Iceland Day 10

Mývatn is a shallow lake situated in an area of active volcanism. The name means “lake of midges”, they are abundant and abundantly annoying, but fortunately wind and cold seems to knock them down, and only one species actually bites. The lake was created by a large basaltic lava eruption 2300 years ago.

Dimmuborgir (dimmu “dark”, borgir “cities” or “forts”, “castles”) is a large area of unusually shaped lava fields east of Mývatn. The Dimmuborgir area is composed of various volcanic caves and rock formations, reminiscent of an ancient collapsed citadel (hence the name). The easy paths are very well marked and had overview maps at all junctions, the difficult path (which we took) was well marked but we didn’t have a clue how far in we were. Without a marked path we’d still be wandering, very very lost.

We stayed at Vogar Farm. The restaurant really is in the same building as the cowshed — separated by walls with glass windows. Fresh warm milk was on offer at breakfast, their own cows were offered as hamburger for dinner. How not allowed this would be in the US!