I am the first to admit my vacations are forced marches but to call today long is really an understatement. Sure it didn't start out to terribly early by my standards with our guide (Stefan again) picking us up at the house at 8am. We had time for breakfast and a short trip to the bakery beforehand. The ride didn't end until 4:30am the next morning.
We started out by visiting a couple spots in town. The famous house where Gorbachev and Reagan met, stuff like that. We saw the house of the only Nobel prize winner from Iceland, Halldór Kiljan Laxness (it was for literature). We the started our way through the meat of the tour which was the ring road and gold coast (we then added the glacier lagoon on the fly). It will take me a while to sort out any names for these places as I don't really have a map to work with, plus they need special characters, plus I am really tired right now.
We visited their national park, Þingvellir, which is basically a representation of the fissure of the two continental plates that Iceland is made up of. Yes, Iceland is part North American and part European. The fissure is very obvious there. We drove up to the overlooking the Parliament Plains (where the ancient parliament used to meet). Fortunately it was early enough before all the big tour buses and were able to get out before they arrived. They had to close off the walking path because a rift formed and part of the path fell away. We were driven down to the lower area where we saw a couple waterfalls from a distance, walked up to the church and then walked along the river to the van before we drove out.
Our next stop was a geyser field that had a geyser named Strokkur that fired every 3-8 minutes. There were a few others there but none of them erupted at all. Like anything unpredictable and quick it was tough to get good pictures of the of the eruptions but we tried as best we could. This park had a gift shop and snack shop.
The next stop was the very impressive waterfall Gullfoss. I've not been around a waterfall that big (not even Niagra). All the same we were basically right on top of it so it was made even more impressive. The idea of that much water running through speeds like that is something that can't really be described. I should mention that the weather we had all day was basically perfect. We started with this waterfall up above and then walked down to it then eventually walked back towards the van and headed on to the next stop which was also a waterfall. Named Seljalandsfoss. It is not near as big but is impressive in a different way. It falls over a cliff and you can walk behind the water flow, which we did. Yes we basically got soaked and there were few spots the camera was in danger but it was very awesome.
The next stop was another waterfall, named Skógafoss which we could not walk behind but was more powerful than Seljalandsfoss but also fell down a cliff in spectacular fashion. I got thoroughly soaked by walking up to the waterline of the river at the bottom as close as I could get. The spray it was creating was incredible.
After the waterfalls we had a quick stop where we got hot dogs and then we did our glacier hike. This was on the Sólheimajökull Glacier Tongue. We had to strap on crampons and walk around with ice axes and we climbed up and around the glacier. It was definitely an awesome experience. The glacier we walked on can be black or white depending on how much volcanic ash is out at the time so it is kind of an ugly glacier. All the same it was strange getting used to the crampons. It was just as strange getting out of them after it was over. Our guide was apparently named Helgi although that is not what I heard. I could not hear it properly as it was said quickly and with a strong lilt. He was obviously a very experienced climber and does a lot more than tromping on the nearly flat ice when he isn't working. It was a very cool experience. No pun intended.
After the glacier hike it was a very long ride to the glacial lagoon called Jökulsárlón. It took hours to get there. It was a very incredible area. The small bits of iceberg where breaking up if you watched them long enough. The sun was setting by that point. I think it was around 11pm or so. There are seals in the lagoon. It is the deepest natural lake in the island. It sits right underneath the tallest mountain on the island. The lagoon is a mix of fresh and salt waters as the ocean tide comes in to meet the glacial melt off. There were seals in the small inlet. Apparently there are some good fish to catch there.
After the lagoon it was a hideously long ride back to the house. I did manage to catch some sleep during the ride but most of us didn't. We got back at 4:30am as I said. The Day 4 stuff set to start at 7am. That meant writing this, posting pictures and maybe a small nap before we had our quick turn around to start out.
The pictures are posted here and it looks like I have to sort out some issues with shutterfly handling the organization of them.
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