Note:This is part three of a three part story. Make sure to read them from the beginning of part one!

So the stench.

The word is still out on what causes it, but the prevailing theory is rotten fish and bird droppings. This smell isn't constant so one cannot get used to it. Instead it blows in just as you start trying to breath in through your nose.

While admiring the cliffs I had to wipe the stinging tears from my eyes. I thought it was funny, but I have an awful sense of smell. For some of us it ended in a small alley puking into a runoff drain.

Team Morale 5/10

Scurrying from the fart of Mordor we dove into a cafe. Within we found the warmest greeting, the exact antithesis of ferry girl. In fact, I write to you a day later from this very cafe. The hostess was quick to fill us up on fresh brewed espresso and apple cake which is an apple pie cover with caramel sauce baked by the hands of an angel.

I wasn't too shy to avoid ordering seconds.

Alas, we couldn't stay forever although we tried and had to drag our bags up to the Gistleheimi Heidred Guesthouse. The guesthouse is a bit on the cramped side and I ended up stealing the top bunk bed in our four person room. This proved a prudent choice because the two single twins ended up being a bit stiff according to my colleagues and although Roberta's bottom bunk was comfortable, the creaking structural integrity of the bed didn't instill any of the same comfort.

Feeling a bit claustrophobic in our quarters it was decided to go and try to get lunch. This involved a fair few attempts at finding a place with real food that didn't require sitting outside in the stink.

When we finally did get seated at a restaurant that didn't tell us they were closed or ignore us studiously it was the fanciest and one of the cheaper eats I've ever had in Iceland. Artisanal I believe they call it.

When we were finished we headed to the community hot pools where I had some unfinished business*.

A good time was had there but attempting to get dinner involved being ignored at another restaurant and half our party abandoning ship to retreat to the guesthouse after a particularly foul stench wave.

It was up to Andrew and I to stand at a fast food/convenience store for half an hour in order to procure some hamburgers to go.

Returning to our place we sat around and ate the limp burgers.

I could feel morale slipping to an all time low. The few perks we had experienced and the fantastic geology of a wild, lost world wasn't enough to prevent talks of leaving the next day.

For me this was crippling and sad. For the last year I'd been planning to return to a place that makes my list of the 1. Place to see before you die.

Therefore I made quick plans with Roberta to scale the old caldera rim that plummets into the ocean on the far side. There is nothing quite like it, you climb up a steep incline of grass straight towards the clouds. Overhead the various seabirds that nest in the cliffs careen through the air jeering at you from the safety of their home in the sky. Roberta really wanted to see one of the renowned puffins. We caught sight of an orange-beaked little guy, but he scuttled away before we got more than a peek. Roberta's disappointment at brief encounter was blown away when we finally crawled the last few feet of hill. Upon reaching the summit we were hit by the massive gust of cold Atlantic sea air that rushed up the cliff which we could now peer over.

Even there we found a trio of sheep, a mom and two lambs, chewing away at the edge of the world. In the distance we could see the crags of rock jutting from the sea, including Surtsey which rose to the surface in a volcanic explosion in 1963. In the other direction we could see the red cinder cone of Eldfell that rose on the eastern edge of the main island, destroying about a third of the town here.

After a day of fearing that my favorite place in the world had lost its magic, I could finally relax having found it again. More importantly I got to share it with the most important person in my world, Roberta.

Going down was a little bittersweet and I doubted if anything in Iceland would ever instill such awe and excitement while we stayed here.

I was wrong. The next morning Roberta burst back into the room waking me with her yelling with joy. "A puffin, a mother fucking puffin!"

As it were, our guesthouse owner Ruth, owned a puffin and let Roberta pet it.

All is well.

*See blog Unfinished Business

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