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CASTING IDENTITY an iceland travelogue we went for a drive today (9/03/04)today we rose and rode to the egilsstadir airport. skuli had arranged a lift for us knowing we wanted to rent a car and see the eastern fjords. it was strangely unsettling to find myself driving around iceland. it never occurred to me that i might. after about five minutes if felt great to be sweeping up and down the abraded, unmarked, unguarded roads twisting toward the ocean. it is no exaggeration to say that we saw thousands of waterfalls during our 8 hour trip. the mountains, raked with outcroppings and ridges of stone, are sliced vertically every few hundred feet with irregular channels guiding water to the sea. after the first few hundred you start to wonder where the water is coming from. i'll write it again... thousands of waterfalls. we followed the water's course to the first fjord where we sat on a flat stone in the center of a stream that accepted the outpouring of several falls starting thousands of feet above. the light leaned further west and warmed. we slinked through the fishing villages, up into switchbacks which led to a one lane tunnel through the hillside. inside the rock was left bare, chunky, spooky. once out, the road descended criss-crossing stream after stream. the hills grow at an angle from the ground and soar quickly when you glide down toward the valley floor. rams graze quietly at the roadside. white streaks of falling water dot the landscape... even the ditches have waterfalls. we get to the road's end, park, and walk out toward the sea... and there is water falling into it.               departure (8/30/04)reykjavik (8/31/04)reykjavik (9/01/04)air iceland (9/01/04)skriduklaustur (9/01/04)we went for a walk today (9/02/04)we went for a drive today (9/03/04)eystra (9/08/04)aloft (9/20/04) |