Touch down in the USA!

After our 4.5 month international adventure we are back in the good ole U. S. of A!

This morning we bid farewell to Anna Maria, our wonderful hostess in Iceland, before she went to work. Then we had the opportunity to explore the Perlan Museum. It had just opened a new exhibit so we were able to visit for only 1 krona each (less than 1 cent!). They have re-created an ice cave inside so we were able to go inside and explore as long as we wanted (although it was really cold in there!). Then we walked through the glacial exhibit which was really interesting. All in all very worthwhile, and it was hard to beat the price!

Then we went to get some food and started with some Valdis ice cream since hey, last day in Iceland! Then I got some ramen at a place I had spied earlier in our visit. It was good but couldn't touch the ramen in Japan!

Then we packed up and went to the airport. 8 hours later we landed in Chicago! Matt's parents picked us up and we'll stay with them tonight before heading to Madison tomorrow. 

For the next 36 hours we'll be visiting with friends and family and then we start the US portion of our trip. We'll be rushing to get to San Francisco by next Saturday for our friend's wedding. We'll update you as we go!

I published my Iceland summary so check it out!

Reykjadalur Hot Springs and Horse Rides

Our last full day in Iceland!

This morning we packed up our stuff and checked out of our hostel. We headed back towards Reykjavík and stopped at Reykjadalur along the way. It required about an hour hike each way (we did it in 45 min but we were hustling) and then you can find hot springs, mud pools, and a hot river which you can get in and enjoy! The hike was pretty easy but steep and narrow in some spots. There was also some horse manure since some people rent horses to ride up. But the hike was really pretty and the end reward was worth it! Towards the end of the hike you're walking among the hot springs and sometimes the steam is so thick you can hardly see in front of you. The hot spring pools are too hot to enter but then you come upon a river and which is the perfect temperature to soak in. The further upstream you go the hotter the water is. We found a nice empty area where the water was very comfortable so we soaked there and enjoyed the nature all around us. I wish we would've budgeted more time to spend there since it was so nice! But too soon we had to dry off and change. There aren't changing rooms there but they have built up walls for a bit of privacy and we each held a towel up on the open side to help. 

Near the end of the hike back down we were approached by a woman who had been following us and she asked if we were headed back towards Reykjavík because she needed a ride. Lucky for her we were, and we were happy to return the favor since we had just yesterday hitched a ride from someone. Her name was Denise and she was very friendly. Originally from Malaysia but now she lives in Oregon with her husband. We had a nice chat with her on the 40 minute drive back to the city where we dropped her off.

Then we had a 2pm horse ride tour with Íshestar which was really cool. We did the 2-hour Lava tour and really enjoyed it. When we arrived it was rainy so we geared up in all of their rain gear. But that was unnecessary; as soon as we started riding the weather cleared up for us! It turned in to a beautiful sunny day for a horse ride through the lava fields. I had really wanted to do a horse tour in Iceland because I wanted to experience the tölt gait which is unique to Icelandic horses. It is a smooth, four-beat gait which can be at various speeds. It was amazing to feel this! As soon as we sped up my horse naturally went into this gait and then it was so smooth to ride. I've never experienced that before. 

My horse's name sounded like Sentri but I'm sure that's not the correct spelling. He was an all-black horse. They had lots of beautiful horses! The group started pretty big but shortly into the tour they split us up into beginners that only wanted to walk and those that wanted to go a bit faster. Of course we went to the faster group. But almost everyone else went into the other group so our group ended up being only 6 people- and that included the two trainers. So that was really nice. We still mostly walked but we got to speed up several times which is when we got to experience the tölt. The guides were very friendly and informative so we learned a lot about the horses and the area during the tour.

After our tour we were still a bit early to check into our airbnb so we decided to go to Ikea which was right on the way. I'd never been to Ikea before so that was an experience! We obviously weren't looking to buy but we just strolled through quickly until our hostess was home. 

We're staying with Anna Maria at the same place we did at the start of our Iceland time. It was nice to come back to a familiar place and a friendly face for our last night. She also surprised us with dinner and wine! She baked langoustine, which are these small lobsters that Iceland is known for, with some bread and garlic butter and it was delicious! She said it was a common meal or appetizer around holidays so she wanted to share it with us. It was so nice!

Tomorrow we fly back to the states! I can't believe it's already over!

Íshestar sponsored our horse-riding tour but all thoughts and opinions are my own

Heimaey Island

We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves today since some of our plans fell through. We had hoped to go to Landmannalauger but that turned out to be more difficult that we anticipated (you really need a 4x4 vehicle to go on those roads). We had also originally hoped to go to Mælifell but quickly learned that that was nearly impossible.  But no worries, we found other things to do.

We started by going to Seljavallalaug which was built in 1923 and is one of the oldest pools in Iceland. It doesn't cost anything and it's surrounded by beautiful mountains and a river. But I have to say that the water is pretty slimy and gross so I didn't stay in there long. Also we had been forewarned that the changing rooms aren't the cleanest and to bring a plastic bag or something to stand on. 

After returning home for lunch we decided to go check out Heimaey Island. It's about 4 miles off the southern coast so we took a ferry there. We were lucky we looked at the ferry in advance online though because most of the time slots were full! So we could only go on the 5pm ferry and caught the last ferry back at 9pm. This gave us just over 3 hours on the island so we were rushing to get to all of the things. 

First we walked the length of the island (a little over an hour) to the peninsula which is where the puffin lookout is located. It is home to about 8 million puffins this time of year. When we got there we had to search around for a bit but we finally spotted the puffins down in the water. There were a ton of them out there but they were so far down it was difficult to differentiate them from just specks in the water, so that was a bit sad that we didn't get a better view of them. We ran into some people from Iowa there and chatted with them for a bit. It had been awhile since we had talked with some people from the Midwest!

We had to quickly turn around and start on the return journey in order to try to also see the volcano before our return ferry but then we got lucky. I had been trying to hitchhike ever since we got to the island since we were so pressed for time and finally someone picked us up! (Don't worry moms- I had read Iceland is the safest place for hitchhikers!). It was an older couple with their dog and they were very friendly and informative. They actually took a quick detour to show us the famous Elephant Rock which is a natural rock formation on the island and it was pretty cool. They also shared some anecdotes about their volcano experiences. When the Eldfell volcano (located on the island) erupted in 1973 it wiped out half the town and buried about 400 homes. In order to save the harbour (the town's main source of income) from lava there was an unprecedented effort to slow the lava by cooling it with seawater. It's pretty interesting to learn about so check out the Wikipedia article if you want to learn more. Also in 2010 when Eyjafjallajökull erupted on the mainland it coated the entire island in black ash and they spent weeks cleaning it up.

Anyway, then they dropped us off right at Eldfell volcano which is where we were trying to go. So huge success! I'd kinda always wanted to hitchhike so this seemed like the place to do it. And it saved us nearly 30 minutes! Also, once we started climbing up the volcano we ran back into the Iowa folks who were so surprised that we had caught back up with them. They had spent $50 for a taxi to get there! They were pretty jealous when we told them our story.

We quickly climbed to the top of the crater to take a peak inside, but it really just looked like a hole. If you climb to the top rim I expect you'd get some great views of the island but unfortunately we didn't have time for that.

So we made our way back to the ferry and home to eat a late dinner and settle in. Tomorrow is our last full day in Iceland! :/

Skaftafell

We covered a lot of ground today. We drove about 3 hours east to Skaftafell and Vatnajökull National Park. There are lots of great hiking trails though but we just did the shortest one to the Skaftafellsjökull glacier since we had a full day planned. It was slightly over an hour return trip with a nice easy walk and we got to go right up to the glacier and the small glacial lagoon there. It was really pretty with the glacier lodged between two jagged mountains.

Here's just a picture of some of the typical sights you see on HW 1. This is a tongue of the big Vatnajökull glacier.

Then we drove on a bit further until we got to Jökulsárlón which is a really cool glacial lagoon with a ton of icebergs in it. It's also now the deepest lake in Iceland. That area has been a setting for several Hollywood movies.

Then we started driving back west and stopped at Fjaðrárgljúfur. This was a neat canyon that we could walk along the top of and look down into it and see the river serpentining through. It had some really pretty views and was also a pretty easy walk.

We tried to stop and see the puffins at Dyrhólaey on the way back home but we never were able to see them. I'm not sure if we just weren't looking in the right place or if it was still too early in the day for them to be back from fishing. It had some great views of the coastline though.

Walking on Glaciers

Wow, another big day in Iceland!

Our big activity of the day was our glacier walk. So we drove to Sólheimajökull, which is what they call the "tongue" of the major ice cap called Mýrdalsjökull. They call it a tongue because it's the part of the glacier that is being pushed down in between the mountains. Each of the major glaciers in Iceland have several such tongues. This glacier is pretty unique (and glaciers in Iceland) because it covers an active volcano named Katla, which is overdue for an eruption! And because of it's proximity to the volcano the glacier has a lot of black volcanic ash in places. I don't think there are many places where you can hike on a glacier covering an active volcano!

We did our tour through Arcanum Glacier Tours. Our guide's name was Javier and he was great. There was only one other couple in our group which was really nice since we saw much larger groups walking around the glacier. The weather also shaped up for us; it didn't rain on us (except for 2 min in the very beginning) and the wind wasn't really blowing either. Javier told us that it rains there like 300 days a year so we got really lucky.

The tour was great! We started by putting on our safety equipment- harnesses, helmets, and crampons (spikes on our shoes). Then we walked up to the glacier and up we went! At first I was a bit hesitant walking on the ice since I tend to fall when walking on normal, horizontal ground. But it wasn't too bad once I got the hang of it. It was kinda fun stomping around in order to get the spikes planted each step.

We learned so much about glaciers while on our tour. There are so many crevices and holes formed by running meltwater or movements of the glacier (since it is sliding down a mountain). There were two tunnels that were big enough to climb through and one included a huge hole downwards; it looked like it would be a really fun waterslide. There were also little waterfalls and curvy streams on the glacier where the water would run. There were also varying sizes of black pyramids on the glacier. We learned this is caused by volcano ash collecting in the holes and crevices, which then insulates the ice underneath and therefore the surrounding ice melts faster than the ice protected by the ash so eventually the surface melts away creating the pyramids. It's also amazing how fast the ice is melting and how quickly the surface of the glacier changes. Our guide said that the surface had melted down about 5 ft in the last month!

It was so beautiful on the glacier with the tops of the mountains covered in green surrounding us. That was one of the perks of seeing the glacier during the summer. Also being able to see lots of the different geography of the ice surface since in the winter it's usually all covered up by snow. But now I feel like we need to come back and experience it in the winter as well since it sounds like it would be a totally different experience! Then everything is snow covered and the ice is clear blue since it's more dense. 

Here are some pictures:

Ready to walk on glaciers!

This was how our guide taught us to drink the glacier water. It was so delicious! 

The water cutting it's way down the ice:

Matt doing some glacier climbing:

There was a huge hole in the glacier. I asked how close we could go and our guide hooked up an ice anchor and hooked me up so I could look from the very edge! This was my view:

This is Matt peaking over the edge:

We had such a great time! I wasn't sure what to expect but honestly it was a lot more fun that I thought it would be. It helped that Javier was so knowledgeable and friendly. Highly recommend it and Arcanum Glacier Tours! They also rented boots to us which was very helpful since we only had tennis shoes. Boots are necessary when walking/climbing on glaciers! The weather was nice today so we didn't have to get too bundled up. I was probably overdressed with long underwear under my jeans and 4 (small) layers on top.

After a quick lunch we went to Sólheimasandur which is known as plane crash beach. The plane crashed in 1973 when a US Navy plane ran out of fuel and crash landed. Luckily everyone survived! It was about a 2-hour walk round trip but it was pretty cool to see. We were able to climb around and inside the plane to take all kinds of pictures. 

Then we went back to Seljalandsfoss waterfall (where we went yesterday) and this time we were prepared to get wet and go behind the falls. We definitely got wet but it was fun. We also found out from our glacier guide that there was another waterfall just 5 minutes away, Gljúfrafoss, and it's mostly hidden in a cave so we went to check that out as well. It was really pretty but difficult to see much of it. 

View from near the back of the waterfall:

Us after we got soaked behind the waterfall:

The hidden waterfall:

That was pretty much our day! We made it back to our hostel and ate dinner. Then we went for a walk around the farm with another guest here and used his drone to check around the surrounding area. That was pretty fun. 

Arcanum sponsored our glacier tour but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Rainy Waterfalls

Today was a bit of a slower day for us. We slept in and then checked out of our hostel. When we left the weather was deceptively clear and beautiful. But about 30 minutes into our drive it clouded up and then started raining, and proceeded to rain the rest of the day until we gave up and went to our next hostel. Then it cleared up again, of course.

We tried though. We drove first to Seljalandsfoss waterfall. It's a gorgeous waterfall and one of the unique things is that visitor's can walk behind it in a small cave. We opted not to do that today since we didn't want to get soaked at the beginning of our day. Instead we plan to go back when we're more prepared since it's only 20 min from where we are staying.

We were driving along and saw this building built right into the side of this huge rock! Pretty interesting.

Next we went to another waterfall, Skógafoss. This is one of the biggest waterfalls in the country and you can often see a single or double rainbow there on sunny days. But unfortunately, today was not one of those days. You can also hike up to the top of the waterfall but we decided not to do that either since it was raining pretty hard.

There were several other things we had planned for today but nixed due to the weather. So instead we drove down to a town called Vik to check that out and get some lunch and hopefully wait out the weather. We did find a nice place called Halldorskaffi to eat lunch and got some great garlic pizza, but the weather did not change during our meal. We were very close to one of the famous black sand beaches though, Reynisdrangar. Several years ago it was ranked one of the ten most beautiful non-tropical beaches in the world. It was pretty impressive looking, but again we only stayed out long enough to snap a picture and then we dove back into the car to avoid getting soaked.

So then we drove back to our hostel feeling a bit defeated. Our hostel is located on a beautiful remote farm. We're actually staying just a few minutes from the famous volcano, Eyjafjallajökull (trying saying that!)! It's the volcano that erupted in 2010 and released so much ash that it prevented flights in Europe for 6 days. We got settled in and then got some groceries for the next few days. 

That's all for today! Tomorrow we get to walk on a glacier!

Golden Circle and Snorkeling Silfra

Another big day for us today. We were sad to check out of our great airbnb in Reykjavik, but we'll be spending our last night there so that is nice.

We drove up to Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park and found where we were supposed to meet up with our snorkel group. The directions we had gotten from the company weren't very helpful so it was a bit of a challenge but we figured it out without too much difficulty. We did end up having to wait almost 30 minutes for others in the group to find it, so clearly they need to tune up their directions. We ended up booking our tour through a third-party called Iceland Advice, and the company that actually did the tour was Iceland Adventure Tours. We picked them because they were the cheapest we found and they also included pictures which is really nice since I no longer have an underwater camera. We were happy with them and after seeing how it works it seems like it wouldn't really matter who you went with since it should basically be the exact same.

After we had the whole group we drove the short distance to Silfra Fissure. It took quite awhile to get suited up since we snorkeled in dry suits. I had never used a dry suit before and it was kind of an experience all by itself. We were able to leave all of our clothes on, except for our shoes, and then put some warm overalls over our clothes as well. Then we put on the actual dry suit which included boots. It was pretty difficult to get on and we often needed help from the guides to yank everything into place. It had a tight seal around the wrists and throat which is what kept the water out. Then we wore wet suit hoods and gloves as well. 

Modeling (part of) the dry suit:

Once we were all suited up we went down towards the water and got in line, since there were other companies with groups as well. The guides had us spit into our masks since saliva is a natural de-fogger. Not to brag, but I'm a pro and the guide held mine up to show everyone how it should be done since most people didn't understand and were hardly spitting into their masks. Once it was our turn we got in the water and that was very strange; I'd never been in water before without getting wet or being able to feel the water. The only parts of our bodies that got wet were our hands and the exposed parts of our face. I never felt discomfort on my face, perhaps it numbed instantly, but halfway through my hands were hurting from the cold. That was the only issue though and otherwise I was toasty warm and dry which was pretty cool.

The actual snorkeling part was fantastic. The Silfra Fissure is a rift between the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian tectonic plate. The two plates drift about 2cm further apart each year. The water in Silfra is originally melted from a glacier and then filtered through lava rocks for 30-100 years so it's some of the clearest water in the world with visibility about 100 meters. It's also potable and our guides said they drink it all the time. So I had a sample while snorkeling because I wanted to taste what it was like; it was wonderfully refreshing and tasted great! Snorkeling was actually very relaxing as we gazed down into the fissure. There was a gentle current pushing us along so we really didn't have to swim or kick at all but just enjoyed the experience. The actual snorkeling took about 30 minutes.

Me reaching out to touch both of the tectonic plates!

Matt snorkeling in between the continental plates!

Once we got out and managed to wrangle out of the dry suits they served us hot chocolate and cookies which was much appreciated. It was so cool! Originally I had hoped to scuba in the fissure but I would've needed an extra certification in order to dive in the dry suit which would've cost time and mine, and additionally the dive itself would've cost about $500 more than the snorkel so that seemed ridiculous. Looking back I'm glad I didn't try to do that because I really don't see how scuba would've been any better than the snorkel. 

Then we went our separate ways from the group and Matt and I explored the immediate area for a bit. We walked over to Alþing (Althing) which was the site of the first parliament in the world, founded in year 930, and still held sessions until 1800. Then we walked over to Öxarárfoss waterfall. It was a really pretty area with lots to see and we didn't explore everything. 

Site of world's first parliament:

We had a quick lunch then drove off to explore the rest of the Golden Circle. Our first stop was to see the geysers. I had never seen a geyser before so that was really cool! There were several in that area and most notable is Geysir, which is what every other geyser in the world is named after. In Icelandic they actually call geysers something else but they named this specific one Geysir, and since that was one of the first known geysers now the rest of the world calls them "geysers". Pretty cool. Unfortunately Geysir doesn't erupt very often anymore, in fact it's been years since the last time, so we weren't able to see that one go. But nearby is also Strokkur which is extremely reliable and erupts every 6-10 minutes- even more frequently than Old Faithful! That was nice since we were there for about 12 minutes and got to see it erupt twice. Here's a video:

Our last stop of the day was Gullfoss waterfall which was gorgeous. It's an iconic waterfall in Iceland and one of the top tourist destinations. It plunges down in three steps for a total of 32 meters into a crevice. When you first see the waterfall you can't really see the crevice so it appears that the water just vanishes into the center of the Earth.

On the way to our hostel we stopped to take some pictures with these beautiful purple flowers we've seen all over Iceland. I love them!

Our hostel is really nice. It doesn't even feel much like a hostel but more like a B&B, except without the breakfast. We have a private room and the common living room is very open and light. There's a hot tub and beautiful scenery. There's a pizzeria right next door but not much else around. We really like it! We're only here for one night though. After making ourselves a cheap dinner we soaked in the hot tub for awhile and chatted with a mother/daughter from San Diego!