How I learned to smell water...

Iceland is known to be an island with plenty of rivers and fresh pure water. One can never die of thirst in Iceland.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t really on our side when 2 of my friends (Shaf and Nad) and I went trekking in August 2008. Not that we were dying of thirst mind you, it WAS raining all the time.. But the rivers on our path were far from being crystal clear sources of Life.. It was more like chocolate milky, muddy rivers!

We did have the equipment to filter the mud out but it was a long and painful process for just a few drops of clean water.

On the 5th day of our trek, hopping from shelter to shelter, we were running out of clean water to drink and cook with. We HAD to find a river and there was supposed to be one not far from the shelter. I secretly crossed my fingers hoping it wouldn’t be a magical source of Cappuccino again.

After hours of walking with our stinking wet clothes on, we reached the big, cold, lonely shelter and… Hallelujah! There was a plastic can full of clear water next to the entrance! I was already dreaming of a glass of fresh water with a gourmet dish of instant noodles mixed with mushroom cream powder soup (yum!).

We settled in the shelter, drank and drank, cleaned the tables (Why were there so many dead flies everywhere?) and started cooking. It was delicious…

Tired and happy, we went for a 2h nap before deciding to continue.


… Or not.


After waking up, my friend Nad went to drink some more water. One cup down, second in process… Wait a minute..
“Guys, did you notice this water smells funny?”.

As my nose hesitantly reached the bottle, it all made sense.. The dead flies…

It smelled pesticide. We had been drinking an unknown amount of pesticide diluted in water!

Ok. How do you react? Images of us lying dead in this cold shelter, in the middle of nowhere, came rushing through my mind. This can’t be! I just turned 30 a week ago! I was too young to die! Not to mention in a stupid unheroic way!

We kept our calm.

“Do you feel fine?” “Does your stomach hurt?”
It had been more than 2 hours since we last ate and drank so we should have already been poisoned by now. I guess the amount of pesticide was quite low.

However, Nad (who drank much much more than us) felt some slight burning in his throat. It was time to act, move and find fresh water. FAST! Our last chance was the river on the map not far from the shelter.

As I was completely in pain, I stayed in the shelter while Shaf and Nad went to look for the river.
It was hard waiting in the dark, alone, wondering what happened to my friends and how Nad was feeling.

They eventually came back an hour or two later, with a little amount of water. The river was still muddy but they had to filter it again and Nad, feeling worse had to throw up to empty his stomach of the poison.

In the end, after making sure we were REALLY feeling better, we laughed about it. I guess we really got scared but it served us as a lesson: Smell before drinking! (Even if it’s water and it’s not supposed to have a smell!).

We made sure to put a warning sign on the can for any other thirsty trekkers. You never know.
We woke up the next morning early to finish our trek in Þingvellir and fill our stomach with hotdogs and 3 cups of hot chocolate EACH!

And it smelled good!