A Host of Little Surprises

I lost my motivation for writing this blog, and then Sam Buckstein posted some pictures on Facebook today and I got all nostalgic. SO HERE WE GO~

Day 7

Why did we get up at 7 AM? Why? PLEASE ALLAH TELL ME?!

Apparently, time became important again so we were up by 7 AM for breakfast and on the bus by 8 AM. Oddly enough, we drove out of the campsite without the super jeeps... so they were unnecessary to begin with...? Maybe it was the fact that they promised us super jeeps which made them feel like they needed to deliver? Oh, and I guess we did use a different bus to drive out since the seats were weird and it didn't say "Free as a Bird" on the outside of the new one.

Due to my lack of sleep from the night before, I attempted to take multiple naps on the bus. Sadly (or goodly...?) we kept making stops on the way to civilization. The first stop was for a hike to a hidden waterfall! OooooOOooOooOoooOo! We were following a bunch of rivers to get to it and there were big rocks all over to hop on and off of. I definitely went hard with the hummin' as I pretended to be Legolas. Not only that, people were climbing all over the super climbable hillsides. Everyone eventually climbed something since we had to wait our turn to enter the secret waterfall area; it could only fit 10 or so people at a time. There was a lot of poser parkour (and Legolas-ing) going on and I was thoroughly pleased. Here's a sequence of shots that attempts to capture the little adventure:

Why wouldn't you stop the bus, get out, and brainlessly follow this river?! PC: Paige McIlroy

One of the few times you couldn't see blue skies all around you. PC: Paige McIlroy 

CLIMB EVERYTHING... and wait. PC: Paige McIlroy

My feels... PC: ME!

So pwetty <3. PC: Justin McKay

After that little gem, we made our way back to the bus. On the bus, another marvelous thing happened: I was given a new name. For the past few days, I had been calling Ross Weber "Saucy Rossy" because. Yeah, just because (he's not saucy at all). So he finally decided to don me with the name "Yeshari Safari" which I prefer to spell "Yashari Safari"; it's prettier that way. A lot of fun was had with this new nickname, including "Would you like to go on the... Yashari Safari?" and "Look out for snakes on the... Yashari Safari!" HEYOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So now the full title of the blog should be clear (go here and search "trivia" if you're confused as to when the other part of the title was explained)! :)

NEXT STOP: a glacier! Well, a "tongue" of the glacier. Apparently, this is where lava started gushing out during one of the volcanic eruptions so a lot of the landscape in the area was recently carved out. I hope my memory serves me well on that fun fact... Here's the view:

Ain't she a beaut? PC: Justin McKay

LA PROXIMA PARADA: the waterfall that my super jeep missed because we were busy fixing a tire while everyone else got to enjoy the waterfall...! IT WAS AWESOME! Skogarfoss was the name, I believe. Here she is:

The guy on the right is actually behind the waterfall... So this thing's even taller than you think! PC: Paige McIlroy

So I wasn't satisfied with a frontal view of this masterpiece of nature, so I went behind it (all my pictures)!

Wow.

Look up.

Let's step back a bit.

Let's get a lot closer.

And let the wind blow a bunch of falling water on me <3

While some of us were enjoying the waterfall we missed, others were digging in the river for coins. There are plenty of signs on most bridges which request that people not throw any kind of currency, regardless of its value, into the river. It obviously ruins the natural beauty! So several of the peepz in our group rolled up their pants (the water went right above the knees) and sleeves and stepped into pretty-much-freezing water. In total, I think the gang collected the equivalent of $78 of coins (9000 ISK)! #onlyonthegreenprogram, as they say. Actually, while they were working to clean the river, a couple of European "poopholes" started throwing coins into the river... Eh! That's just more money for environmental organizations (I think we donated the money). :)

Here's Male Alex finishing up his heroic efforts (Female Alex was in there, too). PC: John Benavides

After that, we briefly toured a single room hydroelectric facility that was located on a mink farm! We just walked around ourselves so nothing was really explained to us, but we'd seen most of it before by now. All the pictures below are MINE!

This connects to the thing on the left. 

This connects to the thing on the right (there's water in that pipe!).

I... I don't know. It's cool though!

Just a little building. Making energy. From water. On a mink farm?

After we "toured" the room, we went out back and had hot dogs! And some of us used grass to make bird calls... and annoy everyone who tried to nap. Good times <3

It was then time to head to our new living facilities: cabins! I was roomed with three bros: Drewster, A-A-Ron, and Matt. Yeah, Matt doesn't get a nickname. :(

Dindin was had, capstones were worked on, and sleeping occurred at some point. A very comfortable sleep. WITH BEDS!

Quality Picture of the Day

It was a tie between these two. I couldn't decide. :(

Thanks, A-A-Ron <3. Original photo by Laura Lano.

I think I was trying to be a mermaid... PC: Eric Lauer