August 26 - Bonus Post: Guardian Horses

On the way up to Landmannalaugar in the morning, our guide warned us that the vehicles sometimes suffer from "jeep sickness": they are commercial SUVs equipped with after-market, oversized axles and tires that can sometimes get misaligned, which can lead to the wobbling at high speeds. When we first saw this on the other jeep in our convoy, known as "George", it looked far scarier than he described it. Indeed, that jeep had to be abandoned on the way inland because it couldn't get above 50 km/h without going berserk. One of the mechanics caught up with a replacement vehicle from town and hobbled back home in the broken vehicle as we continued on.

On the way home it was our jeep (a.k.a. "Golden Boy") that took a turn to fall apart. (Afterwards our guide admitted that these things always seem to happen in pairs but he hadn't mentioned it lest he jinx it.) Just twenty minutes from town but in the wind-blasted middle of nowhere, the front, driver-side wheel called it a day and detached itself from the rim by a sickly ten degrees (though hard to see in this picture).

We all settled in for a snooze, with nothing to do but wait for the mechanics to drive another replacement vehicle from town. Fortunately we were rescued from our boredom moments later as a team of horses appeared over the horizon looking for a snack. ("Meat for dinner!", declared an Italian in our group.)

The replacement jeep finally appeared 45 minutes later and was the same one that had problems this morning. Thankfully "George" behaved for the remaining drive into town, which is good because he was quite a big boy and would have been difficult to punish.