Room with Toilet

If you liked and visit this page, is because you’re somewhat interested in travelling and/or volunteering. And you might suspect that travelling is not only being in some breath-taking places, eating tasty food, immerse in a local culture and so on.

There is a big chapter in between two nice Instagram pics. As 98% of our DNA is apparently useless, and called Junk-DNA, so 98% of the time of a backpacker is undocumented and made of normality. Sometimes even boredom. But definitely is not junk at all. The majority of the backpackers value these filling moments even more than those spent in a must-visit place.

Waiting on the side of the street with your thumb up for some good-hearted driver to give you a ride.

Checking how much cash you’ve left, where the closest atm is, how to get there.

Spending a whole afternoon at the hostel or with your CouchSurfing host because it’s pouring rain outside.

And finding a place to sleep.

This picture was taken during a hitchhiking trip in Iceland by my travel companion of that trip, the amazing Felix Muller.

Iceland is one of the most hospitable lands I ever visited. Finding a ride is way easier than the other Scandinavian countries. Getting lost is almost impossible as there is only one main road in the country. Often whoever picks you up will invite you for a meal and sometimes offers you accommodation.

But when it doesn’t happen, you need to find a place where to sleep. And because of cold and mosquitoes, it’s nice to sleep inside when possible. Few days before we found a cosy small church in a village, with locals so used to travellers overnight that in the morning woke us up gently, excusing themselves for the noise while cleaning the church and letting us rest until the service started at 10am.

When we reached the waterfall of Seljalandsfoss (65 meters of natural splendour) instead, there was no church. But an amazing public restroom with heating and enough room for sleeping inside. Cosy, warm, with facilities and toilet in the room, as the room is indeed a toilet.

What did you just said? The hygiene? Believe me, toilets in Iceland are cleaner than many hostel rooms I’ve seen somewhere else. And in the morning you wake up to this view.

Some of you might have watched the movie “Into the Wild”. The protagonist, while travelling in Alaska, finds a shelter in an old wrecked coach, naming it Magic Bus. That’s why this public restroom in Iceland was called the Magic Toilet. And I even took an AlexanderSupetrampesque picture in front of it:

The Magic Toilet is right at the base of the Eyjafjallajökull. Maybe this name rings a bell: it’s a Volcano and 3 years before this picture was taken, in 2010, erupted, with the ashes causing huge troubles to airplanes and disrupting the flight traffic worldwide for almost two weeks.

Ps: Iceland is one of the most amazing countries you can visit in the universe (I don’t say “on the planet” because I still have some doubts Iceland really belongs to Earth), so soon there will be an article also about the amazing beauty and weird peculiarities of the strangest landscape in the world. For the moment, you can enjoy some other pictures of Seljalandsfoss.