Vallanes

The Plan— 438 km from Selfoss to Egilsstadir, two days, picking up cousin Erik in between and hitchhiking the whole way.

Update- We´ve made it to Vallanes in Egilsstadir (the farm). but hitchhiking the eastern portion took longer than expected leaving us stranded in lake Myvatn for a night, but under the wing of a weathered and spritely tour guide who brought us to his family farm nestled in a snowy corner of Middle-Earth-like Myvatn.  Turns out hitchhiking from Selfoss to Akureyri is an easy thing as the way is paved with small towns, warm strangers and lots of couples and fisherman and truckers and ice cream trucks and tour guides in highland monster Jeeps rolling along in between, whereas hitchhiking Akureyri to Egilsstadir is-



luckily a self-proclaimed master of crude Icelandic poetry picked us up the minute we stepped out the door and brought us the whole way to the front stoop of Modir Jord (Vallanes).

Internet here is sparse, so will be the updates.  Backlogged posts a-coming upon my return.

In the meantime, we´re living in a house with monsters painted on it and relishing nightly dinners from the garden and enough barley for life.  Also, this place is absolutely, impossibly beautiful.

Until then, meet the Icelandic Yule Lads. Like Santa Clause, only there´s 13 of them, the misbehaved sons of two ugly trolls, they steal, gorge, peep and slam doors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Lads

Although we´ve been told their manners have improved slightly over the last century.