ICELAND

I was in Iceland from Feb 16th to Feb 20th and about 13 of us in Kathrine hired rentals cars and drove around the southern coast of Iceland on Ring Road. I had a lot of time to help plan the trip so it was awesome to see it come into fruition and I think everyone had a really great time. I was so exhausted by the end of it after driving hundreds on hundreds of kms but Iceland was unreal. I had no idea what to expect but it was totally unlike what I thought it would be. I could imagine the moon looking a lot like Iceland with its endless horizons and random topography changes.

Thursday, Feb 16th
We arrived at KEF, took out $$ (Katie took out $500 by accident), hit duty free, rented cars, and drove to Reykjavik. Reykjavik is a really cool city, very small and expensive, but it wasn't very commercialized, the homes were so colorful, and there was a ton of grafitti. We took the rest of the day to walk around the city. We parked at Tjornin lake, walked to city center, saw a huge concrete church called Hallgrimskirkja, walked by the old harbor and saw Harpa which is a huge concert hall with a really cool exterior, and walked through Old Harbour. We also hit Baejarins Bextu Pylsur, which is a cheap hot dog stand and apparently one of the best in Europe. I really wanted to hit some record stores but they were all closed by the time we got there. Afterwards, we did some grocery shopping, parked our car at Oddesson Hostel and walked through Grjotaborpio district back downtown to get a couple of beers at a sports bar. During Happy Hour, I spent $6.00 on a delicious Viking White Ale- it was so so good.

Friday, Feb 17th
We started our road trip early in the morning. We drove to Kerio, a red crater lake near Selfoss. The water in the crater is the water table so it's not fed by rain fall nor does it dry out. We walked around the rim of the crater and hiked down to it as well. It was beautiful with the deep turquoise water and red colored walls. We then proceeded to Geysir and Strokkur, a couple of geysirs. On the way, we ran into some really cute miniature horses that Iceland is known for and petted them. They were adorable. One of them blew a few times while we were there and the heat from the water warmed us all up. The ground was also really beautiful as the water was reflecting so many colors on the red rock. We then drove to Gullfoss. This waterfall is fed by Iceland's second biggest glacier called Langjokull and the water plummets down 32 meters in two stages. The waterfall was ginormous and it was so windy and so cold and we were all so uncomfortable and cold but it was epic. We then drove to Thingvellir national park and checked out Oxararfoss and walked around the national park and saw Althing, an open-air parliamentary assembly that met from 930 to 1798. There was also a church and adjacent farm, kind of forming a Viking Age pioneer community. Afterwards, we left for Vik to drive to Reynisfjara, a black sand beach. There were amazing basalt columns forming a cliff and the black pebbles were so dark during sunset. It felt like I was looking out into a black and white world. The waves at the beach were also so strong and formed huge waves. It was so beautiful. I thought I would see some puffins there but unfortunately none appeared from the water. We were so exhausted, cold, and wet from the day that we picked up dinner from a grocery store in Vik and drove to Hotel Drangshlid for the night. I posted in this Aurora Hunters Facebook group about the possibility of seeing lights but it was too cloudy. I bought Iceland's most domestic beer called Gull and tried it. I think I'll pass next time but something I learned was that beer was banned from Iceland until 1989 and grocery stores can only sell 2.5% so what's the point of drinking one. By the end of the day, we had probably drove around 300km or around 185 miles.

Saturday, Feb 18th
We left early in the morning for a 2 and a half hour drive to Skaftafell. On our way to Skaftafell, we stopped at Laufskalavaroa, a lava ridge covered in cairns.  People would stack cairns to send good luck. We then continued to Skaftafell and went for a beautiful 2 hour hike and saw some waterfalls, endless mountains, and a couple of glaciers, one of them being Skaftafellsjokull glacier. Our group split into two after the hike. One group going on a glacier cave tour and the other going to another glacier and nearby town. I joined the latter group and we drove to Jokulsarlon and saw incredible glacier formations. It kind of looked like the Titanic. We then drove to a small town of 2,000 people named Hofn. We got a langoustine sandwich, a type of lobster that Iceland is known for, from Hafnarbuoin. We walked around the fishing village and walked on the black beaches and climbed a cave to look at Vatnajokull (Iceland's biggest glacier). Of course I was on the look out for puffins but unfortunately didn't see any. We then drove to Hoffell Hot Tubs in Hoffell. These hot tubs are fed by geothermal water. We decided it was a good spot to come back to at night once everyone was there. We then met up with the group later in the day at Skyrhusid Guest House and drove back to the hot tubs. The hotel was even further east along the southern tip of Iceland. As it was so beautiful and clear that day we thought there would be chance of seeing the lights but no luck. We then went back to the hotel and passed out, knowing we had another long day the next day. The hotel had tons of yogurt so we ran through so much Skyr (so good, will buy in the states).

Sunday, Feb 19th
On Sunday, we left early in the morning for Skogafoss. This was another huge waterfall but it was pretty touristy so we weren't there for very long. We drove by a town called Skogar which has a population of 25 people. We then tried to drive to Thorsmork, a huge mountain, for a hike we wanted to do. This pass was a gravel road on the side of a volcano called Eyjafjallajokull. We were driving down this gravel road in our small European cars and then one car passed a sign that said 4x4 only as we had to drive through a river to get to the otherside. The car eventually realized it and reversed to turn around, accidentally falling off the side of the road. The tires got stuck in a ton of gravel and the car couldn't get traction but a Russian family in a huuuuge 4x4 passed us and was able to help us push it out of the gravel. We then proceeded to find another hike- which was my favorite part of the trip. We started walking up this river, eventually ending up in this slot canyon. It then turned into a really tight path where we had to hop across rocks to avoid ended up waist deep in the river. It turned out we were hiking up a waterfall. At one point we had to pull ourselves up with ropes and we made it to this beautiful waterfall. We were all soaking wet but so so mesmerized by the falls. We then climbed our way out the canyon and scaled the side of the volcano (eyjafjallajokull) and were just stunned by the views and mountain rivers. It was so beautiful and green. As we were all soaking wet, we eventually made it back to the cars and changed. We had a plan to see Seljalandsfoss, another waterfall, but we were so wet that we just drove back to Reykjavik back to Oddsson Hostel.  It was 7:30pm by the time we left to get dinner. A few of us went to this place called Saegreifinn for delicious seafood, vegetable and potato kebabs. This was the best seafood I ever had. I tried a red cod and it was so fresh and tasty. We then went to Dubliner for happy hour and got some wine. We walked back to the Hostel and crashed for our 3:30am wake up call to make it to KEF.

Monday, Feb 20th
It was an exhausting day but I can sum it up by saying my main activities were sleeping and eating. There was nothing more I wanted to do. I had no idea how tired I was but the driving, traveling, and planning really exhausted me.

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Although I didn't see the northern lights or puffins, I had such a great time exploring the country and would love to go back in the summertime. I'm really happy I went on it as it's not your typical European urban adventure and it really felt like I was on the moon. I only packed one sweatshirt and it was my Wisconsin grandpa sweatshirt so I like to think I was the first Wisconsin grandpa to land on the moon. I also liked how we rented cars instead of paying for tours because we were able to determine our own trip and weren't stuck with a huge tour group on a bus. If we were to drive directly on ring road from Reykjavik to Hofn (the furthest East we went) we covered around 560 miles round trip. I had a great time driving in km/hr but was very happy to return the car with everyone alive and no damage. I'm looking forward to going back to Iceland to find some puffins.