Iceland is its own Planet
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OCTOBER 1st - 4th, 2015
We're currently sitting in a cafe/ book store while the rain pours down in downtown Reykjavik. Blessed with 2 days of fantastic sunny/ partly-cloudy skies, today's weather is a bummer, especially because we were to road-trip down Iceland's South Coast in our 1995 Toyota Corolla. But rainy days means cups of amazing coffee in cafes and reflecting back on our first two days of travel.
DAY 1
After a 4 hour delay on our flight to Keflavik, we boarded our WOW Air plane at 10:30pm and arrived in Keflavik at 7:45am Iceland time on October 2, 2015. The final hour of our flight, we looked out the window to see the Northern Lights dazzling in the sky-- an absolutely magical way to enter Iceland. It looked like something out of Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (90's kid reference). [[Note: WOW Air was totally awesome! It was a brand-new plane, much like Southwest Airlines with no frills and okay seats, but the tickets were cheap and the ride was smooth-- so worth it]]
We boarded a bus, noticing a sculpture of a quarter of a rainbow that we loved, arrived in Reykjavik around 9:00am, and could see Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik's massive and famous church, on the top of the hill. Without using a GPS, we walked through the beautiful, quaint, and colorful streets until we reached the church which is in the center of Reykjavik. We made our way to Hlemmur Square, our awesome hostel, dropped our bags off and set out to explore Reykjavik all day- but first: coffee. Iceland is known for it's killer "Kaffi", and after a long day and night of traveling, we found our way to Bakari Sandholt for Americanos and a delicious egg salad, bacon, and arugula on sourdough sandwich- extra delicious due to the environment we were in and our nearly 12+hours without food.
Blue, partly cloudy skies all day made for an amazing first day of finding all of the city's nooks and crannies. Reykjavik is so awesome because it has that small-town feel while being the major city in the whole country. It's on a hill that meets the clear-blue salt water, and then across the bay are enormous snow-covered mountains that take your breath away. And that quarter-rainbow sculpture we saw now made total sense- within our first few hours in Reykjavik a quarter of a rainbow peaked through the clouds in several locations! Everything is so pleasant: the people are smiling and helpful, the homes are colorful and covered in amazing murals, the streets are clean, the drivers are polite, and even the street signs that tell you how fast your driving have smiley faces when you're going the right speed limit.
Around 2:00pm we had our first wave of exhaustion, so we went to the hostel and took a power-nap, then went to The Big Lebowski themed bar for happy hour. We made quick friends with our bartender, Elle - a really cool Brazilian young woman, who lived in Germany, then met her Icelandic girlfriend, and has now been a Reykjavik local for 5 months.
We also (weirdly) met a group of Coventry, Rhode Island guys here for a bachelor party, two Lincoln, Rhode Island residents that Mike had seen at the Rock Gym before, and a man from New England who moved here 3 years ago to open a Chiropractic office! Bizarre, but so fun!
DAY 2- The Golden Circle
This is going to be hard to describe, because words will never express how absolutely insane Iceland's land is. We woke up bright and early (after a terrible first hostel night's sleep due to a thunderous snorer) to the first snowfall of the year. We then somehow managed to find our car rental office, SADcars, after a 40 minute wander. We got into our little car, we called "Zu"/ "Zuzu"/ "Zuzi" because of it's license plate, and in less than an hour the city was out of sight and we were in the middle of a new planet- the first of many to come. We were in the mountains, covered in snow, winding our way down Route 36 headed towards Thingvellir National Park.
When we arrived at the park, the land was thawing and revealing autumn colors that were a beautiful contrast to the snowy mountains. Thingvellir National Park is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet and are slowly drifting apart. The result are massive walls of rock with deep deep deep caverns below.
From there, we made our way towards Geysir, but the 2 hour drive in-between turned into another new planet: flat golden land, surrounded by ginormous white mountains, with a massive lake in the middle that held beautiful green mountain islands (like those you see in Jurassic Park or Hawaii). One of these mountains caught our eye from afar, and we jokingly said, "Let's have lunch on the top of that." 35 minutes later we had hiked to the top and were looking out over a beautiful lake to our left, desert-ish lands in front of us, and icy mountains to our right- a spontaneous and magical moment.
We continued to Geysir, another planet with steaming grounds, bubbling pools, and as we approached the egg-ridden sulfur air was seeping through our windows. "I kind of like the smell" - Mike. Geysir is super active, so we weren't there for more than 20 minutes but were able to watch it shoot water 100ft into the air 5-6 times.
Next stop was the incredible Gulfoss waterfall, about 30 minutes from Geysir. The surrounding land turned into a green farmville: Icelandic horses with bulky, short bodies and long manes, sheep with wool down to their toes, and cows with full udders were everywhere. We obviously had to get out and make friends with the locals.
Gulfoss was breath-taking, and a bit overwhelming when you realize how powerful the water is. I wish it had been a sunny day because there is usually a permanent rainbow due to the constant and thick mist the falls give off.
Our final stop on our 10:00am - 6:00pm planet-jumping adventure was Crater Lake, a volcanic crater that now holds the most crystal-clear blue/green water you've ever seen. We walked around the top-ring of the crater, and then walked around the inner ring collecting lava rocks and having fun tossing big, red rocks into the water and watching them disappear into the blue abyss.
The rest of the drive was on the final planet before entering back into Reykjavik, which was a mix of each of the new worlds we had seen all day. It's grey and rainy skies had huge black-stone mountains covered in snow, steam coming from hot-pockets, with farms of black sheep and more horses. We were back in the city just in time to make it for the last hour of Happy Hour, so we went back to The Big Lebowski bar to see our bartender friend, Elle, again. By the time we left we had exchanged numbers in the hopes of meeting up before our final departure from Iceland, only to later figure out that we had taken down the wrong number, or that she had run out of credit on her phone.
DAY 3- Rain in Reykjavik
Today we woke up to heavy rain. Our plan was to drive the South Coast of Iceland, but it unfortunately didn't work out. Ambitious and excited to see more amazing scenery, we checked out of the hostel and got into ZuZu around 9:00am and hit the road. We were 25 minutes outside of the city and realized we weren't in the proper car to do an 8 hour road trip- much too stormy. Back in downtown Reykjavik we sat in a cafe for a few hours while I began writing this post and Mike looked into our expenses, free things to do, and created our new itinerary for the day. We decided to stroll down to the Old Harbor area to find the "photography museum," which ended up being a kinda lame exhibit on the 6th floor of the library.
Back in ZuZu around 4:00 to have our 3rd gas station meal (Ham&Cheese baguette and Spicy Chicken Ciabatta sandwiches) in 2 days, and then we set off to The Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon (one of the 25 Wonders of the World) is truly wonderful. The hot milky-blue water under the grey and storming skies was super relaxing. We wandered into all of the corners of the lagoon to find the hot spots, the mud masks, and the waterfalls. After 3 hours of soaking and covering our faces in mud masks, we left the lagoon just before closing and drive ZuZu to her final (and super random) drop-off location near the Keflavik airport.
As I finish writing this blog, it's after 1:00am, we've been here since 10:00p.m., and our flight is at 6:30am. Officially homeless for almost a full 24 hours. Because our flight to Amsterdam is so early, we decided to save our money on a hostel and sleep at the airport, but Keflavik Airport literally doesn't allow you to sleep… We aren't allow to check-in/go to our gate until 4:00am, so until then we are held captive in the main lobby of the airport, where the guards come to wake you up if you fall asleep. Tomorrow, our first day in Amsterdam, will most definitely be a sleepy one, but Day 4 of our adventure will keep our morale and bodies alive.
