Geysir!

To leave behind Reykjavik's bustling metropolis and enter the vast Icelandic countryside is to essentially beam up from Earth and land on a distant planet. For hundreds of kilometers today we saw nothing but sweeping, treeless landscapes strewn with menacing volcanic rocks blanketed by moss, with snow-capped cousins of Vesuvius chilling in the backdrop, nuzzling the clouds, waiting for us. The Geysir Rose and I visited today was the first to be discovered in history back in 1294. It's at the base of a volcano in the Haukadalur valley, where our accommodations for the evening are located, and is surrounded by dozens of smaller, but no less dangerous pools of bubbling, fart-scented water (of course by now we're both used to the sulfur fumes that hang thick in the air all over the country). Because we remain stupid Americans no matter how much worldliness we feign, Rose and I dipped our fingers in some of the run-off liquid streaming from one of the hot springs. Ouch. Walking back to the car we passed a couple tourists with an adorable puppy, off the leash and ecstatically running ahead of his owners towards the Geysirs, which are guarded only by anemic threads of rope. Bad recipe. "Dog soup, anyone?" I maliciously joked to my companion. Now I feel guilty, because as we were pulling away I swear I heard splashes and howling. But, moving on, here are some photos of Gulfoss ("Golden Falls"), Iceland's famous waterfall that we also saw this afternoon. Glorious, majestic, bad ass.