A room with a view to Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Iceland

You may have heard of the Eyjafjallajökull (pronounced as ay-yah-fyaht-lah-yoh-kuul; or as E15, to those who cann't pronounce the name) volcano in Iceland, which erupted in 2010, and disrupted air traffic over Europe. It also put Iceland fair and square in the tourist map, where it has been there since. So, we were excited to know that the place we will be staying that night was within striking (sic!) distance of Eyjafjallajökull. Of course, E15 is an active volcano, so there always is some finite probability of it erupting any time, but, hey, we needed to take a chance.

The place we were going to stay was called the 
Hellishólar Cottages, and it was in a very rural setting away from the Icelandic Ring Road. We drove past rather bucolic sceneries of empty roads, plastic-wrapped hay bales on the green fields, houses with red roofs, and, of course, the odd church in the distance.

Then, finally, we were in close proximity to the volcano. You could see it in the distance, taking over large part of the horizon, its snow-capped peak obscured by clouds. E15 is a volcano whose peak, the crater on top, is always covered under an ice-cap. So, any eruption has to crack open that ice-cap first. It has likely lost some of its height from recent eruptions.

As we checked into Hellishólar Cottages, we came across these signboards which prominently talk of Hotel Eyjafjallajökull, with a photograph of the eruption. Someone definitely had a sense of humor. The Hotel California refrain came to mind: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

The cottages turned out to be rather modest and spartan, but oh, so beautifully located. The place was also rather empty. We were likely the only ones there that night. We had the place to ourselves, well, almost, if you do not count the sheep, of which there were many.

It was rather late at night, perhaps 10pm or so, as we sat around outside and raised a toast to Pele, the goddess of Volcanoes.

I think Pele was happy with us, for Eyjafjallajökull stayed calm that night.