I drove until mid-afternoon and stopped at the coastal town of Hofn. Natalie reported her status on Facebook. She saw the auroras a few nights ago. I was jealous, even though I had no reason to be.

I left the campground to get a drink at a nearby restaurant. When I looked at their expensive menu, I almost walked out. This restaurant had burgers for $40, a BLT for $40, and entrees going at $60 – prices which unfortunately aren’t that uncommon in Iceland, thanks to their huge tourism industry. But then I saw something better for less: Icelandic pancakes for $12. Now we’re talking.

They brought me a hot pancake with whipped cream, blueberries, syrup, and lots of decadence. I would do it again in a second.

Day 6: Packrafting the Jökulsárlón Lagoon

I figured out that I could stream music from my camper van’s wifi. When I plugged my phone into the dashboard USB, it played the audio through the van’s speaker system. Hell yeah? I wish I figured this out earlier. I loaded up an ambient Spotify playlist and drove the southeast coast to the likes of Hammock, Brian Eno, Caspian, Julianna Barwick, and others who would complement the open road. To me, epic landscapes like these always seems to bring out more depth and nuance in my music. And perhaps the music itself amplifies my sense of adventure as I wander into new lands. I didn’t know it at the time, but as the soundscapes were building and I approached the lagoon, this would be the most exhausting day yet.

I parked at the main lot of the Jökulsárlón Lagoon, a huge glacial lake on the southeast coast. It was one of three lakes that I planned to traverse that day in my packraft. But first, I wanted to see Diamond Beach. The glacier above the lagoon frequently calves, sending huge icebergs across the lake that eventually reach the mouth of a small river close to the road. They break up and wash downstream and into the ocean. The tide then washes them back onto the black sand beach, creating ice diamonds.

I went back to the van, got my gear, and hiked along the east side of the lagoon to find a good launch point relatively clear of the bigger icebergs. The rangers warned me that they could flip anytime, causing a bad accident. I paddled into the lake, far enough from what could have been a dangerous calving.

The Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier to the north was massive. On a map it is about 8 miles wide. There was no way I could fit it into a camera. I paddled across the lake for an hour with that huge glacier to my right and countless icebergs to my left. I got to the other side of the lake, packed up my raft, and started walking the marked trail between there and the lakes to the west.

The trail went over five miles of moraine, but felt like longer. Soon, I was on the higher hills, looking down at the braided streams of glacial meltwater that fed the lake below. The path was defined by trail markers that went on for two good hours before reaching the west end of Breiðárlón Lagoon. I planned to paddle it for a mile to the mouth of a small mile long river on the south end, float the river to Fjallsárlón, and hike back to the road from there. I easily paddled across the lake, luckily without any wind to complicate my route. In a packraft, the wind can take you in any direction it wants, and probably not where you want to go.

I reached the mouth of the river and scouted the rapids at the top. It didn’t look like this on the satellite. I expected to see an easy, floatable river between here and the lake downstream. But this river was fast with a lot of Class II. Well, I’m nothing if not adaptable.

I navigated mostly on center lines through the top rapids. I approached the third rapid about a half mile downstream and positioned for the middle to avoid some holes on the right. I thought I was cruising. Then out of nowhere, I approached a river-wide pourover ledge of four feet. Fuck, I should have scouted it. The swell went over and piled into a big hydraulic. I charged at it, hoping to bust through. No luck! It pulled me back in the hole and I flipped.

Luckily, there was no retention. I washed out of the rapid and went straight into another Class II. Shit, where’s my paddle?!! I spotted it 10 feet away to the left. It was partially submerged with one oar bobbing out of the water. That’s a first. I kicked for it and got it easily. Still pretty unnerving. I waited out another rapid, hoping for an easier break to self-rescue, and got back in just before another rapid was on. As it mellowed out, I scrambled into position and eddied out to the left to get my bearings. I got to the shore and stepped onto firm gravel. That could have gone better.

I love to run big rivers, but wipeouts like that one always freak me out. I wasn’t planning on running swiftwater at all that day. In this case, what looked like an easy float from the satellite was far from it. That said, it can be done if you mind the ledge in the middle to scout and/or portage. I didn’t do either, but I’m sure it has a runnable line.

The satellite said that there were two more rapids before it turned to the right and opened into the lake. I scouted them both and planned on a center line. Pretty much everything on that river was a center line except for that fucking ledge.

I was discouraged, but I kept going. I easily cleared the last few rapids on the river, and went around one last bend. The calming water carried me into the lake in full view of the Vatnajökull Glacier. She smiled back at me as I floated peacefully into quiet water.

I shored in, packed up, hiked back to the road, and eventually got picked up by a traveling German tourist.

This story continues in The Golden Circle.

I think every traveler should drive the Ring Road at least once in their lifetime. As the main highway in Iceland, it circles around almost the entire country, offering some of the most diverse and interesting landscapes you will find anywhere. I had considered the idea of a cycling tour around it, which lots of people were doing, but decided instead to drive its 828 miles in a vehicle.

Lots of people travel to Iceland, rent cars, and go on roadtrips around the country each summer. I didn’t want to stay at expensive hotels and didn’t feel like bringing my camping gear. Instead, I rented a camper van and spent six days driving, exploring, and sleeping. Equipped with a pullout bed, kitchen, stove, table, chair, wifi, and pretty cartoon decals, it had everything I needed to live for the next week.

I loaded my backpacks and suitcase into the van and drove out of the rental agency in the late morning on the beginning of a weeklong roadtrip around the island. But first, I made a stop down the road at the Blue Lagoon, a popular geothermal spa close to the airport.

I’m not much of a spa person, in case you haven’t guessed. But even I could appreciate that lagoon for its natural beauty and decadence. It felt surreal to float in the hot blue water, surrounded by piles of lava rocks. I almost wanted to put some of that exfoliating shit on my face. I didn’t do it, but it also has a fine dining restaurant, island bar, saunas, and massages, if you’re into that sort of thing. Thanks to the island’s geology, there are lots of hot pools like this one in Iceland, though this one definitely gets the most attention.

I got out, dried off in the sun, and drove northward through the city, planning to get to the north country by sundown. The highway in Reykjavik had a lot of roundabouts which were tricky at first to manage on a stickshift. I had just recently learned to drive in manual specifically for this trip. The rental company didn’t have any automatic cars, which I didn’t notice when I made the reservation earlier that summer. So it was either learn on my dad’s farm truck or I don’t get to drive in Iceland. A stressful, yet productive goal.

The road narrowed into two lanes and I left the city behind, going north along the coast on an uncharacteristically sunny late afternoon. I mounted my camera to the windshield to film a timelapse video of the drive. The shutter went back and forth hypnotically for hours as I captured many mountains and towns in the late day.

I turned east, ascending into the hill country, a region quilted in farmlands. I passed countless horse ranches and sheep farms that were almost never fenced in. Sheep wandered freely, sometimes onto the road.

As the evening darkened I drove up another big hill when my camera suddenly stopped. At a glance, the screen revealed “Error 20: A malfunction with the mechanical mechanism has been detected.” What the hell is this? I restarted the camera and turned the shutter interval back on. After a few minutes, it stopped again. I concluded later that night after Googling quite a few message boards that the shutter hardware was starting to wear out and it needed to be serviced. Well, shit. This wasn’t an option on this trip, nor was replacing it in Akureyri for $800. So it meant that I could only get drivelapse shots of the first day. Which was a shame, because this wasn’t even the best part of the road. But luckily, I could still point and shoot, so it was functional enough to be useful.

I arrived at the town of Varmahlíð and turned south on 752. I pulled into the gravel parking lot at Viking Rafting and parked behind the main building, and went inside to ask if I could camp in my van. Eight river guides and support kayakers were sitting on couches and watching an extreme kayaking documentary. I liked them already. After watching a video of two guys dropping treacherously through a slot canyon in California I went back to the van, cooked dinner, and slept. The light faded and the temperature dropped.

Day 4: The East Glacier River

Iceland would have lots of perfectly great, runnable rivers if so many of them weren’t punctuated by dangerous waterfalls. Although they’re great to look at, they’re not so great to attempt in a raft. An exception is the East Glacier River, an awesome Class IV canyon in the north country, where the waterfalls that once existed have been washed out by the continuous pounding of water. It was a river trip full of big hits, fast gradients, sheer lava rock walls, crashing hydraulics, and lots of noise and swearing – exactly the kind of river trip I was looking for.

I was one of three people who signed up to raft on the East Glacier that day, the other two being a newlywed couple from Canada. They had the right idea. If you’re going to honeymoon, you do it right. Do what I do. Go to Iceland, rent a car, bomb a river. We geared up in the main building and left in the shuttle bus for the river launch, 45 minutes on a dirt road from the headquarters. We arrived and sat next to the river while the guide gave us a 30 minute orientation on river safety. He emphasized that we needed to smile and have fun if we fall out to avoid panic – something I in my shortsightedness could have done better. More on that in a minute.

We put on our drysuits, walked the raft to the river, and eddied out into the current. The trip was supported by a kayaking photographer and two rescue kayakers who went out ahead of us in the bigger areas with throw bags and lots of river rescue training. I met support staff from Nepal, Uganda, New Zealand and Alaska – all living and working at the river outfitter for the summer season. Though we were all from different walks of life, there is one thing that always brings we river rats together: We love to run wild rivers.

The entrance rapids were fast and easy as the current rushed through the canyon on a high gradient. We floated past numerous sheer walls in a river 20 feet wide, sometimes less. The first big rapid of the day, Alarm Clock, threw a huge splash my face like a bucket of cold glacier water. We went around sheer bends of rock as the current tumbled its way through numerous Class III wave trains.

Commitment Rapid was next, and was a huge Class IV pourover that flipped the raft and threw all of us out. I felt the current pull my paddle out of my hand, and another rafter caught it as it washed out into the left eddy. Soon we were back in the boat for more. Game on.

After 20 minutes, we eddied out and the guide explained the strategy for Green Room, a technical Class IV triple drop. It turned out to be a monster. We didn’t even get the first drop correctly. The boat flipped again and I was back in the water, flying down the rapid. The current sent me over the second drop. One of the kayakers in the right eddy yelled something at me. I couldn’t hear him. The swell took me over the third drop and into a huge wall of foam.

I expected to wash out of the hole after a few seconds. That didn’t happen. SHIT! IT’S RECIRCULATING!!! I continued to tumble underwater in what felt like an office sized washing machine. Was I stuck in a recirculating hole? What the hell was going on? It felt like an eternity. FUCK!!! I’M NOT COMING UP!!! I need to get out of this now! On other whitewater trips they told me that if I ball up then maybe it will send me back out of the–

I’m out! I can breathe!!! The rescue kayakers were right there, almost like they expected to see me. “Swim to the eddy! Swim to the eddy!” I went for it, but was too tired. They had me grab on the handle on the back of a kayak and ferried me out of the current. The guy snatched something orange out of the water. It was my camera. It fell off somewhere in the middle of all of that shit. He let me go at the eddy and I swam for a rock on the edge. I clung to it as the water pulled at my feet and scrambled ashore – too out of breath to stand, but more alive than I’ve felt in years. Fucking shit, that was crazy.

Turns out I was perfectly fine. That rapid is called the Green Room because if you go far enough into the undertow like I did, you will find yourself surrounded in ambient green light. But without fail, it will eventually spit you out at the surface. I didn’t try it, but the Lower New River has the same feature called the Elevator Shaft. Boaters jump in, get pulled down, and come back up twenty feet away. The casual way the guides joked with me and the other girl who it happened to later was reassuring. I wasn’t really in any danger.

We eddied out to the left to take a break. I heated up my core temperature with hot chocolate and waffles with whipped cream, berry preserves, chocolate syrup, courtesy of a local farmer at the top of the canyon. For years, he has been feeding rafters at this spot. He used to climb down by foot, but at some point rigged a pulley system to lower the food to hungry, cold boaters. Every day. For years. That’s what he has been doing. I can’t even begin to describe how good of karma that is.

Later, we approached a big wave hole and our guide asked us if we wanted to surf it. Usually this causes boaters to fall out, which is often what the outfitters are going after. Because let’s face it, as scary as they get, the river wipeouts do make for the best pictures. I looked at the calm water right after it and thought why not. I already got pummeled upstream anyway, what difference does it make? Sure enough, we got tossed out and easily made for the right eddy.

Jump rock was next, a big 30ft cliff jump near the end of the canyon. I wasn’t intimidated by anything at this point.

The river slowed down and the walls widened, eventually sloping into hills and farmlands with higher mountains far off into the distance. It was calm, easy, scenic, and a great way to end a wild river trip. We packed up and went back to the headquarters where I got a CD burn of the camera boater’s pictures. The Floatie Back Door on my GoPro is the only reason why it wasn’t lost on the riverbed.

I had a few hours of good daylight left. I drove east. I went over a mountain pass, drove past the town of Akureyri, and camped next to Mývatn Lake, one ridge away from the vast lava plains of the northeast. The red sunset brought peace to an otherwise wild second day on the road. So much has happened. But I was just getting started.

This story continues in the fjord country.