[Iceland summer 3] Is there hot spring on the moutain?! Valley of Reykjadalur

You may be richer than me, but you will never be free like me

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Hello.
I'm traveler @rbaggo who is finding 'Humanism' in
'Capitalism'

Summer of June 2016
14 days in Iceland.

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2 of Second day

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This is Barry, an Australian who drove me from Gaysir to Gulfoss.

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He told me that he was on the way back to the city 'Selfoss', the base camp city on the Golden Circle course, and he gave me a ride back. Normally,'foss' is attached to the name of a place, it usually refers to a waterfall, but I've never seen a waterfall in Selfoss. Hmm.. Was it a city with waterfalls before?

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I stopped by the supermarket because I was hungry, but the bananas are a little expensive in Iceland. At that time, as of June 2017, the banana that was in bad condition was 2 USD per kg / 4 USD for good condition.

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Yay! I picked up 10 kronees (= 0.1 USD) at the bus stop in front of there!

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This is Selfoss.

It's a city 60 kilometers southeast of the capital, Reykjavik. Selfoss is important trasportation city which conects between 'Vik' on the Black Sea of the South, 'Skftafell' on the southeast, 'Jokulsarlon' on the ice lake, 'Höfn' on the road to the famous city of Lobster Festival, and the continent's plates, introduced earlier,'Thinkbellier national park' and 'Geysir' and beautiful waterfalls 'Gulfoss'.

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I can't believe that I'm traveling to Iceland at such a fine time. I'm so moved. I have a picture of Iceland that I traveled in the cold winter of February 2015, and it's just the right place to have a picture of Selfoss here. The winter is really really cold.

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I'd like to say that Selfos is a good place to rest for a while.

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I was thinking of visiting to Thinkbellier National Park by hitchhiking. By the way, the sun went down faster than I expected because the weather was not so good at the time, so it became difficult to catch a car.

When it gets dark, there are fewer cars moving around. So I was thinking about not doing it, but the car stopped. and the British couple who gave me a ride, is going to their hotel, and going in a different direction than I expected.

And then we were moving past a crater called 'Kerid', checking the direction of the crater and looking at Google Maps, and when I shouted, "Oh, that's the crater I saw on Google Maps," they turned the car right away and asked me want to go and see it.

They gave me peeled carrots as a picnic food and it was pretty sweet and delicious. I thought it would be a good food for traveling because it would be good for health at a low price and it can easily fill my stomach. I'm just a little sad that it's heavy to carry.

This crater had a four-euro entrance fee, and they were grateful people who even paid for me. The road down to the crater is slightly slippery, so we had to be careful because flat shoes can fall and hurt us. It's just ordinary soft soil, but maybe because of the slope, the center of the body can be shifted at once.

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To get to the Thinkbellier National Park, I had to take the lake-side road on the left. But I was getting farther and farther away. And I met the Polish driver who works on a nearby farm, gave me a ride. He told me that here is no cars going out, so its easy to be isolated.

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It's getting dark, and at this rate, I try to escape in the opposite direction, thinking I'm really isolated and I don't think I can do anything. Luckily, Icelandic driver was heading to Selfoss with carrying vegetables, so I miraculously escaped And fortunately, the summer in Iceland is very long, so it's bright till 8 or 10 p.m. The advantage of the day is that local people and tourists can drive around without sleeping, and the driver can easily find hitchhikers standing on the side of the road.

I changed my plan right away and decided to go camping in the outdoor hot spring on the mountain that my French friend recommended. The outdoor hot spring is located in a geothermal city called 'Hveragerli' nearby Selfoss. I promised myself that I would come here again in the winter, and take a picture of the city's beauty.

The hitchhiking was given by a busy old couple who were going to the wedding in the evening. I couldn't take a picture because you were too busy.

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It's a bright day, isn't it? This picture is at 8 p.m in summerys.

There's a special restaurant here in Hveragerii.

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There's a restaurant that cooks with hot steam coming up from the ground. I was curious if the smell of sulfur wouldn't be cut off, but the price was higher than I thought, so I passed it. If you can afford it, you should try it.

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After that, I walked from the back village of 'Hveragerdi' to the parking lot at the entrance of the mountain and stopped by a passing car. I actually was scared a bit because the driver had a scarier impression and didn't smile. But he was very kind to me.

By the way, Iceland is a relatively very, very safe country for hitchhiking. First of all, I don't know if it's because it's a country that eats well and lives well, but when I look at drivers, they seem to have a lot of leisure like Switzerland. So women hitchhike a lot too.

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The outdoor hot spring is called Valley of 'Reykjadalur', a mountain valley behind 'Hveragerdi'.

I heard that if you climb the mountain for about an hour and a half, you'll find a hot spring, but you won't come out even if you walk for an hour. I walked for two hours, but I couldn't get out. I was wondering if it was the right direction. So when I ask other visitors passing by me, they say, "Yes, we're almost there." I think they're all playing around.Other visitors besides me also asked me if I was thinking the same thing or if I was on the right way. I think it went up about two and a half hours, and I felt relatively more difficult with my backpack on. It would have been fun and nice if we had a trip together.

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After climbing the mountain to some extent, I entered a steaming valley. There is a boiling pool here with the smell of sulfur. You may get burned, so don't go in.

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Yay! Arrived at the outdoor hot spring!

This is the starting point of the hot spring. The water here is a little lukewarm, and the water gets hotter as you go up. It's so hot that you can't put your feet anywhere because there are steamy places. You will get burned.

One of the characteristics of Iceland is that there is no extra admission fee to these tourist attractions. Unless you use special facilities for tourism or management, all tourist attractions are always open and free of charge. Icelanders say they rather oppose the increase in admission fees. I think it's possible because the people themselves voluntarily protect and manage nature.

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This is an outdoor changing room. What's a little disappointing was that there are a lot of swimsuits that some foreign tourists left behind. The next day, of course, the managers will collect it again, but the level of consciousness of some ignorant people is revealed.

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There is a wooden road next to the outdoor hot spring, and you can change your clothes into a swimsuit before using it.

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The temperature of the water was warmer than I expected. The temperature varies depending on the location, but there are places where it's really hot, so. The height of the water is shallow rather than the knee-jerk, so it's perfect to lie on your head with a stone wall made like a bathtub!

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It was such a shame to think about spending the night alone in such a nice place. It is so sad to be alone in such a good place. I really want to bring a really good person next time.

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I cooked rice soaked in water wrapped in tuna cans and cooking foil for dinner tonight.

It was harder than I thought to start a fire, but instead of carrying around portable burners and gas, it takes a lot of work. First of all, the large stones around him were collected to make a stone wall like a furnace, and inside it, he mixed dried grass with paper receipts he had collected and used as a flint. We need one dry piece of wood to keep the fire burning.

Iceland has pickled garlic that is really delicious. It's a bit spicy and fresh, but it has olive oil in it. I kept the leftover oil while eating garlic, and when I made a fire, I dropped it slightly on paper and used it as a fuel to make a fire. After that, you can transfer the fire to the tree and breathe hard to supply oxygen.

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Should we go to this outdoor hotspring in the morning? Or should I go in the evening? I'll let you know in the next episode.