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Then I continued my drive westward on the bituminized Ring Road through another vast plain, the Burfellshraun. The Myvatn area was where I wanted to get this evening to spend the night and do some exploration the following day.

This area is volcanic very active, and I expected some more strange natural wonders. Not far away from my destination the monotonous – and still somewhat meditative – plain reached a ridge shimmering in reddish colors despite the dull light of the overcast sky.

In between these red and yellow hill flanks and particularly at the base of the hill white fumes were coming out of the soil. This was obviously the Hverarond area, where the boiling earth not far underneath the surface sends steam through the bedrock. This steam dissolves sulfates from the rock which makes the steam smell pretty bad. And despite being still pretty far away, I could already get a taste of how bad this smells.

The parking in front of the sulphures was still pretty full so I decided not to go there immediately but instead drive the short distance south to the Krafla volcano. This is one of the most active volcanoes on the island and Icelandic engineers had been brazen enough to build here a geothermal power plant, right on top of a very thin crust above a huge magma chamber.

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