Where to begin when it ends

Today I said goodbye to my group. I'm sitting in the equivalent of Barnes and Noble in Akureyri drinking chamomile tea reflecting on the last two weeks. It has been an intensely awakening experience so I'm going to try to break it down into small parts to relate. I've fallen in love with nature. I realized I never really knew her before. But I digress.

Two weeks ago I made my way to our meeting place where I met our group leader and five of the other volunteers. Our leader was the youngest of our group. Rudolfs is 23 from Latvia and is a long term volunteer for SEEDS doing his internship for 3 months here for hospitality and tourism he is studying back home. I also met Guiomar from Asturias in Spain, Carmen from Madrid, Michele from Italy and Uri from Israel. Later we would meet up with Ulbina from Russia. More on everyone later...

So we left Reykjavik with our Hungarian driver cruising Road 1 around the perimeter of the country. You can't cross through the middle unless you are in an "I mean business 4x4". Starting out in a new group everyone was a bit quiet trying to figure group dynamic- except Rudolfs and the Hungarian. Both young guys, long term volunteers they sat up front planning our route including stops and, almost as important, which cd to play. We rode through rugged scenery stopping at 2 waterfalls (one of which we walked completely behind), a lagoon with floating icebergs, the biggest glacier in Iceland and countless petrol stations for snacks and toilet. All of this to the sounds of Nirvana, Coldplay, The Doors and a little Hungarian gangsta rap. We arrived in Seydisfjordur almost 10 hours later. At the very end of the fjord is a little privately owned conservation site called Skalanes. We had to switch from our minivan to a 4x4 to cross the rivers and traverse the rugged road. It was late and the light was low, a quiet fog hung mysteriously on the cliffs that would be the backdrop of our home for the next week.