The story says that Eve received a message that God was coming to visit her. So she spent the next 3 days scrubbing and cleaning, baking and cooking in preparation for His visit. At the last minute, Eve realized that her children were not cleaned up, so just before He came, she put them in another room. God arrives and say (paraphrasing) “Eve, you know you can’t hide anything from me, where are your children?” When Eve answered, “What Children?” And God told her; “From now on, your children will be hidden from you, they are now invisible to you and your neighbors and they will live forever.

So the story goes…. And this is the origin of the story of the Hidden People who are characterized and kind, happy, playful but fiercely protective of their land.

Well, This particular morning, those Elves were working hard to keep us off the black sand beaches with diamond like ice, scattered, strewn around like toys thrown from the attic.

The wind was gale force, the sting of the ice crystals in my face and the deeply wet clothing reminded me that I was alive in every way possible; fighting the forces of nature, on a mission to make a wonderful photo. But time, as always, was limited to the one short hour I had before moving to the lagoon. As I began to retreat Ice began emerging from the ocean, shaped like the pets of those little people themselves. Beckoning me back, they weren’t done, they were very playful that morning.

But I couldn’t play any longer.

Next stop was the Ice Bay called Jokulsarlon.  It too was very beautiful and haunting as the ice slowly floated by, as if leaving this world and going on to the next. I bid the beautiful floating sculptures good bye and now left to find the home of the Hidden People, to be with them and see what they see.

So I did.

It was time to visit the hidden Ice Cave, over 800 meters from the main road and requiring a stout 4 wheeler and a 1/2 hour of trekking through rocky fields and streams of icy water.

If getting there was hard, the sight to be seen was completely worth the trouble. Hidden inside a glacier, dripping, melting away as I made my way inside the mouth of this amazing place, reminding me of Superman’s Lair; The Fortress of Solitude. Tomorrow, this might be gone completely.

And there I was, inside the Elves home.

This is not all for today, for it was an amazing day with more to come. But now I must move on to my next destination.