Return To Iceland: Day 3 part 1- Waking up in Arnarstapi or the Calm Before the Storm

Stapafell

Morning arrived with the call of seabirds and the gentle crashing of waves on the cliffs not far away.
We slept well in our little cottage in the shadow of Stapafell, an extinct volcano that gain notoriety for being on the cover of Jules Verne's book Journey to the Center of the Earth. After a quick but satisfying breakfast, we were ready to head out for the day. (Tip for traveling here, food is super expensive so try to find a free meal when booking places to stay.) Our planned drive was about 379 km for the day but with the ways things go with our gps and it's Icelandic routing i would hate to think how far we actually drove.

Our small but very comfortable cottage

After breakfast we took some time to enjoy the somewhat pleasant weather by Iceland standards and by our standards as Northwesterner's too, by walking a short distance to the statue of Bardur Snaefellsnes the quarter troll, quarter giant, half human protector of the entire peninsula we were on. They liked him so much, they went ahead and even named it after him, Hence the name Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Lets go back to Bardur's lineage for a second, he sounds like a Dungeons and Dragons character gone wrong. According to his saga, his mother was human but his father was half troll, half giant, there you have it. Anyways we looked at this huge statue of him and strolled down to the cliffs to see waves pounding against the cliffs. With the big storm rolling into Southern Iceland and that very storm that we would later being driving through to get north and out of it, was kicking up so good waves and views were great. A little further down was the rock arch known as Gatklettur which according to my attempts to find a translation means could rocking, There are no stories that i could find that even talk about it, maybe it was boring to the Norse when they settled here, who knows?