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Four nights in Iceland After spending some time in the UK, Ale and I went on our journey to Iceland. Day One - The Blue Lagoon We traveled to Iceland on a night flight and arrived at Keflavik international airport around midnight, then took a 45 minute bus ride to hotel Loftleidir in Reykjavik. We promptly slept and woke ready for our first day. Before we traveled to Iceland we booked a couple of day excursions, today was a visit to "The Blue Lagoon". The Blue Lagoon is a geothermally heated spa which consists of a large lake which is carved out of the rock, a sauna, stream room and a waterfall. As the name implies the water is actually blue and I believe this to be due to the Silica content of the water. We spent a good 5 hours at the Spa. We started in the lake and during this time I discovered Ale had a 'dislike' for deep water; the main lake is pretty shallow around the edge and goes to around one and a half meters in the middle. We then moved onto the sauna and steam rooms and finally finished our time there with some food. One thing really unique about this place was how hot the water was and how cold it was above the water level. They have both an indoor and outdoor part but the majority is outdoors; outside it was around 1 degree Celsius. The end result of this temperature difference was a very cold head and the constant desire to totally submerge yourself under the hot water. This was a very relaxing trip and something we both enjoyed. After we returned from the Spa, we walked into Reykjavik town to have a look around; unfortunately it was very quiet. Most of the shops and restaurents close at around 6pm in the town, this may be due to the weather being too cold later in the day for most people to come outdoors. Undetered we had a light meal at a small "fast food" place and brought some fruit and snacks at a supermarket. Day Two - Gullfoss, Geysir direct Today we took a half day tour to visit the famous Gullfoss water fall and a field of geysirs. The tour was around 6 hours long and took us by bus through the Icelandic wilderness to various locations. On the way we also visited a volcanic crater. This is a description of the tour which describes what we saw. "In one afternoon spend your time encountering a cross-section of Iceland's natural wonders and geological phenomena. The world-famous Geysir geothermal field is highlighted on this tour, where spouting springs of various formations and appearances are seen. Nearby is Gullfoss, the queen of Icelandic waterfalls, and we are given the opportunity to stand next to it, watching as enormous quantities of water tumble violently into a deep, meandering gorge." The trip was pretty intense; well the weather was very cold and windy :-) The first major stop of the day was visiting the Geysir field; after some persistence I managed to catch a few pictures of one of them erupting (standing around in the cold with a camera:-) ). It is difficult to tell when they will go off; there is a swirling and the water level oscillates at the base of the geysir, then it just goes. In the geysir field there is only one very active geysir and it erupts every couple of minutes. There is a much larger geysir which reaches heights of up to 80m, unfortunately we didn’t see in the time we were there. Every time there is an earthquake the active geysirs change, throughout Icelandic history many have turned on and off. The significant activity of the current geysirs tends to be manmade; there was a small museum which detailed how they have drilled the geysirs to make them more active. Our next stop was the Gullfoss waterfall. The weather followed a similar theme here but you also got sprayed by water coming up from the falls :-) From the pictures you can see how the water from the melting glaciers has carved a massive path through the island. The waterfall consists of two sections of 11m and 22m and lots of other artifacts. There are two main places to watch the falls, above and in the middle. A long path of stairs up gorge allows you to get a birds eye view, although very windy, you stay dry :-). Another path takes you to the middle section of the falls where there is a large section of rock slightly above the water level. Magnificent views but a rain coat may have been a good idea. To finish off the day, Ale and I walked up a big hill to the Pearl. The Pearl is a station which stores natural hot water in massive tanks for the whole of Reykjavik. It also has a rotating restaruent which affords a view of the whole of Reykavik. We then hurried down the hill and caught a shuttle bus into Reykjavik town to an Indian restaurant. It was a perfect end to a fantastic and extremely exhausting day. Day Three - South Shore Adventure "Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss - high waterfalls with a soul. Beautiful farmland. Sandy coastline. Amazing rock formations. Glaciers in the distance and Sólheimajökull glacier up close when possible - a stop at the glacier's edge. Historic area and main stage for the notorious saga of Njall. Mt. Eyjafjöll - towering over some of Iceland's most wonderful countryside. Vík - the southern-most town in Iceland. Eyrarbakki - quaint, picturesque village." Today is was the first day when the temperature actually fell below zero and snow fell throughout the night. On day two there were only small remnants of ice and snow but today everything was white and covered with a thick layer of snow. This is what Iceland is supposed to be about, going to Iceland and no ice and snow would have been a con. This was our last full day in Iceland so we went on an all day tour, it started around 9am and we got home about 7pm. It was a long day touring the Icelandic countryside and visiting many places. On the bus ride there was a driver and a guide, the guide told stories about the various places and something about an Icelandic Saga. We visited the village Vik and went to a small museum which had artifacts from early Iceland, their centerpiece being an old boat which was used to carry trading goods to a small island. In the museum there was a crazy old man who founded the museum when he was around 13; he ran around and tried to explain the purpose of the items on show. He demonstrated spinning wool into thread, played a piano in a small church and generally messed around. After the village Vik we visited a black sand beach and some vertical rock formations. We were told on the tour that this is due to heating and cooling profiles of the lava. When Ale and I were exploring the beach it started to snow/hail, but luckily not for long. One of the few pictures of Ale and I from this trip was taken by an old woman when we were on the rocks, unfortunately she put her finger over the lens so I had to crop the image... see if you can spot it :-) The next stop was a glacier; we drove down a long valley and parked. From here the whole tour group walked from the bus stop to the front of the glacier. It was a fairly long walk over small stone hills. On the way the tour guide explained some of the major risks in the area. The biggest risk were mud pits; these pits are like quicksand, if you stand on them you can start to sink and you'll keep sinking until you’re gone. The top layer of mud is a bit like jelly but fairly solid, but once the surface is broken you rapidly sink. The tour guide did a demonstration on the edge of a mud pit, he walked for a while with no problems until he broke the surface and suddenly one of his feet sank down. He told us that a week before a group of children had visited the glacier and one of them had sunk down to his waist before someone got him out. The next risk was water pools, these things look like big puddles but are very deep, 20+ meters; with a water temperature of around 1C, they are very dangerous. The final risk was ice caves, these are small caves in the glacier which are tempting to visit but the roofs are very unstable. In the time we were at the glacier a small piece of ice had fallen off the front of the cave; if that had landed on your head then you would have problems. The glacier itself appears very black. Some of the close up pictures show black ice; this is formed by ice being covered by volcanic ash. This ash also helps to make the ice less slippery; this meant we could walk a few meters up the front of the glacier. The structure of the ice at the front of the glacier was brittle; I was able to pull a few small pieces away with my hands. Unfortunately we were not allowed to walk on the main glacier itself because we had no safety gear. The glacier surface is ice and you wouldn’t want to walk on that with normal shoes. In the last 5 years the front of the glacier has receded by maybe 100m, global warming at work... On the way back from the tour we stopped at another waterfall.. This one only not quite as good as the one we had seen earlier in the day. Once we arrived back at the hotel, we ate a little food, packed and then went to bed. A very tiring day. The End After the end of the three days we both flew back to London, after arriving in London Ale flew off to Paris in her first step to getting back to Venezuela. It was a really sad ending to the great time we had together; we had visited 6 different countries since meeting at ELC. I now had a few days in the UK before going back to Baku and Ale was straight back to work in Venezuela. The big question is how soon before our paths cross again, hopefully soooner rather than later. |