Though there's a serious clinic, café and massage facilities, what most people do here is soak and slather their skin in the mineral mud stationed in boxes around the pool.

Along with impurities, it seems, the mud draws out the chat. A Norwegian mom and her 15-year-old, Ingeborg, advise me about the mud. ''Don't get it too close to your eyes,'' the mom warns. From there we move to fishing, whale hunting and, inevitably, America.

''Americans are egocentric, I think,'' says the daughter. ''The spotlight is always on them. And Americans, they are always afraid,'' Ingeborg says.

Shrugs her mom, ``She's always had opinions.''

RUGGED LANDSCAPE

Iceland is slightly smaller than Kentucky. Though most of its interior is impenetrable without a rugged 4x4 and hearty guide, touring the island takes more time than I expect. For more than two hours I drive along the green flats edged by sea and ridge to Snaefellsjokull, a relatively accessible glacier rumored to have been a landing strip for aliens, a place of magic and Jules Vernes' legendary entrance to the center of the earth.

Like many glaciers, this one is melting. For the past several summers, glacier tours have been impossible past mid-July, and I barely make the cutoff, bypassing the rigors of a 5-hour hike to the top in favor of the immediate gratification of a snowmobile tour.

In under 15 minutes, the group is whisked to the crater. It's a stellar, crystalline day, and the views are spectacular, with snowcapped basalt peaks showing patches of black rock trickling to azure sea. Swaths of green are sheltered by rippled peaks and cliffs and strange, prehistoric-looking lava fields strewn with rocks -- the spew and vomit of a raging earth.

Looking around, you realize the elves, trolls and gods said to live here must be unsettled; you don't need to see the Volcano Show to realize something roils beneath.

A CONSTANT BOIL

Another day's visit to the geyser fields confirms it. White steam rises against the green hills like a train chugging through the land, and it's only when you realize that the location never changes that you understand that these kettles sit at a constant boil.

The most visited of the fields is at Geysir, the place from which the geological term was borrowed. If you've been to Yellowstone, you'll be underwhelmed; it is neither so vast nor so colorful as those geysers of the American west. Still, it's a sight few want to miss.

Some of the sprays here blow regularly; others are less predictable. The namesake Great Geysir -- a once-regular vent spouting 180 feet high -- now spurts less regularly and less tall. Its entrance is said to have been clogged by common sense-challenged visitors who threw rocks into it in the 1950s, but more recent earthquakes seem to have loosened the passageway. This change underscores the message of Volcano Show: that Iceland is a geological laboratory in flux, constantly reshaping the land.

A few miles away lies Gullfoss, a massive double waterfall of the river Hvita that plunges from a wide plain some 105 feet into a canyon. The flow seems almost to disappear, swallowed by Iceland's mystical and ever-changing earth -- the elements at play with eyes and mind.

A drive over ridges and boulder fields brings me to Pingvellir. There's nothing whimsical or playful here; the planet's plates have thrust and sparred without mercy, shearing to dramatic heights in a set ready for a sci-fi flick. It's no wonder that the Vikings chose this as the site for their most momentous civic actions -- and no surprise that, like important occasions throughout history, these took on a festive air. The pathway along the rift is lined with rock-hewn booths where vendors once sold nibbles and beer and whatever might have passed for souvenirs at an earlier time. If you close your eyes you can almost sense the hurly burly of power and influence, pride and prejudice.

Some things change. In this election year, it seems, some may not.

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