Katrín Arndís: DAY TWO

Day two was harder than day one... We had the best breakfast I've ever had though, breakfast burritos! mmm

We made a 20 km walk called Skalli, the pathway was always changing. The biggest challenge was the elevation, walking upwards so much was a bit hard but so rewarding once you got to the top. I had my backpack on so at some points I seriously though I was going to die! Considered just falling on purpose and sliding down all the rocks to go back to the camp hahaha!

Before I left I had talked to some people that had made the walk before and they kept telling me that I couldn't do it and that I should start off with something easier, bla blegh bla! Which really motivated me actually, every time I wanted to turn around I thought about it and kept going, showed them huhh?

The first hill... you can see the group that left before us up there like tiny dots. This hill was so freaking difficult and it's way harder and bigger than it seems on the picture. The thing that was making it even more challenging was that the path was so gravelly so you couldn't get a grip anywhere. As if walking wasn't hard enough, I also had my backpack on which is a job all by itself and on top of that I had to be fighting to keep balance the whole time.

Finally up that first hill and the view was amazing. I thought this was the best. Later I looked back and this was borderline boring compared to what came later on.

When you manage to get to the top of a hill you should always reward yourself with a Reese's cup.

It has many purposes. As Adam is demonstrating here you can also use the cup as a Nutella spoon and then eat it. Giving you enough sugar shock to walk all over like a crazy person for the next hours.

Now that I think about it I feel a bit silly whining about having to carry my backpack when I had half a kg of Nutella with me... in a glass jar! good prioritizing right? hahaha

Looking back on the camping site. So cool how you can see the lava flow just stopping right there. I didn't even notice it was lava until A pointed it out to me

How did it manage to form and make this shape? Sometimes in places like these I wish I had just the basic understanding of geology. I sometimes stumble upon amazing things that I just consider normal but I guess some science freak would have a seizure of excitement seeing.

. Later as we were walking we came to this big pile of rocks, sure they were nice rocks but come on, they were rocks. Adam however gets all excited obviously understanding what type of amazing rocks they were. Feels I'm kinda missing out on stuff with not understanding geology.

These piles of rocks are everywhere in Iceland. You can even find piles that have been in the same place for 1000 years, they were used as landmarks before the roads came so people would know where they were walking. Now, of course they are pointless since we have sticks telling us where to go and so on but everyone that goes adds on one stone to the pile. Every pile I came across I took the smallest rock I could find and put it on the very top. A tiny piece of me everywhere, yay!

vuhuu!! all excited after the nutella overload

just proof that I made it up there too!

You go to places like these where there is just the perfect background for some amazing photo. However arriving there is so hard that by the time you finally reach your destination your all disgusting and ruin the nice picture. Then you just hope to god people are so fascinated by the landscape that they forget to notice your being all disgusting hahaha

I can't even start to describe my happiness when I reached this lake. I had finished my water walking up that stupid hill and this was like winning the lottery!

another hill.. yay!

it's not called ICEland for nothing. there we found a patch of snow, in the middle of the summer...

At one point we reached this great place where we decided to just lay down and enjoy simply being. That's one of the most important things. People are so obsessed with getting to their destination they don't realize that the journey is just as important as the arriving, even more important if anything.

Then we decided to do acro yoga. It was the most fun ever. I've seen videos of acro yoga before and never thought I'd be capable of even thinking about doing it.

Sadly the self timer is only 10 seconds and finding the balance to do something more takes longer. After this he somehow, and I don't understand how, but he managed to get me upside down so his legs were on my shoulders instead of on my thighs like in this picture. That was crazy, exactly like in this picture but upside down, and the only thing holding me were his feet. After enjoying it for a while I of course started laughing and fell, which was surprisingly easy, no clue how but my feet just found the ground.

hahahaha

we found water again, in this weird way though, the ground had something or another chemical in them which stopped the water from going into the ground so it just laid on top of the moss like this. A explained it all and I want to say that I understood but aah

hahahah surviving out in nature, you suck up a big water drop you come across

I think it's so amazing how diverse everything is. In one place you have red rocks, next to that some grass, a bit away a chunk of piled up lava and of course on your right a geothermal pool!