We got up this morning without an alarm, a little before 07:00.  We got ready a little slower than usual, as we had less on our plate today than the past several.  It was cloudy outside, but not low clouds today, so we could actually see the mountaintops around town.  Our first stop was on the other side of town, at a place with three houses with grass roofs, Ósvör Maritime Museum.  In the same area was an orange lighthouse, Óshólar Lighthouse.  Justin wandered down to the lighthouse, and Crystal wondered where Justin had wandered off to.

We left town and went through a tunnel, and right on the other side of the tunnel we parked at a viewpoint, Hnifsdalur.  Just a little bit south of there was Ísafjörður.  The town isn’t that large at all, but it’s huge for Westfjords standards.  We went up to an observation deck to overlook the town.  From there we could see two large cruise ships in port.  Crystal noticed a parade of buses coming towards the dock.  We had the epiphany that Dynjandi was going to be crowded, since it was the main tourist site in this area.  As we were standing there, we saw a plane come into land at the airport.  It went over our head, then circled around and landed on the other side of the bay.

Before leaving town, we got gasoline and provisions at the N1.  We were listening to a podcast regarding how Jimi Hendrix put together the song “All Along The Watchtower,” and how his studio in London had only 4 tracks, but the one in the US had 12 tracks, so with part of the song being recorded in one place and part in another, there was a weird interplay in the final version.  We had no idea about any of this; we just liked the song.  And we heard the original Bob Dylan version - ouch.

After leaving town, we went through another tunnel, and came out on the west coast of the Westfjords.  Yesterday we’d been on the northern side of the Westfjords most of the day.  We stopped not far from where we came out of the tunnel, at Önundarfjörður Pier, in Holt.  We’re not sure what the pier was most commonly used for, as there were no boats nearby, but the pier was in great condition, and the views from there were phenomenal.  Like a couple of other places we’d seen around the island, from the pictures alone, one might think they were from Hawaii.  Justin thought he saw the bird with the curved peak, the Ibis, that Crystal thinks she saw in Hella, but according to Google, it was a Whimbrel.  [Of course, this could’ve been what Crystal saw in Hella.]

Unlike yesterday where we were driving in and out of the fjords, following the coastline, today we were just cutting across the peninsulas.  This time it wasn’t a tunnel, but instead going up and over the mountains.  As we were descending towards Dyrafjordur, we stopped at a viewpoint where there were two carved wooden figurines.  Crystal was a fan of these.  We couldn’t find anything indicating who made them or why they were there.  We stopped at a couple different viewpoints for the views of Dýrafjörður, which was quite scenic.  There was one ray of sunlight coming through the clouds, but that was it.  As with most of the places we visited in Iceland, we would’ve liked to have seen the view in the sun.  But, as with most days, we’d settle for just no rain.

We continued south on Road 60, which connects the north of the Westfjords with the south.  Just before we arrived at Dynjandi the road turned to crap.  We weren’t sure if they were making the road better for all the buses and just hadn’t finished their work, if there was a landslide that took out the road sometime this year, or something else, but the last kilometer or so of the drive was a mess.  We were hoping that Dynjandi was going to be a special treat, as the Westfjords are so much less frequently visited, but ironically this was probably the busiest waterfall we’d been to.

We needed to use the facilities, but the restrooms had lines of 20 people, as there were tons of buses getting ready to leave.  At least they were getting ready to leave, not just arriving.  While we were walking up the paths to the waterfall, there were waves of people coming down, some in a big hurry.  We’re guessing they were worried about missing their bus back to the cruise ship.  By the time we got to the top, it was maybe 15-20% of the people that were there when we arrived.  

The falls were incredible.  There were several different falls, and the one at the top, the largest one, fanned out sideways while going over a dozen or so little steps on the side of the mountain.  At the very top of the path, right next to the base of the top falls, there was some of the red clay soil we’d seen at Hengifoss.  Here we could stand right next to it and see it up close.  It was striking, especially right next to the bright green moss.  The flow was less powerful than many of the other falls we’d been to, so it was much less misty.  We stayed quite a while enjoying Dynjandi, until around noon.

We figured we weren’t going to find a lunch place, which is why we bought snack stuff at N1 this morning.  We had some jerky “rope” - one long piece that Crystal would break off at the folds into manageable pieces.  We were now on the third of the four Pringles cans that we bought at the Duty Free Store in Reykjavik.  This morning we finished the big tub of blueberries we’d bought in the south.  We drove uphill quite a bit after Dynjandi, and saw some places where there was still snow from the winter.  We were listening to a podcast with Michael Ian Black that was ostensibly about food, but veered more towards discussing toxic masculinity and its faults.  

The scenery outside was nice, with many smaller waterfalls, but after Dynjandi, these weren’t worthy of stopping the car.  The only exception was Fossfjörður, where we stopped for a minute or two.  A little before Fossfjörður we’d turned off of Road 60 onto Road 63, heading west.  On Road 63 we made one other short stop, at the Litla-Eyri Rest Stop, which was a nice viewpoint.  From there we didn’t stop for a while, but we did drive through a couple small towns, first Bíldudalur (which shockingly had an airport) and then Patreksfjordur, which we thought might be of some size since we saw a sign for a hospital.  [Narrator: It was not of some size.] 

At Patreksfjordur the road changed numbers, from Road 63 to Road 62, and we headed southeast for about 10 minutes until we turned off the pavement onto gravel, Road 612.  Right near there we stopped for a few minutes at a beached ship, Gardar BA 64.  We kept trying to get photos of the whole ship, but lazy idiot tourists kept parking right in front of the ship, rather than where 75% of the cars were parked, further back.  It started to rain pretty good, so we got back in the car and booked it out of there.  Also, because it was raining, we decided to go to the hotel first before the cliffs.  Our hotel (Hotel Látrabjarg) was only five minutes or so off of the road that we needed to take to the cliffs, so it wasn’t really out of the way.

We arrived at the hotel around 15:30, so hours before we arrived at any of our other hotels.  While chit-chatting with the owner at check-in, we found out he has a place in Gran Canaria.  We were starting to think that perhaps Iceland and the Canaries had many more people going back and forth between them than we originally thought.  The owner told us what was on the menu for dinner, and since there wasn’t much of anything close by, we figured we should just do that.  So now we had an alarm of sorts for 19:00.  Our room had a great view of a beach and a giant cliff - this was the view out our window.  Justin went outside (it had stopped raining) to get photos of the beach and cliff, but the Arctic Terns were giving him a really hard time.

Since it had stopped raining, we figured we should go to the cliffs before dinner, even though the owner said it was better afterwards.  We just didn’t want to be out so late yet again, and we had three hours anyway.  Even though it had stopped raining at the hotel, the weather on the drive to the cliffs was cruddy, with lots of rain.  Our vehicle was unrecognizable when we got to the parking lot.  On the positive side, the car was much quieter than it had been yesterday - perhaps all the bouncing on the road to Látrabjarg had jarred loose whatever rock was creating the squeaking.

A rainbow appeared right after we got out of the car.  It looked gray inland, but on the coast it looked like it might be a nice afternoon.  It was a short walk to the cliffs, where we immediately saw puffins and who knows how many other birds.  [According to the interwebs, there are millions of birds at Látrabjarg, with razorbills (over 160,000 couples), guillemots (over 225,000 couples), fulmar, kittiwakes, and of course puffins.]  It was quite windy right at the cliff’s edge, but the wind was an updraft, which thankfully pushed us away from falling over the cliff.

Crystal managed about 30 minutes, which was enough time with the birds for her, especially because there were more of other birds relative to puffins.  She headed back to the car for a bit.  Justin walked down the rim for quite a while, taking in different views and looking for puffins and other things right near the rim. 

It was crazy, exhilarating, and a bit terrifying, because it was a long way down, over 400 meters in places.  He promised Crystal he’d be back by 18:20 (since the drive was about 40 minutes to the hotel and dinner was at 19:00), but he kept seeing good stuff on the way back, and he got to the car at 18:25.  Overall it was one of the more spectacular places we've visited, and as good as some of the photos turned out, they don't do justice to the scale of what we saw.

The drive back was easier, since the weather had thankfully stayed sunny and dry.  We got back right at 19:00.  We quickly dropped stuff off our stuff, then walked over to the dining room.  Dinner was tomato soup, grilled chicken with salad, rice, and corn.  The dining room area was nice, and the owner had a good sense of humor.  Crystal had a Malbec, and Justin had a sapphire and tonic.  We wrapped up just after 20:00. 

We went back to the room and tried to remember what all we did before we forgot.  Today was a bit like the day we went to Stuðlagil Canyon, Dettifoss, and the whale watching tour, in that we didn't see that much stuff, but what we did see was incredible, and worthy of filling up a whole day just on their own.  Between just Dynjandi and Látrabjarg, that was enough for the day - everything else was gravy.  We got to sleep right around 23:00.