Swimming in a volcano

This time we were supposed to see the real Interior. There are several roads to reach Askja - I chose a combination 923+F910 because I'd read that the later offers otherworldly views even in comparison to other Icelandic routes. That's true: after we went down from the mountains we found ourselves on a desert surrounded by lonely mountains, the most impressive of which was Herdubreid: a 1500 meter high birthday cake rising from flat terrain. We were getting impatient and we started to guess which one is Askja. The road is in good condition but it's impossible to drive it by 2WD car as there are many unbridged rivers to cross, some of them quite deep (I think one was more than 60cm deep) and others are wide. 30 kilometers before Askja (between two bridges) dust and sand on the road gets deeper - another obstacle for non-4WD cars. For our Pajero with its (apparently too big, but that's another story) 34-inch tires, it was easy.

When I looked at it from the road, Askja looked like an ordinary but big mountain, maybe because it was parly covered by clouds. The best views start from Drekagil and they accompany you until you reach Oskjavatn. The lava here looks very fresh (and so it is - the last eruption in this region had place in 1960s), it's not yet shaped by erosion and therefore it looks as if it had been frozen in motion. 8km from Drekagil we had to park our car and hike for 2km through lava and ice. Then the Icelandic National Weather came to welcome us with all its strength. Two words: wind (a hurricane) and rain (a rainstorm). When I reached Viti my trousers were completely wet (fortunately I have a good water resistant jacket). Viti is a small geothermal lake - one could say it's inside a volcano! It was very difficult to go down to its shore because it's surrounded by very steep slopes made of clay. Add some rain and you have a perfectly slippery mud slope. Nonetheless I HAD TO swim in Viti...

I think I've never swam in such bad weather conditions. Even though the water in Viti is only around 25 degrees it was warm for me. The hardest part was to go out and dress up and then to climb the slope. I felt that my hands were freezing but after a while I warmed myself up with fast walking. Oh, there's another lake, much bigger than Viti and it looks magnificent from the above. Moreover, there are only a few calderas (special volcanic formations) in Europe so it's nice to see one and learn what it is.

On our way back we drove the F910 to its end near the Lagarfljot lake. The biggest forest in Iceland grows here and we ate dinner amongst trees in this country which is pretty amazing. I live in an area with many woods and after a few days here I started to miss them. Maybe it's not a big forest, the trees aren't very high but still... there ARE trees! I'm not sure if the campsite where we stayed was free - there was no reception and nobody came for money but it well maintained and toilets were clean (no kitchen though). I'll make a list of campsites we stayed at with small descriptions after I come back home.

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