[Polandspring88]

The idea to go to Iceland started with a Facebook post from one of my girlfriends friend's. She was gauging interest to see if anyone would be interested in going as this year was supposed to be fantastic for Aurora Borealis activity. So on a whim we decided to go. Why the hell not, given that our intention is to relocate to this year we thought it would check another item off the list and quell the wanderlust for a bit. The premise was simple, 6 days and nights in the land of fire and ice.

Flights were booked, condo was reserved, tours were arranged, and CrabJoe was kind enough to dog sit for our little monster. The trip almost didn't happen; a bad snow storm blew through the night we flew out and dumped 14" on the Boston area. Granted conditions were much the same when we landed in Keflavik, snow was blowing sideways in 35 mph gusts. Welcome to Iceland!

Not too much to report from the first day, we caught the shuttle to our home, unpacked, and slept for a few hours. I explored the place for a bit, enjoying the decor that was sourced solely from Ikea. Every. Single. Piece.

Our bedroom was one of the kid's rooms. It felt kind of odd sleeping with glow in the dark stars and moons lighting up the room.

We braved the cold and the wind that afternoon/evening and wandered around the city getting a feel of things. Considering that 2/3 the population of the country lives in the Reykjavik area it was amusing to realize you could walk across the city in 15 minutes. A few hours later found us at Iceland's most famous restaurant, the hot dog stand by the bay. The hot dogs were delicious, made of lamb with friend onions, and some weird sauces. Plowed down two of those and retired for the night, we were going on a glacier walk the next day.

Of course I mixed up our tours and instead of going for a glacier walk, we were supposed to ride horses and go caving that day. It was uh, a bit of a surprise, I had my full photo backpack and tripod. This was of course denied when it came time to ride the horses, I was forced to use nothing but the GoPro. After suiting up, donning helmets, and getting paired up with a horse, we set out among the lava fields.

The terrain was foreign, almost like another planet. Waves of lava rolled as far as the eye could see, scoured clean by the 45mph winds whipping across the landscape. Snow blew sideways and stung our faces as we trotted along.

Icelandic horses are unique and a great source of pride for the people. They are smaller than your typical horse with great flowing manes. They are like 50% horse, 50% donkey, and 50% lion. To preserve the uniqueness of the breed, they mandate that any horse that leaves the country may never return. No clothing or apparatus that has been in the presence of other livestock is allowed into the country for fear of disease and contamination of the breed's purity.

We spent the better part of two hours out and about, trotting along and enjoying the view. Unfortunately we didn't get to into their gait specific to the Icelandic horse, the tote (sp?) for much more than a few moments due to lame asses who didn't want to go fast.

We finished up the ride which was capped off by watching a guy in Calvin Klein dress shoes slip and fall in sh!t. I LOL'd at him. A quick lunch and we were ready to go caving.

 

[Pesqueeb]

 

[Polandspring88]

Our shuttle for that day was a lifted, 15 person cargo van on 33" studded mud tires. The driver was insane, which, come to find out was typical behavior. We beelined for the lava fields on some remote unpaved roads before finding ourselves unable to climb up a hill through a snowdrift. Luckily a super jeep was there to pack down the snow and our driver gassed it, fishtailing his way through.

We donned helmets and head lamps and made our way through the lava field and 50mph winds to the mouth of the cave. It had taken someone 3 hours to shovel out and as we descended into the bowels of the earth I couldn't help but think of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Nerd.

No pics from inside the caves, I was too busy taking video with the GoPro until I kicked a rock with my shin. MFer it hurt. Anyway, we had a blast in there, it was a really cool place. You could see where the magma had ripped through and melted the ceilings and the walls. If you looked closely you could see stalagmites (or stalagtites?) growing from the floor due to the gasses constantly being released. We spent the good part of an hour down there wandering around through the snow and ice. Somehow, after emerging, the wind was even stronger and you had to lean a bit to fight your way through the wind. The highlight of the trip back was getting the van high sided in a snowdrift and having everyone out pushing it. 15 minutes of shoveling and shoving later and we were on our way again.

Saturday = city day. Not many pretty pictures. Except for this one of the side of the church.

Sunday was our photo tour day. We hired a guide to take us all over creation to see some of the famous sights and, most importantly, see the northern lights. Being that I don't like to waste the day, I headed out early to take some sunrise pictures around the harbor and the famous viking boat sculpture.

Gorgeous.

The first half of our day was dedicated to the southern portion of Iceland, the itinerary bringing us to Skalandsfoss and Skogafoss waterfalls on our way to the black sand beaches. It was overcast and cold, a raw day, a black and white kinda day. Skogafoss was first up and it was big, and it was powerful. The water detonated on the ground and created its own environment. Mist froze to the sides of the cliff and shrouded the stream in a cloud.

We hung around for a bit before heading down to Vik for the black sand beaches. The waves are apparently sneaky and have a habit of grabbing unsuspecting tourists and ruining photo gear. I made sure to be vigilant but in the span of 20 minutes saw two people engulfed by waves. Silly people.

Right by the sea were some basalt columnar cliffs that were slowly crumbling into the sea. It is so cool to see perfectly formed geometrical patterns in nature, out on display.

To turn your eyes to the sea would reveal wind whipped spires rising out of the ocean. Constantly pounded by waves they take on grotesque, twisted shapes, standing like sentinels in the middle of the ocean.

And then we were off. Unfortunately we didn't have a whole lot of time to hang around on the beach if we were going to make it back into the interior and see the geysers before sunset.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

 

[kazlx]

Pretty sweet.

 

[valve bouncer]

Predicting this thread won't get anywhere near the amount of love it deserves but for my money it's great. Looking forward to some more pics.

 

[AngryMetalsmith]

Great pics. I really like the texture and pattern of the basalt cliffs one.

 

[Da Peach]

Pretty awesome. I'd like to go back in the "not november" months. It's pretty lunar, isn't it?

 

[ICEBALL585]

Cool story bro

 

[UNHrider]

Thanks for posting

 

[jackalope]

^^

That.

Keep'em coming.

 

[Polandspring88]

And back to our chariot we went!

We settled in for a 3 hour car ride to some of Iceland's famous geysers. It was kind of trippy heading up north, it was like heading into a different weather system. From overcast and gloomy to clear and sunny. First stop, the gas station! It was about the only place to grab something to eat, and our choices were limited to candy bars, cookies, or pretzels. It was probably my 10th candy bar of the trip, for some reason they lacked a whole lot of variety at the grocery store.

Anyway, the return trip was not uneventful as we were slated to stop at Skalandsfoss, another waterfall we had glimpsed on the way down. It is famous for having a trail that winds around the back, allowing the adventurous to traverse the opposite side, which, being winter, was a jumble of icy boulders. Not wanting to risk a tumble I played it safe and just shot from the less sketchy side. Much like Skogafoss the spray soaked the camera gear and it was difficult to keep water off the front element. Despite that I still managed to grab a few shots to show how cool this particular waterfall was.

And one up close artsy fartsy shot.

Back into the car, again, munch on a candy bar, again, and promptly pass out for the return trip. The nap was all well and good except for the fact that our driver saw no need to slow down for dips in the road. Let me tell you, being woken up with whiplash is not a good time, no matter what anyone says.

We reached the geysers just in time to catch the sunset and had a bit of time to wander around and soak up the sights (and warmth). As we walked the two minutes up the path, we learned about how the original geyser, which, according to her, was comparable to old faithful, had stopped erupting. This happened a few years back and the main attraction was now another geyser named Strokkur. It went off like clockwork every 10 minutes or so.

Ready.

Set.

GO!

The neat thing about this spot is it's private property. Whoever owns it has graciously allowed visitors to come see the geysers free of admission. It seemed like a foreign, yet welcomed concept.

On our way out, the setting sun slipped behind the adjacent mountains; its warm glow lighting up the nearby thermal pools.

We took refuge in the nearest, and probably only restaurant within 50 miles, and ordered up a bit of dinner while we waiting for the northern lights to come out. It was the oddest restaurant, I can only assume it gets busier in the summer time because its expansive dining hall was practically empty. I sat down with a pepperoni and cream cheese pizza and was mesmerized by the plethora of televisions which were all looping old footage showing Icelandic wrestling. It took a few minutes before we figured out what was going on, it really just looked like a glorified wedgie contest. Alas it as well is a source of national pride, so we kept our jokes and humor to ourselves.

With dinner over it was time to hit the road again, we were in search of the northern lights. As we drove through the darkness we were all looking out the windows trying to spot the first glimpse of the green halos. It was subtle at first and easily missed. It appeared as a faint green rainbow over the mountains in the distance. I almost didn't know we were seeing it blossom before our eyes, a fact that was confirmed by my camera's LCD. We all watched, mesmerized as it slowly crept up the horizon and began to fill the sky. The tendrils grew slowly towards the heavens, spreading out as they went.

It was near perfect except for the douche nozzle tour buses which sat there idling with their lights on. Seriously? We whipped out tripods and triggers, snapping pictures as quick as we could. According to our guide they can just disappear with no real warning, there's no telling what kind of show you will be treated to that evening. 45 minutes and a lot of excitement later and we were back on the road to Reykjavik as it was getting late. As we ventured through a darker, more remote section of the park the sky exploded with light as the green flames licked at the stars. We pulled over, again, and sat back to enjoy the show. I laid down in the middle of the road and just looked up to enjoy the show. It was spectacular, almost unbelievable. The waves floated across the sky, throwing arcs to one another and dancing around. Our guide said it was one of the best displays she had seen. There are few words to describe what we saw.

Satisfied, we packed up for real this time and headed home. It was bordering on midnight, we had burned through a tank of gas, and we still had to be up the early the next day to go on a glacier walk. I crawled into bed satisfied that the one thing I had wanted to see when we were on the trip had not only shown up, but it showed up in a magnificent fashion.

Stay tuned for another installment!

 

[Toshi]

 

[UNHrider]

Seconded. Would love to see the northern lights at some point.

 

[CBJ]

Nice Iceland is super cool. When I was there we rented our own lifted Land Rovers and drove around for a full day.

 

[NuMexJoe]

Thanks for the pics & words. Looking forward to more. I've got a 1-day layover in Reykjavik this July, and am excited about the possibilities of how to spend the day with my wife and daughter. Your Northern Lights experience was amazing!

 

[Polandspring88]

Our last full day there was actually my idea. I couldn't go to Iceland without experiencing some of the glaciers, so I convinced my lovely lady that it would be a good idea to go hike on a glacier and do some ice climbing. We booked the trip through arcticadventures.is, the same company we did the horse riding/lava caving through. It was 2.5 hours from Reykjavik to the glacier, and it was a pretty uneventful drive. Mostly because I slept the entire way, only waking up for the bacon wrapped hotdog we got at the gas station.

I think I was one of the only people who had ever strapped on crampons and used an ice axe before. We donned helmets and struck out on the glacier. It was a pretty leisurely stroll, a nice sunny day with a slight breeze.

As we made our way through the sea of ice our guides were looking for a vertical wall to set up on so we could all try ice climbing. There certainly weren't a shortage of opportunities, it seemed like there were walls everywhere.

And so it began! Admittedly I had done a bit of climbing before, once to be exact, and there was little more than a few 8 foot sections involved in that. It was more like steep slope ice climbing. But that's besides the point. I let everyone else go before me. Some people gave it their all and failed, some people just failed. A few made it to the top, but it was probably more because the guides were a bit generous on belay. After watching the majority of people scratch and chip the wall to pieces I roped up and got after it. Climbing the glacial ice was different from the ice in the northeast, it was more solid and brittle. It took a bit of swinging and kicking to get good purchase, but it was easy enough.

I scurried up to the top, slightly disappointed that we wouldn't get another opportunity. I was the last off the wall and we packed up shortly after that to venture up the glacier a bit further.

We wandered another another hour and a half or so before heading down. It was now 330 and we were ravenous. The sandwich they handed out was one of the most delicious sandwiches I have ever eaten. Mmm, ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, hard boiled egg, and garlic sauce on a cheesy bread. It was damned good.

On the way back we made another stop at Skogafoss. It was just as spectacular in the sun as it was in the gloom, just in a different way. The mist at the bottom generated its own rainbow and the lack of wind meant it was easier to get pictures without getting water on the front element. My girlfriend of course was obsessed with the horses and mandated that we go over and visit them. And we did for a little bit.

She stayed to play with the horses while I went off to see if I could another shot of the waterfall with its accompanying rainbow. And I did. Tada!

We had to hurry back to the bus as we were trying to get back into the city before 6pm. We were trying to a Christmas ornament and would barely make it. Oddly enough the bus we were riding in had a key card that was as they described it, a "big brother" device. If you passed by checkpoints too quickly or it detected speeds in excess of some pre-determined limit the vehicle would govern itself and check you. Not to mention you can get retroactive speeding tickets. It was a stark contrast from the first day from the first day when our driver was an absolute nut behind the wheel.

I will hand it to him, our driver did all that he could to get us to the Christmas shop in time. Alas fate worked against us and a road closure resulted in a two minute detour that sealed the deal. He even went the wrong way down a one way street in an attempt to get us there in time. No luck, the open sign flipped as we pulled up and that was the end of things.

So back to the apartment we went, it was our last night and we intended to make the most of it. I didn't even bother to change, I had a hot date with the hot dog stand and nothing was going to stand in my way. Four hot dogs later and I was done, there was no more that could fit into my stomach.

And so bed time came and I found myself reflecting on the impromptu trip we had put together. It had gone by in a blur, a great respite from the pressures of work. The Blue Lagoon was on tap for the next day, a relaxing trip to the geothermal pools to work out some sore muscles before catching a flight back home.

ONE MORE TO GO!