In the morning Thorunn’s father drove me to Selfoss, a town on the banks of the Ölfusá river in southern Iceland. From there I caught a bus going to Landmannalaugar. I was really excited to finally go to the wild desolate interior! Landmannalaugar would be my starting point for the Laugavegur trek, which is supposed to be one of the finest treks in the world.
The bus was going pretty fast, went through a few rivers (!!) and of course it was a 4×4. At the start I fantasized I was in the moon… then I thought no, maybe I was visiting Mars… no wonder why many sci-fi movies choose Iceland as their setting when they want to depict alien planets.
One of our stops seemed to be longer than the usual so we took our time to go around and explore the scenery.
Eventually, we found out that the long stop was not actually a break, but a proper stop because our bus had broken down! Our driver tried to fix it but it was all in vain. So he took it really easy and just sat down to relax. Even though we had to wait for two hours for the next bus to come pick us up, it was actually great as we had time to walk around and explore the breathtaking landscape.
I had read quite a few stories about the Laugavegur trek. One of those stories was about a young Israeli hiker who tragically died in 2004 (I visited in 2006) due to exposure during a severe storm. On his first day of the trek, he was caught in a blizzard while approaching the first hut. He was just a kilometer from the mountain hut when he succumbed to the harsh weather. As I was not such an experienced hiker, trekking alone was not the best option. So during that long stop I met a really nice French couple (Gilbert and Florence) and I was really delighted when we decided to trek together.
Finally, we arrived in Landmannalaugar…
*All photos taken with a Canon Powershot S1 IS, 3.2 megapixels, my 1st digital camera.
Additional information
GPS coordinates for places in this post, click on them to be redirected to the exact point in google maps. Click on the names to be redirected to their official websites (if applicable).
Selfoss : 63°55’54.6″N 20°59’58.9″W
Place where our bus broke down : unfortunately location unknown as I didn’t have a GPS and of course no smartphone back in 2006.
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