To drive Highway 1, the “Ring Road” that circles Iceland, is to enter and leave a new world every half hour or so. My son and I drove it this summer, and coming from parched Santa Barbara, I was struck most by one constant: the abundance of water.
Much of that water finds its way into waterfalls such as Gullfoss, the “Golden Falls,” a two-level, rainbow-generating doozy that makes Niagara look pedestrian; Dettifoss, a massive rush of ashen river in the middle of a stark gray moonscape; Goðafoss, into which a 10th-century leader threw his statues of Norse gods, thereby converting Iceland to Christianity; and a thousand other showstoppers — high and narrow, low and wide — which might or might not have names.
As you make your way through the mist toward the roar and rumble, there are very few warning signs. Evidently if you are stupid enough to edge too close to a precipice, you deserve to perish.