to say, it tastes even better than my Brita pitcher water.

Today's temperature wavered between 55 and 80 degrees.  I got to shed my wool socks and hiking boots for sandals when we went to the bird cliffs!  Yay!