ninsti absolutely wanted to do some whale watching, and today was the day. so we got to the harbour and bought two tickets. then we got on a boat and started the whale watching tour[001-029]. we left the bay and were navigating out to the open sea. we got some special clothing[013,021] to keep our bodies warm and dry. the wind got really cold on the open sea, and also the weather was not so good. nonetheless ninsti and i had pretty much fun in the front of the deck. there was the most action with boat rocking, almost like on a roller coaster. while we had a lot of fun the other attendants sat around on the boat, it seemed like some of them got a little sea sick. others seemed a little bored. so we navigated for about two hours and still had not seen a single whale. there was a french researcher on board too, who climbed the lookout[007,011,014], and also kept looking for whales. in vain. unlucky us[025]. the tour guide served hot chocolate, and we had a nice chat with christian (he is german), our tour guide. he was quite surprised we still had loads of fun on the boat, even without any whales, while the rest of the crew got rather frustrated and/or pissed off. so, although we didn't see any whale, we had a nice (but pretty expensive) boat trip. the tour guide told us, we can come back any time with the ticket and get another free ride, since this rarely happens that there is not a single whale around. we were happy, and now have a good reason to come back to húsavík. one more good thing: we now know that we do not get sea sick (easily), as the boat trip was quite shaky. next we wanted to pay a visit to the phallological museum[032-033] in húsavík. we have already planned that weeks ago. but, again we were out of luck, as it was already closed. poor us. no whales, no phalli. so we drove on and soon came to a geothermal power plant in bjarnaflag[041-083]. the ground was really warm and all over the place was a sulfur stench. it also seemed to me that i was on some foreign planet with all the steam clouds and the strange colour mixture of the earth, the water, and the sky. also the steam exhausting from the power station was making a lot of noise. this place was really impressive. we didn't know that it would get even more strange. we just passed a little hill and got to another very weird place, namely hverir[086-130], a place with some big sulfuric fields with geothermal activity and mud pots. next our guidebook suggested we go to the grjótagjá[131-141] rift. there's also a little cave with hot water along the rift. the lava ground around the area is craggy and quite fun to walk around it. after enjoying the warm air inside the cave we drove on and entered birkiland[142-143], a small strange area full of birch trees, most likely planted by someone to build this little place. after leaving[144] birkiland, our next planned stop was dimmuborgir[145-182], the land of dark castles. and trolls. we decided to take the small round through the area since it was already a little late. we almost finished it, when we decided to take a different route as shown on a map. we thought this would be a shortcut, leading us directly to the exit. so we took this path. at one point the path split up and we thought both of them would show us the way to the exit. so ninsti took one path and i took the other one. well, so far what we thought... in fact we were led astray by a troll that somehow must have manipulated the map signs. because instead of taking a shortcut, we walked deeper into the dimmuborgir area. no people, no ninsti, not even the slightest sound. i was totally alone. it was an amazing experience in this awesome landscape. only once i could hear a crow. after walking for quite a long time i crossed the road we initially wanted to take, and headed for the exit. worryingly i was the first at the car, although i followed a dead-end path when we split up. so i thought ninsti was always in front of me and should have arrived prior to me. now i got a little worried, and walked to the nearby closed cafe, where they had a nice platform with a good view over a small part of the entire dimmuborgir area. i shouted, and whistled, but no answer. i waited and waited, and finally... ninsti also arrived at the car. what a relieve. ninsti accidentally took the wrong turn at the crossing point from our supposedly shortcut with the small round path. so she added a few extra kilometres to the dimmuborgir hike. i still think all this was done by a troll[154,179]. happy that we got out there safe, we decided to get to the next hostel. it was already dark when we arrived at the HI hostel in kópasker. but they had a cat (yippieh!) and a very friendly and nice hostel owner who offered his huge collection of books and CDs to all the hostel guests in a big lounge. really a great hostel.