Day 8 - Back to Reykjavik

This morning we left our guesthouse around 8 am. Since it was a guest house breakfast wasn't included so I had some Cheerios in the car. We got back on ring road Hearding back towards Reykjavik. Our first stop was about two hours away at a small town called Bogarnes. There's not much in the town itself but we read that they have some good Icelandic hot dogs there. Im not really sure what's all in an Icelandic hot dog but they're really delicious! There's some sort of brown sauce on them that's sweet and there's also something in it that makes them chrunchy, I'll have to good it later but whatever it is, it's good!

Its a lot better than it looks I promise! And the best part was they're really inexpensive!

After eating in Bogarnes we headed to our next stop, Esja mountain. Esja mountain is about 30 minutes Reykjavik. It took us about 2 hours to climb all the way to the top, it was extremely steep! But once we made it up we had a great view of the city. 

A long hike up

View of Reykjavik from the peak. 

We were pretty exhausted after the hike so we drove to our guest house to shower and settle in. Our house was a quick 6 mile drive to the city center. 

When we got to the city we did some last minute shopping and then stopped at a small French restaurant on the main strip called Le Bistro. I had the beef bourguignon which was very good! (Also really expensive, but screw it it was our last night in Iceland!) to finish off the meal we ordered shots of Harkal and Brennivin. Brennivin is the local schnapps and Harkal is rotten (fermented) shark! The shark is rotten because it's a Greenland shark and they're meat is poisonous when it's fresh so what they do is ferment it and allow it to "rot "for 5-6 months. Needless to say it was absolutely disgusting!!! Might be one of the grossest things I've ever tried, it remakes of ammonia and was really chewy. After eating the few small pieces of Harkal we took the shot, which really didn't help to get the taste out! 

In order to cleanse our palettes we decided to hit up the local ice cream shop. I had a waffle cone with a scoop of gingerbread and brownie flavored ice cream. It was delicious!

Afterwards we made our way back to the guesthouse to get some sleep for our flight the next day. Today was a great way to end our trip. I'm sad to leave this beautiful country, but I can't wait to get back home to shave and do some laundry!

After a couple long flights I made it back to savannah safe and sound. Thanks for checking out my blog! We ended up driving over 1,500 miles and got to see an incredible amount of the beautiful Icelandic countryside. If you have any questions about the trip let me know! Stay tuned for my trip next month to Italy! 

Day 7 - Akureyri and Blondos

Today we slept in till around 8:30. Our hostel had breakfast but it didn't look like much so we walked over to another nearby hotel and ate there. The breakfast at the other hotel was on point! It was a buffet and they had everything. After eating we made ourselves sandwhiches for lunch (which btw has saved us easily over $100 a piece). 

After eating we walked around the town stopping at the church (which was designed by the same person as the one made in Reykjavik). We also walked through the botanical gardens which were nice. 

We didn't have much planned for today because there isn't much to see between this city and our next stop. We read online there was a good hike up the mountain nearby the city, but we drove around for at least a half hour trying to find where it started with no success. Feeling defeated we decided to go to the local bowling alley to play a game. The bowling alley was pretty cool and very small, it looked like an old greenhouse that had been converted into a bowling alley. 

The only problem was none of the balls fit my fingers! They were all too small. This made it difficult to play which was reflected in my final score of 80 something. After bowling we made are way to the local ice cream shop, Brynja, which had gotten great online reviews. The ice cream was delicious! Even though it was pretty cold outside. I had their version of a blizzard.

After ice cream we went to check out the local pool. We decided against swimming because it was way too cold out but it did look pretty fun. We got back for the city center and walked through some of the shops. We ended up stopping at a coffe place to try and plan out the end of our trip. 

Some eleves in the street

We had heard about some turf homes (basically homes with a grass roof) and a Christmas house that were supposed to be nearby but we had no luck finding them, today was just not our day. So we ended up driving tour next town, Blondos  it was about an hour drive to our guesthouse, which was about 15 miles down another gravel road always from the town. The house we were in was pretty cool though. It was two stories and had a spiral staircase. 

Staircase and living room of our house

After getting settled in we drove back into town for some food. We all ordered pizza, I went with Hawaiian. Now normally I'm not too picky but this pizza was just awful! It had no sauce on it whatsoever, just bread and cheese. After eating we made our way back to the house and made some hot chocolate and watched Harry Potter in the living room (it was one of the only movies on dvd worth watching) and then went to sleep. One more day in Iceland until I head home, here's hoping it's a good one!

Day 6 - Off-roading in the North

Today we got up around 7:30. Since we're staying at a guesthouse we didn't have any breakfast so we just ate some Cheerios and planned to stop somewhere on the road. 

Picture of our guesthouse. It was very nice and in the middle of nowhere. 

We got on the road and made our way towards Detifoss, which is the most powerful waterfall in all of Europe. Most of the drive there was smooth however when we were about 30km away the road became gravel and full of potholes! It was by far the worst road I've ever driven on and I'm honestly surprised/thankful our car stayed in one piece. After what seemed like forever on the awful road we finally arrived at Detifoss. We parked our car and after a short hike to the waterfall we were there. 

The waterfall was once again incredible. Another really cool thing was because it was so sunny, there was a super bright double rainbow coming out of the most from the waterfall. I don't have any pictures on my phone so check Facebook. 

After taking in the scenery for a few minutes we continued hiking upstream to another, much smaller waterfall called Selfiss.

After that we hiked back to the car and drove at least another 20km on the gravel road until it finally became normal again. It was around lunchtime at this point so we stopped to eat at the gas station. I had a cheeseburger and fries which was surprisingly good. 

After eating we drove a few minutes to a place called Asbrygi. It's somewhat difficult to explain but Asbrygi is a horseshoe shaped canyon and we were able to hike up the middle of it for about 3 miles and get some spectacular views. The other nice thing was there were absolutely no other tourists there. 

View of the canyon. Picture does not do it justice. It almost looks like the area in the movie Maze Runner. 

After hiking back to our car we continued on ring road to a town called Husavik. Husavik is on the coast and known it's whale watching tours (we decided not to do one since they were 3 hours long). After our short stop we made our way to Lake Mývatn. The lake was very picturesque and is actually where they filmed a lot of the scenes from the TV show Game of Thrones! Feeling exhausted we decided to stop at the nature baths. The nature baths are northern Ireland's version of the hot springs. The nature bath was very similar to the blue lagoon but one thing definitely stood out, it smelled strongly of sulfur. If you're not sure what that smells like its basically what rotten eggs smell like! Needles to say it Was an interesting experience. Another thing was the water made your skin feel kind of slimey (which I guess is good for you?). One nice thing was the baths had an awesome of the lake and sorounding mountains. Sorry no pictures in my phone!

After about an hour in the baths we got back to the car and drove a little further around the lake to a place called Dimmuborgir aka the gateway to hell. It was basically a small trail with all of these huge rock formations that had an end of the world sort of vibe to them. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures on my phone (I know I'm slacking). 

After seeing the gateway to hell we finished driving around the lake and headed towards our next stop, Akureyri. Akureyri is the biggest town in the north with just under 20,000 people. We checked in to our hostel and ended up eating at a nearby restaurant called Akureyri Fish and Chips. I got the fish and chips and a beer, the food was pretty good. We hung out for a little while and then went to sleep.

Day 5 - Glacier Duck Boat Tour and the East Fjords

We woke up and ate breakfast at hotel around 7:30. Weave some sandwiches again to eat for lunch. When we finished we got back on ring road again and headed toward Jökulsárlón, which is a glacial lagoon, to do a duck-boat tour. We got there around 10 and the next available tour wasn't until 11 so we walked to the nearby beach to check it out. The beach had black sand like the others but it also had chunks of ice that had washed up on shore from the glacier.

These mini icebergs were clod but fun to climb! We headed back after a half hour or so to catch our duck-boat tour of the lagoon. 

Our duck-boat

The tour was pretty cool, the lagoon was really large and had lots of huge icebergs! It flowed out to the sea which is why a lot of ice ended up on the shore. 

One interesting fact about the lagoon is the filmed parts of James Bond Die Another Day, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty here. After the tour we got back on the road. We stopped at a small town called Hofn on the coast to eat our lunch. We had a long drive ahead of us (over 3hours) so the plan was to stop at a few of the town on the way. The whole drive was along the coast through the east fjords. The views on the drive were absolutely spectacular. We stopped at a town called Djúpivogur to go to the bathroom and have a snack and beer. The place we are was called langabud museum cafe, it was really good. On our way out we drive by some famous statues of eggs called Eggin i Gledivi, they were pretty weird in all honesty. 

After our pit stop we continued driving on ring road heading toward our guest house which was near the town of Egilsstaðir. 

We ended up driving a little past our guesthouse to a town called Seyðisfjörður they actually filmed the scene in Walter Mitty where Ben Stiller longboards down a mountainous road. The drive the the city was awesome, I can't describe how cool the view was. Once in the town we ate at a restaurant called El Gorillo, I had the pork ribs which were delicious! I think it was by far the best place we've eaten so far and for a reasonable price!

Finally after dinner we made our way back to the guest house which is a secluded little house in the middle of this of this mountain, this landscape is insanely gorgeous! Tomorrow we make our way to a town called Akureyri. 

Day 4 - Skaftafell National Park

Today we had a buffet breakfast at the hostel around 7:30 and also made some sandwiches to save for lunch later. After packing up we got back in the road to continue our journey around the island.

The first stop we made was at Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon. We had to take a small gravel road filled with potholes for about a mile to get there but it was worth it! The canyon is 100m tall and 2 km wide. We hiked the trail up to the top of the canyon that had some very unique and amazing views of the sorounding landscape. 

Our next stop was at a small little town with less than 150 residents called Kirkjubæjarklaustur (I promise I'm not making that up!). The town was right off of ring road, which is the main road re goes all the way around Iceland (basically where we're going on our trip). Anyway in Kirkjubæjarklaustur there was another hike (about 4 miles) up to another waterfall, which, if you haven't realized yet, there a ton of in Iceland. The waterfall was fed by a large lake. The views from the top were amazing!

After the hike we drove another 40 minutes or so to the Skaftafell national park. The Skaftafell park is a part of the Vantajokull glacier which is the 3rd largest glacier in the world. The park itself had even more hiking. The first hike we did was to a really unique waterfall called Svartifoss. The waterfall was surrounded by lots of basalt rock formations which made it look really amazing. 

After hiking to the waterfall we continued up the mountain. The hike had great views of the glacier. Jake and max ended up getting tired so they stayed back and rested while I continued to hike. I was determined to make it to Kristínartindar, the peak of the mountain. The hike up was brutal and very steep! The rocks I was climbing to get to the top were all very loose and would fall as I moved. I'm pretty sure at this point I wasn't on any sort of trail but I could see the top so I just headed directly towards it. I didn't get quite to the top since it got too steep to climb by hand without risking falling, but I did get really high up in the ridge and the view was very rewarding. I was exhausted but of course I had to snap a quick selfie. 

I stayed on the ridge for a few minutes and then started to make my way back down to meet back up with jake and max. In total the hike up took about 3.5 hours to hike up and 1.5 to hike back down. 

In total today we hiked over 20 miles! Needless to say we were all exhausted! We headed to our hotel in the small town of Hoff. Our hotel had a hot tub and Suana which was perfect after our long day of hiking! Our room was actually a small little cottage, it was pretty nice. We headed to a nearby town for dinner. It was a buffet and actually wasn't too pricey. I had lamb and potatoes. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to sleep. 

Day 3 - Snowmbiling Myrdalsjokull Glacier

Today we woke up around 7. I had some Cheerios for breakfast and then packed and got on the road around 8. The first stop of the day was only about a half hour away at Seljalandsfoss waterfall. 

The water fall is approximately 200ft high and is unique in that there's a trail you can walk that goes behind the waterfall which offered some cool views. 

After the short hike around the falls we got back in the car and made are way to the base camp for snowmobiling. At the base camp we got all geared up: full jumpsuit, gloves, wool socks, hat, and helmet then got into a van with large off-roading wheels. The van took us on a 30 minute ride up to the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. 

After a brief explanation and safety briefing we got on our snowmobiles and followed our guide, Thor (Icelandic people have cool names), up the mountain. Luckily I was first in line behind our guide so I didn't have to worry about anyone going slow in front of me or getting in the way. The snowmobiles themselves were awesome! I was able to get up to around 77 km/hr (just under 50 mph). After about 40 min we stopped at the top of the glacier and Thor gave us an explanation of the glacier itself. It turns out the glacier is sitting on top of a massive volcano which is 50 years past due in its eruption! There is another smaller volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) on the glacier that erupted in 2010 and caused lots of airplanes to land and airports to shut down because of the huge ash clouds. We rode the snowmobiles back to the starting point and on the way back (near the end) two of the other people in our group had flipped their snowmobiles  on the side due to the angle of the hill, luckily no one was hurt! We then parked all the snowmobiles and took the van back to base camp. If I ever move somewhere colder I'm definitely trading my motorcycle for a snowmobile, they're so much fun!

We were back on the road around 12 and made our way to Skogafoss waterfall. Skogafoss was a fairly large waterfall, one of the largest in Iceland at 82 ft wide and 200 feet high. There was a cool trail you could hike up to the top of the falls and have great views of the waterfall and of the river that fed it. 

After the waterfall we went further east down the coast to Dyrhólaey was originally an island but became apart of the mainland after some volcanic eruptions. The cools things we saw at Dyrhólaey were the gigantic arch made of (hardened) lava, the black sand on the beach and the numerous little caves. 

Lava sea arch

Out on a rock getting smashed by waves

After Dyrhólaey we went a few miles farther east to another beach, Renusfajara beach. This beach also had black sand and caves, but what was unique about this beach was that it had large columnar basalt lava formations. These are basically squarish shapes rocks jutting up from the ground like columns. They looked incredible and were also very easy to climb. 

Columnar Basalt formations 

Black sand and a cave

Next we finally made our way to the coastal town of Vik and checked into our hostel.  Vik is a very small ( less than 300 residents) But also very beautiful town. After checking in we decided to vist the the local swimming pool. Swimming pools in Iceland are a big thing. They're a little different than the U.S. In that they are geothermal my heated so even though they're outside the pool is kept at a nice 85 degrees F. There was also a hot tub which was nice after a long day of hiking. 

After the pool we went to dinner, I had a steak sandwhich, which as usual was kinda pricey. We then made our way down to the local black sand beach at Vik and hung out there for a little. The views on the coast are just spectacular. When we returned to the hostel I was finally able to FaceTime with Rachel, which it was feat to she her and Chauncey, I miss them both a ton! Tomorrow we are going to Skaftafell national park for some more hiking!

Day 2 - The Golden Circle

Today we woke up around 7:30. I felt a lot better finally getting some rest. We ate breakfast in the hostel downstairs. I ended up getting a free breakfast because jake paid for 2 tickets but the guy accidentally gave him 3. Breakfast was a small buffet, I had toast and cereals and also made a to-go sandwhich to eat for lunch later. 

After eating we checked out of the hostel and got on the road to begin our tour of the golden circle. The golden circle is basically a popular tourist loop that goes to a couple main sites. 

The 1st stop we made was Þingvellir national park (Þ is pronounced like 'th'). The park is massive but we stopped right by the continental divide which is where two tectonic plates collide, it's also where  Icelands original parliament was founded. 

-Main lake in the national park

- In between the tectonic plates (they move ~1 inch farther apart each year)

The 2nd stop on the Golden circle loop was geothermally active valley of Haukadalur, which contains the geysers Geysir and Strokkur. Strokkur erupts approximately every 5-10 minutes shooting water 60-100 feet high! The other geyser Geysir (creative name) has been dormant for a long time. We were also able to climb a nearby hill to get some pretty cool views of Strokkur erupting. 

-Strokkur ready to erupt 

-View from a nearby hill

Unfortunately I don't have any of the cool photos/videos on my phone so you'll have to check Facebook. 

Our 3rd stop was Gulfoss waterfall. A short hike from the road, Gulfoss waterfall has an enormous amount of power with picturesque views of the Icelandic countryside. 

The picture really doesn't do it justice. 

Our 4th and final stop was Kerið crater. This is a pretty large crater with a small lake at the bottom. The crater was formed from the remnants a volcano and had really cool views. 

-view from the rim of the crater 

After the crater we drove about an hour to our airbnb in Hvolsvöllur. Where were staying is actually pretty cool it's on  a farm with a bunch of horses. The owner also has a pretty cool dog he uses to round up all the horses. 

For dinner we drove to the nearby town of Hella and ate at a restaurant on a river called Arhus. I had the fish and chips which was alright. Again the food was pretty expensive by U.S. Standards considering what it was. After dinner we stopped at the nearby store and picked up some breakfast and lunch food for tomorrow. 

All in all we drove almost 3 hours today but had incredible views of the country the whole way. Another weird thing about Iceland (at least in the summer) is the weather. The weather here comes and goes extremely fast. It must've changed between rainy and sunny at least 4 times. 

I'm really excited for tomorrow, we have a snowmobiling glacier trip planned!

Day 1 - Reykjavik & Blue Lagoon

Finally arrived in Reykjavic today! The flight was kinda rough and even though I drank the dream water I only got maybe an hour of sleep on the plane. The flight was delayed a little more than an hour so we didn't land until about 9:30 am. Getting through customs was the fastest I've ever seen and Jake was already at the airport waiting for us to get in. 

We left the airport and headed directly to the blue lagoon. The blue lagoon is a hot spring/spa and is one the the 25 wonders of the world. Unfortunately all the pictures I have of the lagoon are on my camera (since its waterproof), so check Facebook for them once I get back. The blue lagoon was awesome, it was like a giant pool sized hot tub. There was also a suana, steam room, and this stuff called silica mud that you put on your face which supposedly makes your skin nicer. The lagoon definitely hit the spot after a long day of travel. 

We left the blue lagoon around 12 and headed towards Reykjavic (about an hour drive). Reykjavic is the most populated city in Iceland where just over a third of the population lives, however it is a relatively tiny city compared to most in the U.S. With only 120,000 residents. On the way to our hostel we picked up some sandwiches from the local grocery store which were nothing to write about. 

After checking into our hostel we walked around then city. The first stop was the solfar statue.

It's a pretty cool statue, located in the waterfront, that looks like a Viking ship. Next stop we visited was Hallgrímskirkja church. Don't ask me how to pronounce that because I have absolutely no idea (most Icelandic words, street names, etc look like jibberish and I fail miserably trying to pronounce them!). 

As far as churches go this one was pretty interesting. We were able to go up to the top and get some good views of the city. 

Afterwards we walked around exploring some of the local shops and ending up near the city center. By this point I was running on 2 hours of sleep and beyond exhausted so we walked back to the hostel and took a little 2 hour nap. We got back up around 7pm and decided to grab some dinner at a nearby pizza place. One of Jakes good friends from high school happened to be in Iceland also so we met them for dinner. The pizza was pretty good, I had something similar to a BBQ chicken pizza. One thing about Iceland is the food prices are super expensive and you don't get much for it, I think the pizza cost me around $20 USD!

After dinner we all went on a "bar crawl" which we ended up only going to two bars. 

 

The first bar we went to was called skuli bar and had mostly craft beers. The second bar was actually a coffee shop on the first floor and a bar in the basement. They both had really a good atmosphere. At this point it was around midnight (even though it was still bright outside) and we were all about to pass out from lack of sleep. We made our way back to the hostel and quickly passed out. 

...I wish I could end there but at around 3:30 am we all woke up because of one of the guys in our 10 bed room was snoring ridiculously loud! Jake tried shaking him and yelling at him to wake him up, none of which worked haha. It was at least an hour before the guy finally stopped and thankfully I was able to fall back to sleep. 

En Route SAV - JFK - KEF

My 9 day adventure to Iceland started today. I left savannah around 12pm and got to JFK in New York around 2. The flight to New York was smooth with no problems the only things was my flight to Iceland didn't leave until 10:30pm! Which left me with over an 8 hour layover. I was not about to hang around the airport that long so luckily Phil, a good friend of mine from Purdue lives in New York and was free. I took the air tran to the subway and the subway to 42nd street in Manhattan. Overall the trip to downtown took approximately an hour and a half. Phil was still working when I got down town so I walked down to Times Square. 

After that I met up with Phil and we went to a local bar for some drinks and to catch up. After the bar we walked some more around the downtown area to Central Park. It was a good time and hopefully tired me out enough to be able to sleep on the flight. Around 7 I made my way to the subway to head back to the airport. It should've been a simple trip however I missed the stop where I was supposed to transfer to another train! I quickly realized my mistake and got off the train at the next stop and sprinted back. Luckily I gave myself enough time and was able to make it the rest of the way to the airport without a problem. Security at JFK was super quick and I got to my gate ~ an hour and a half ahead of time. I ended up stopping at a sandwich stop in the airport and getting a turkey bacon pannini which tasted pretty good. I also stopped and picked up 'dream water'. Which, if you don't know what that is, it's supposed to be the opposite of a 5 hour energy. So hopefully it'll knock me out and help me sleep on the overnight flight to Iceland! 

I hope it helps! Jake and John speak highly of it haha. Hopefully I'll be able to get another post in tomorrow night. 

Happy travels!