Making Friends with Dogs in West Iceland.

Greetings, dear Friend.

We’re in the middle of the hottest season here in Dubai, and it feels great to look back at the pictures of Iceland trying to cool down. I wish I wrote all the stories I had down right away, but I am just too lazy to do it, so I will try remembering how it was.

That morning we had a 9 AM departure, so we didn’t bother waking up too early… woke up around 8 AM, and the weather was pretty cloudy, so nothing epic in terms of sunrise. However, there was a cool church outside of our hotel, for me it’s quite unusual to see such designs associated with churches, but in Iceland, you can really find any kind of shapes (and colours as well). Emily and I were too lazy to go out to shoot the church, so we attempted to do it through the glass covering it with curtains from all sides to avoid reflections. I can’t say that it was a total success but could have been worse.

During breakfast, my fellow American photo friends were discussing politics, and I don’t like to take part in those kinds of conversations, so I was just drinking 3 cups of coffee while looking at the day unwinding.

As we packed and left the hotel, the weather was looking seriously gloomy. It was grey, and snowy, with those small whirlpools of snow running across the ring road, to put it short – not a very exciting photography-wise weather.

We did a stop next to yet another church, which was located next to somebody’s farm. A super-friendly dog met us at the exit of the bus. I am not sure whether there was nobody else at that farm, or the dog was the friendliest one of the present living beings, but the fluffy thing was all over us.

The dog also seemed to have an utter joy in knocking down the tripods we were trying to set up to take the pictures of the church. Thinking back, I am not sure why we needed tripods, as there was just gray grayness and no changing environment, so could have done without…

Made me think of the everlasting winter months somewhere in the middle of Russia where I am from. Melancholic gray day.

This is Denny who gave up on the idea of taking photos and just went with the flow and played with the dog.

It was quite slippery there and I was suffering without crampons, sliding around like a premium figure skater.

Had to say good-bye to the dog, we moved our yellow bus tires in the direction of Þingvellir National Park, where it continued to snow on us and I was skating around. The place was cool, with a nice waterfall (that was completely frozen) and a small riverflow next to it, but there were also tooooons of tourists, who annoyed me, so instead I went up to hang out with Patrick and tease him about the fact that he lost his sunglasses, but primarily to avoid the crowds. 

Just as an experiment, I added the blue cloudy sky here to see what it would look like… I think this place could be awesome with some sunlight, but I didn’t get to see it this way 🙂

Afterwards, we moved to another tourist trap, I mean a popular place – Geysir. As usual, Siggi told us that there we absolutely needed to wear crampons, and of course, we didn’t because of the thermal waters all around, the ground was actually warm, so there was no snow there.

It’s a curious, but pretty dull attraction, this Geysir, cause you have to wait for about 10 minutes for the short action of the hot spring to “blow up”. There are plenty of people around you who are waiting for the same thing, and tend to get into tight groups … and get into your shot. But people being people, what can you do?

When I later looked at my shots of the Geysir, I was terrified of how much dust I have in my sensor, it was everywhere! Until I realized that it was actually snow, not dust… So I made a GIF out of those pictures, cause they just look dull with this kind of weather.

That’s what it looks like. Lots of steam, some springing water. I was a bit unamused by it, so I went to the tourist shop which was next door. The store was huge, and it had crampons, so finally my skating exercise was finished. I also bought a wooden rune with the symbol of the sun (power, energy). Loved that thing, but it looks like it has seen its better days now… That’s what happens to things you wear too often.

Headed to Gullfoss afterwards, which I think deserves its own story, so I will leave it for the next post.

Have a very great day!

Anna

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Other posts about Iceland:

What do Auroras Make You Think of?

What is Down there in the Ice Cave?

Getting Lost in West Iceland.

Getting Lost in West Iceland – Kirkjufell Stories.

If The Sunset is Failing, Turn Around.

The Dangers behind Londrangar Cliffs