We rolled out of the Hotel Laxa in Myvatn with fond memories and well-rested, continuing west across northern Iceland.
First stop were two rift cave areas, Stóragjá and Grjóyagjá where we scrambled around a bit, but the wet ground from the prior rain prevented being too adventurous. The bath used to be very popular with the locals but a recent earthquake raised the water temperature too high to safely swim.
Next on the Ring Road was Goðafoss, which means the “waterfall of the gods.” It was named from the legend that after Iceland’s Althing (parliament) adopted Christianity as the official religion in the 10th century, thereby abandoning the old gods - Odin, Freya, Thor, Loki, Ironman, Hulk (sorry, just kidding)- the law speaker, a pagan priest, returned to his home near the falls and cast his idols of the old gods over them. At 40’ high, must have been hard on the idols.
Definitely a rift in their social condition. But, he did make it easy on the folks - if you wanted to continue worshiping the old gods, just had to do it quietly…
The power of this foss (falls) rivals any we’d seen thus far, and we were getting pretty tired of falls by now…
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