smurf... now let´s see if my muse shows up now, since I´m using Stína´s computer. Laptop, very fancy. Very nice for the hillbilly me to be introduced to such things.

Stína´s phone just rang. It´s pink, kind of old and was on the floor. Since Stína is not here (how could I be using her computer otherwise?) I answered. Some guy was on the other end. As I was explaining where Stína is I tried to pick the phone up and lift it onto a chair, but held only the pink plastic thing in my hand, while the intestines of the phone were still on the floor. I started laughing but noticed a stiff silence in the receiver. So, I asked if guysie was still there. Yes, but apparently I hadn´t been. I explained but he didn´t seem to share my sense of humour. Told me he was calling from a company called Document. Map-animal, maybe?? Hope I haven´t destroyed any job opportunities for Stína here...

Yope, was meaning to maybe telling you something about the hike. Erna and I drove like maniacs north to Ásbyrgi (hmmm, maybe I´ll try to find some pics from these places later and put links to them here... in case some of you reading this don´t have any idea what I´m talking about) and left the car there. It was already quite late in the evening and not exactly heavy traffic on the Öxarfjörður-Kópasker road but nevertheless we managed to get a ride to Húsavík and from there to somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we decided to pitch our tent and try our luck again the next morning. The charm of hitching, you never know where you´re going to spend the next night. Actually, since I was hitch-hiking with Arnon in Argentina last winter I´ve wanted to give it a try in Iceland. I love it as a way of travelling!!!

Finally made it to Krafla power plant in the early afternoon on Tuesday and started hiking. Fall er fararheill as they say in Iceland, it all started with a thick fog creeping in over us and us walking south instead of north and having some quite obscure notion of where we were (in spite of us having brought along a map, a compass and a GPS!!). For a split second the hot tubs in the swimming pool at Mývatn seemed much more appealing to me than trying to find my way through fog and mud, but my brave friend Erna settled all doubts and soon the fog was gone anyway. Not the mud, though.

Eilífsvatn is a jolly nice little place and there we pitched our tent the first night. There used to be a farm there, and a small hut for the sheep round-uppers (?) is there. True to the Icelandic tradition of believing in ghosts and zombies I woke up several times during the night, convinced that the former inhabitants of the place were nosing around our tent and fiddling with the guy-lines. Even went so low as to take a peek out the tent window. Saw nothing, needless to say.

Hmmm... now my friend Kobbi is coming to pick me up, we´re going for some coffee/beer/alcohol downtown. I´m sick of being sick (that should have come later in the hike description) and thus have decided not to be sick any more. Just sneeze a bit. And cough like someone who has smoked 60 cigarettes a day for 40 years. And make the chosen coffee shop empty of people in ten minutes. Wish me luck!!!