Good stuff! In the morning, I feel a lot better, and we decide to try to catch the 8:30 bus to Geysir, and continue our bike tour there. So - everything packed up quickly, a quick dash downstairs for breakfast, handing over waaay too much money for the hotel, and off to the bus station we go.
We arrive half an hour early - plenty of time to buy the tickets and get the bikes on the bus...but what's that noise in my rear wheel? The wheel's had me worried for a while now: as Mr. Do-Everything-Myself, I had to build it up myself, and must not have pulled the spokes tight enough, so the wheel has been running quite noisily for a while. But today, things seem worse. And indeed - a quick check shows that one of my spokes is broken. Since I only have one spare spoke (great planning!), I don't want to take any chances and have a mechanic replace the spoke an re-tighten the wheel. And since the chances that there is a bike mechanic in a place like Geysir are close to null, we have to let the bus go, and find a bike shop that's open on a Saturday.
The assistant at the bus ticket desk is incredibly helpful, and helps me find a place in town - though he doesn't know whether it's open. So we take our chances and head up to the shop and - it's open! A not too polite older man takes a critical look at the bike, agrees to fix it, and tells me to be back in two hours. So, we go to the cafe where we had breakfast the first morning, have some breakfast again, and wait. Meanwhile, Nadine is having some pain in her stomach, and decides to try and find out whether there is a health centre in town that's open on a Saturday by stopping by the tourist office. Before we go out into the countryside, we should have this checked out. She comes back an hour later, having been to three different tourist offices, and with three different addresses for possible health centres. This seems to be the norm here: everywhere you ask, you always get different information.
Once I pick my bike back up, we head out to find the health centres. The first two addresses turn out to not exist at all. Nice! The third address is actually a health centre, and claims to be open on Saturdays (there's a sign on the door), but it's completely dark, the door is locked, and there is clearly nobody inside. So, we try the hospital. There, Nadine is told to go to Kopavogur, because a diagnosis in a hospital is more expensive than in the clinic in Kopavogur, which treats tourists as well. The only problem: Kopavogur is about 10km south, in a suburb of Reykjavik.
So...back on the bikes, and down to Kopavogur. Again, getting there without using one of the super highways is harder than it looks on a map. Also, the hospital didn't give us any more information on the health centre than the name, and that it's in Kopavogur, but no address.
Once we get to the place, we start cycling around, trying to find something health-centre looking. This doesn't turn out to be a good idea, so we start asking people. Finally, someone in a hotel points us in the right direction, and we find a massive shopping centre next to a highway junction that houses the health centre. There, Nadine is told that it could be the appendix, but could also be something else, there really is no telling without a hospital. When she mentions that the hospital sent her, the doctor just replies "well, that was a bad idea!".
So...8000ISK (about 50€) later, we're back on the road, knowing as much as before.
At the hospital, I decide to wait outside, while Nadine gets herself checked out. When she's not back after half an hour, I get a text message from her, asking me to come inside - "this could take a while". Working my way through the maze of corridors and Icelandic signs, I finally find the Accidents&Emergency reception (how would you find this in case of emergency??), and find her room. Nadine tells me that they are doing some blood tests, and that the assistant doctor said that she may be here for a while. So we wait. After a while, I go and get a book. Then, start updating my diary. We think about rearranging the furniture in the room, but everything is screwed to the wall. 2 hours later, the assistant doctor comes back, letting us know that Nadine's bloodwork is fine, but she wants to wait for the resident, who is in surgery, to check it out as well. So we wait. Nadine takes a nap. I continue my book. Contemplate the meaning of life. Get some coffee. Another full 2 hours later - we're just about to go and get the tent to pitch for the night - the resident comes in, and tells Nadine that everything is fine, the pain is nothing to worry about, and prescribes her some pain killers.
6000ISK and 5 hours later, we leave the hospital. The second bus to Geysir is long gone, so I contact Stefan and Elinborg again, ask them if we can stay over. They reply soon after, no problem, we can stay. After some dinner, we meet them at their place, and have a few beers, laugh about the crazyness of the last few days. Next time we check the time, it's 1:30am - time for bed, since we need to get up at 7 to catch the 8:30 - hopefully for real this time, to actually start our bike tour.
Part of trip:
Iceland by bike