Iceland

After a red eye flight on Wednesday night, we arrived to Reykjavik, Iceland at 7AM on June 14...a bit travel weary and jet lagged. Since we couldn't check into our hostel until 2PM, we wandered the city, found a coffee shop and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, which still cost us almost $20 for a breakfast of chai tea lattes, a small bagel sandwich and a yogurt. Let's just say that Iceland is expensive - to put it mildly. That doesn't however take away from the beauty of this country, which we were soon to find.

Our first day in Iceland was mostly a travel recovery day, with a little bit of city sight seeing. There are only 300,000 people in Iceland, so the city isn't too overwhelming. For our time here, we decided the best use of our small budget would be to rent a car for a couple days and get out to see the natural beauty of the island. So, on Friday morning we picked up our little Yaris rental car and headed South East to the Skaftafell National Park that has the biggest glacier in Iceland. Pretty much every tourist that rents a car in Iceland has a Yaris, and we decided it might be appropriate to start calling tourists Yarists (including ourselves).

The landscape of this country is varied and quite amazing. We drove through lava fields and black sand deserts, rolling green hills and mountains, dramatic coastlines with cliff sides and unusual rock formations, rocky fields covered in whitish moss (that I personally thought looked like dead sheep piled on top of one another), and more. Sometimes you feel like you are on the moon, other times like you are in Ireland or in the Western plains of the USA. It was quite an interesting drive and we stopped often to take in the numerous crashing waterfalls, rocky and sandy beaches and look out points.

Our first night of camping was at the national park - in the rain. Luckily the rain cleared up not too long after we arrived, though it remained overcast until we left. We cooked in a covered BBQ area on a coal thingy we had bought at the gas station. Our pasta was a bit al dente, but edible, and we met some nice fellow campers from Germany, the Netherlands and the USA as we cooked. When we finally settled into our little two-man tent, we got out our travel backgammon set and went about figuring out how to play the game in a tiny little tent - we each won once. :)

The next morning, we got up and made PB&J sandwiches before setting off on a 4-hour hike in the park up towards a part of the glacier. I was initially reluctant considering the overcast weather and the good chance of rain, but with some coaxing from Eric, we were on our way. And we were both SO glad we decided to go because this hike has been one of the highlights of our trip so far. We started uphill through some brush and trees, passing along a waterfall and a nice stream. Once we got over the top, we began climbing down into a canyon of black rock and sand and through which a glacial river runs. On the far side of the canyon, you can walk right up to one part of the glacier. We had lunch by the river looking at a waterfall and eventually walked around the mountain we had climbed at the beginning and came back to our camp site.

We spent our second night of camping next to Geyser...after which supposedly all geysers in the world are named. We are not entirely sure if the word came from Iceland, but they at least claim it did. After a short excursion to a huge, pounding waterfall called Gulfoss, we came back to our campsite and made a make-shift BBQ using rocks on the grass to cook a dinner of scrambled eggs, toast and baked beans (we are quite glad we bought camp cookware!). We then wandered across the road to sit in a mineral hot tub - now this was luxury in our opinion. We crawled into our sleeping bags nice and warm that night.

Our final day in Iceland was spent back in Reykjavik. Lucky for us, it was their independence day so it was a very exciting day to be in the city. Our hostel, albeit slightly expensive by backpacker standards, was right downtown and was a great jumping off point to explore the festivities. Right when we arrived at the hostel, a local band came marching around the corner followed by tons of people to the town square. We followed them and listened to some of the speeches, but eventually we gave up since we couldn't understand a word. Three big stages were set up around the city and they had a bunch of different bands play. There was also a parade of old cars, a carnival for the kids during the day, many concession stands manned by the equivalent of girl and boy scouts that were selling hot dogs, cotton candy and other sweets.

Our favorite part of the day was sitting outside of a local pub people watching. After about 7PM, it was masses of teenagers all wearing the same basic outfit (despite the chilly weather of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit) - short mini-skirt with boots for the girls with way too much make-up, and tight "Euro" jeans for the boys with some funky hairdos. We felt like we were back in junior high cruising the mall! I guess some things are universal - like adolescence.

At one point of our evening, a local man called Johan joined us at our table while he smoked a cigarette. He is about 70 years old and an Icelandic seaman from the North, just come in off his boat for a couple week break. He has traveled around the world and even worked for an American company in Africa for a time. He eventually made his way back to Iceland because of his pride for the country and the long summer days (it never really gets dark here - it's bright even at 3AM and is quite confusing to a foreigner who is camping!). Johan told us about some of the Icelandic traditions and elaborated on their superstitions of elves and spirits. We went inside the pub to meet his wife, and as you can tell from the photo, she was not quite as friendly as old Johan.

Our next destination is Norway, where we are currently. More about our adventures here to come...stay tuned! Also, be sure to check out all our posted photos so far by clicking on the photo link on the right side of this page.