This post comes in at around 4000 words, so it took a while to write. I have a lot to say about Iceland apparently.
I’ll start by saying that I really want to go back to
Iceland. I absolutely loved it, and so far it has definitely been my favorite
place that I visited. The combination of the people and the amazing landscape
made it a fantastic experience, and I will definitely be going back soon.
Day 1
After waking up super-early in Oslo, I made my flight with
no complications or especially amusing things happening.
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| View out my (slightly dirty) window |
Passport control in
Reykjavik was quick, and after a short wait for my bags, I was ready to go. I
had booked a transfer from the airport to Reykjavik via the Blue Lagoon, so I
met the bus and hit the ground running. Well, OK, soaking not running. After a
bit of confusion getting started at the Lagoon, I wandered around for a little
while before actually getting in the water. There is an area with similarly
blue water with even more striking landscape and lava fields, and I walked
around that first.
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| The water isn't warm though! |
Then I rented a bathing suit and towel and went into the
lagoon. The water varied in temperature as I moved around, but most of the time
it was around the same temperature as a hot tub or something similar. A few
places were unpleasantly hot or cold, but most of the time it was very
comfortable. I smeared the silica mud on my face like a good tourist and swam
around looking like a ghost for 10 minutes, and I spent a while just relaxing
in the lagoon.
It’s really neat at first, but after a couple hours there wasn’t
much to keep me entertained, so I got out, showered, got my bags from the left
luggage, and realized that I had missed the bus transfer by about 10 minutes.
The next one wasn’t for another 2 hours, and I wasn’t about to waste 2 hours
just sitting there doing nothing. I managed to find another tour operator who
was willing to take me for only about 12 Euros, and 2 hours of my time was
worth way more than that, so I went for it. I have no idea if the other company
waited around for me at some point, but at least I made it into the city
without waiting for an absurd amount of time.
The driver dropped me off in front of Kex Hostel, where I
was staying for 5 nights. The hostel itself fell short on a few things, but
overall was pretty nice. My biggest gripe was the general facilities: The
lockers were too narrow to fit any sort of bags (they were basically school
lockers), they made a lot of noise, and the bathrooms weren't always the
cleanest. The other thing was that they had communal showers. I seriously felt
like I was back in 8th grade (that is, if I ever went to 8th grade, ha). The
hostel bar was located in the lobby which was nice, although it closed early
and was a major hangout spot for a lot of local Icelanders. While that’s neat
in theory, in practice it meant a mostly unwelcoming environment since very few
people at the bar were actually staying at the hostel. Despite that, I still
met some fantastic people who were a lot of fun to hang out with in the
evenings. I won’t write about them all (especially since it’s awkward
describing people I now have on Facebook), but they were great. I spent about 5
hours one night talking with one guy whose name I still don’t know, and since
he checked out the next morning, I probably won’t ever know. Such is the
problem with meeting people in hostels, but fortunately I have managed to keep in
touch with several of the people I met (remembering to ask their name is a good
start!)
Anyhow, I arrived at the hostel around 3:30pm instead of 5:30pm if I
had waited for my “real” bus to take me. Since I had paid extra for these two
hours, I figured I’d make the best of them… I dropped my bags in the room,
chatted with my roommate (a mid-20s Canadian guy running a
startup and living in Qatar who was a lot of fun – he was there for the same
amount of time as I was, although he had to switch rooms after a few days due
to his last-minute booking), and left the hostel to wander around downtown
Reykjavik. I started at the giant church at the highest point in the city, the Hallgrimskirkja. It is an
odd-looking building, believed to be modeled after an arrangement of basalt
columns similar to ones I saw the next day.
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| Complete with a statue of Leif Erikson! |
Architecturally it is very neat,
and the inside is rather barren. Since it is (by far) the tallest building in
Reykjavik though, I figured I’d go to the top since it was clear outside. The view
from the top is remarkable, especially on a clear day. I could see almost all
the way to the airport, as well as the entire city and surrounding area. It was well worth the small entry fee.
It was
a convenient way to get my bearings, and after I finished taking way too many
pictures, I headed down one of the shopping streets toward the water. Near the
harbor area there was a very modern-looking opera house with an entire glass
wall and all sorts of interesting interior architecture. In terms of modern architecture, this was one of my all-time favorite buildings. It has a really fun
feel to it, and I took a selfie in the ceiling.
Leaving the opera house, I
walked along with water until I was back to my hostel, passing the Sun Voyager sculpture.
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| Pretty good for self-timer! |
I then went up past the
hostel to the main shopping street to find dinner. Following Tripadvisor’s
rating, I opted for a Nepalese/Indian restaurant not far away. Since it was
still early I was the only person there, so I had the opportunity to chat with
the owner for a few minutes after ordering his suggestion of the Nepalese
Masala (A creamy curry with a lot of spices and a bit of honey). He moved to
Iceland about 20 years ago, and runs a fantastic restaurant with very
reasonable prices – Instead of advertising and trying various other methods to
get business, he lets the Tripadvisor reviews speak for themselves and lowers
the prices a bit. In any case, the food was among the best I have ever had, and
I returned two more times during my stay in Iceland. If you ever find yourself
in Reykjavik, definitely check it out – The name of the place is Kitchen
Eldhus. After I finished dinner, I went back to the hostel,
eventually going to bed fairly early after a very busy day.
Day 2
The next day I went
on the first of several guided tours around Iceland. Since I couldn’t rent a
car (too expensive, not old enough, etc), exploring Iceland via tour groups was
my best option. I went with GeoIceland, which runs smaller and more detailed
tours, and tried to schedule the tour so we could dodge the giant tour buses
which arrive and dump hundreds of people at each place. They did a great job,
and I actually had the same guide for both days – He was strict on times in
each place, but that allowed us to beat the big tour buses each time, making
for a far more enjoyable visit. My first day I did the South Coast and there
were a total of 12 people on the tour. The drive from Reykjavik to the far end
of the tour was about 3 hours, and we started there, working our way back
toward Reykjavik. We did stop once, near Mt. Hekla, often considered the
gateway to hell. Honestly, if this is hell then I need to work harder to make
sure I get there.
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| Mt. Hekla, due to erupt sometime soon! |
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| From the drive... |
The first official stop was the “Pebble Beach”, a beach-like
area on the coast with large pebbles instead of sand. Running alongside the
beach, there were giant basalt columns and other interesting geological
formations. It looked pretty clearly like the church in Reykjavik, and made
sense that the church was modeled after those basalt columns. When we arrived
we had the entire beach to ourselves, and as we were leaving, several of the
giant tour buses arrived. It was remarkable how different the beach seemed when
swarmed by people, and I was very glad we had avoided the madness.
We left the
beach and headed for a glacier where a few people were doing a glacier-walk. We
walked over some of the glacier and on an iceberg covered in volcanic ash. Most
of the grey and dark parts of the ice are not pollution; rather, they are ash
from recent volcanic eruptions.
There were a few areas of the iceberg that had
begun to melt, and I drank a bit of the water – It was supposedly clean and
safe, and volcanic ash probably has some vitamins or something. It turns out
sneakers are not the best footwear when walking on a glacier… Who would’ve
thought? Anyhow, I slipped and fell once and cut up my left knee a bit, but it
made for a good story later.
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| Vitamin V: Volcanic Ash |
We continued by visiting a huge waterfall. It was
possible to climb up to the top of the waterfall by going up 400+ stairs, so I
went for it. The view from the top was nice, and it was high enough to see a
lot of the surrounding area, although it was a bit cloudy. Climbing down the
stairs was a lot easier than climbing up, and after I reached the bottom, I
went up close to the waterfall, where I got very wet. Fortunately I had my
waterproof jacket on, but the rest of me was soaked.
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| Panorama approaching the waterfall -- Yes, those little tiny dots are people! |
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| At the top! |
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| At the bottom! |
After the waterfall we
stopped by a few traditional turf-houses and then stopped to feed some
Icelandic horses.
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| I don't know if the horse liked me, but it definitely liked the food I had |
After feeding the horses, we headed to another waterfall. This waterfall was a bit smaller, but the mist formed a nice
rainbow, and it was possible to walk behind
it. I got wet again, but it was a lot of fun. We stopped there for a while and
then headed back to Reykjavik after a very full day.
Back in Reykjavik, I went to a sub-par Greek restaurant (I should have gone to Kitchen Eldhus every night!) and spent a while hanging out at the hostel. I was pretty dead after the full day of sightseeing.
Day 3
The next day I had another tour with GeoIceland booked, and
this one was the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle route is extremely popular,
but we dodged most of the giant groups yet again. We started by visiting the
“Golden Waterfall”, Gullfoss. Since it was cloudy it was not very golden, but
it was still huge and awesome to walk around and watch.
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| I love panoramas |
Next we continued to the original Geysir. Although the
original one doesn’t erupt often anymore (due to pollution and other problems),
there were numerous other hot springs in the area with varying degrees of
eruptions. By far the biggest one was very close to the original Geysir, and it
erupted well over 100 feet into the air roughly every 5 minutes. I wandered
around some of the other hot springs as well, then settled in to watch the
bigger Geysir erupt a few times before getting lunch.
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| Geysir at work |
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| One of the calmer springs |
After lunch, we headed to Thingvellur national park, between
the North American and European tectonic plates. The natural landscape yet
again was spectacular, and it was possible to very clearly see the area between
the places. Apparently it was possible to snorkel or scuba dive there, but the
idea of a dry suit and extremely cold water didn’t seem all that appealing, even
though it would’ve been very cool.
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| Between the plates (and on a ledge) |
After a short hike up to the top and onto
the North American plate, past the place of the first “althing” held in 932, we
headed back to Reykjavik. Both tours were great, and although I’d have liked to
rent a car and explore everything at my own pace, this was still a very
reasonable alternative.
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| Icelandic Flag marking the site of the first althing, and North American plate in the background |
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| Thingvellur National Park |
Day 4
The next day was the craziest of them all – I went inside of
a volcano. After a 30-minute drive outside of Reykjavik, we got out at the edge
of a giant lava field. I had brought long pants and both my regular and
rainproof jacket, and they provided a bright yellow rain jacket to go along
with the others. With these three layers, I was still a bit cold, but once we
got started walking, it wasn’t bad. Although the weather in Reykjavik was sunny
and around 60 degrees with no wind, the weather here was drastically different
– It was 40 degrees, cloudy, and very windy (20-30MPH).
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| 3 layers, complete with radioactive yellow. I won't be winning any fashion awards, but at least I'm visible from space. |
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| The view getting off the bus |
The hike over the lava
field was roughly 1.5 miles, and only a small part was paved. The rest of the hike
was either on the lava itself, or on rocky pebble pathways with pieces of lava
occasionally jutting out. Since it had rained earlier in the day the hike was a
bit slippery, but with the wind at our backs, it was not too bad. It took around 45 minutes to reach the “base
camp”, and during the hike we again crossed between the European and North
American tectonic plates, although they were much closer together here.
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| Lava field, with the volcano in the background! |
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| 1.5 miles of this |
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| The gap between plates was a lot smaller here (here I am standing on the European plate) |
I was
part of the first group to reach the base camp area, so I was also in the first
group of 6 to go into the volcano. From the camp we walked up a steep hill
where it was even windier (30-35 MPH) and there were no guardrails over the
edges. After a few minutes we reached the entrance to the volcano with a small
window-washing lift to take us inside. With harnesses attached, we descended
into the volcano slowly, reaching the bottom about 5 minutes later. Since the
company that runs the tours is committed to impacting the environment of the
volcano as little as possible, the floor of the volcano is all lava rocks and
mud. Unlike the lava field outside, much of this lava is sharp and jagged, and
you have to climb over some of it to move around. There is also a chamber that
drops off another 80 meters further down with only a small rope to stop you
from falling. Of course I managed to fall very close to this area (again,
sneakers were not the best footwear for wet lava, surprise), and in my haste to
catch myself, I cut up my right knee and my wrist pretty badly. Later on when I
looked at my wrist, it looked as if I had tried to slit my wrist but had done
it the wrong way. My injuries notwithstanding, the volcano was spectacular. The
colors of the walls inside are vibrant, and looking up at the now-tiny hole in
the ceiling from where we entered provided perspective as to just how giant the
volcano actually was. Because of the lighting it was difficult to take many
good pictures, but suffice to say it was totally worth the cuts, bruises,
money, and effort of the hike to get there.
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| The small bridge leading to the lift where we entered the volcano |
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| Inside! The little light at the top is the hole in the volcano we entered from |
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| The cavern leading down another 80 meters |
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| Some of the colorful rock |
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| Non-selfie in the volcano! |
Since we were the first group into the volcano, we were also
the first group out (although I didn’t want to leave!) and when we came back
out, the weather had changed again dramatically… Now it was pouring rain with
even stronger winds (35-40MPH). We went back down to the base camp house (which
was now shaking a bit) and had some Icelandic meat soup and coffee while
waiting for the others to return. I didn’t realize how much I was bleeding from
my wrist until I got back to the base camp, where they washed it off and gave
me a tight waterproof bandage for my wrist. The waterproof part turned out to
be very important. Once everyone was back and had warmed up a bit, we headed
back across the lava field. Unfortunately the weather hadn’t improved, so we
were hiking back into the 30-40MPH wind and driving rain across slippery rocks
and mud. It was exhausting and took a lot longer to make it back to the end of
the lava field, but eventually we all made it back to the bus drenched from
head to toe. It was difficult enough to stay standing up that I didn't take any pictures, and besides, it was pouring rain, so my camera might not have liked that very much. Even having two supposedly waterproof jackets on didn’t help keep
my shirt dry. The bus came a few minutes later prepared with plastic coverings
for all the seats, and after a short ride we were back in downtown Reykjavik.
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| That mist is rain being blown around. It feels like little bullets when hitting your face. |
I needed to do laundry anyway and both my jackets were
soaking wet and dirty, so I put in a load of laundry at the hostel (rather, I
handed my clothes to a staff member in the laundry room because they don’t let
guests do their own laundry). I also had a problem with my shoes: They were
also drenched and muddy. After rinsing them, I asked if I could put my shoes in
the dryer (remember I only have one pair for the entire trip). I was told it
was “hostel policy” not to put anything in the dryer that hasn’t been in the
washer. So I started to put them in the washer, only to be told it was also
hostel policy not to put shoes in the washer. So I offered to wash my shoes by
hand and then put them in the dryer, and was told that it is also their policy
not to put hard objects in the dryer. After playing the world’s least fun (and
possibly wettest) game of 20 questions, the guy finally suggested putting my
shoes on the radiator to dry. I should have just used a hair-dryer, but that
didn’t occur to me for some reason until someone suggested it on Facebook. He
put them on the radiator (right above the sign that said not to put things on
the radiator), and I was confined to the hostel for a while – After all, I had
no shoes and no jackets. I met a few fun people while at the hostel which made
the wait far more bearable, and eventually around 10pm my laundry was finished
and my shoes were dry-ish. I went back to the Indian place for dinner and then
went out with a few people from the hostel. I used a hair-dryer to finish the
drying the next morning.
Day 5
The next day was my last day in Reykjavik and I didn’t have
much planned. I went around to a couple museums and visited the city hall. The
first museum I went to was a bit unusual: It contained an Icelandic longhouse
from the late 9th century and detailed Viking customs, history, and
achievements, as well as the archaeology surrounding the longhouse discovery.
The house is preserved in situ, which is just how I like it; I feel it’s far
more powerful to see things in their original resting spot rather than on
display at a museum… I know some objects must be removed for conservation, but
I’m strongly for preserving the original context of the object as much as
possible. I could go on about this for a while, but I don’t want to go too
off-topic. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, Finders Keepers by Craig Childs is a very interesting and
worthwhile read.
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| Some of the ruins of the longhouse |
Leaving the first museum, I went to the city hall and
surrounding area and watched people feed a variety of birds for a while (to be
perfectly honest, airplanes were flying overhead and I wanted to get a picture
of an Air Greenland plane which was supposed to land around while I was there,
but it wound up approaching on a different path due to weather).
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| Yes, the city hall is on/in the lake |
Although I missed
the Air Greenland flight, I found some smaller flying things to keep me entertained.
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| This guy made friends quickly |
I headed to the National Museum of Iceland where I spent a couple
hours before being kicked out at closing time. As I was leaving, I ran into one
of the people from the first tour I took – We were each other’s designated
photographers for the tour, and had spent a while talking as well. She was
headed to a nearby graveyard to wander around for a few minutes, so I joined
her and we spent an hour exploring the graveyard and talking. Strangely enough
I found myself in several more graveyards in the following few days, although
those weren’t as, um, enjoyable. After that, we walked back to the city center
where I ran into a few other people from the hostel and left her to do some
shopping and exploring. I wound up going out with a few people from the hostel
for my last night, and once it reached 2am I figured it would be silly to try
to sleep since I had to catch a bus to the airport at 5am, so I drank a lot of
water and went back to the hostel around 4am to pack my stuff and have some
coffee before leaving.
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| Giant Puffin at 3am, a couple hours before heading to the airport |
Final thoughts on Reykjavik:
Lodging: Kex Hostel – I met some great people at the hostel
and for me that made my stay worthwhile. The actual facilities of the hostel
and the staff working there were far from ideal however, and it’s a shame,
because they have the potential to be a fantastic hostel, especially given
their excellent location. The communal showers were a bit weird, the bathrooms
could have used more cleaning, and I’m still annoyed by the runaround I got
regarding my shoes. I would probably go back, but I hope some of the problems
will be improved upon since Kex has the opportunity to be a great place to
stay.
Duration: I spent 4 full days and one half-day in Reykjavik.
Of those days, I spent 3.5 of them outside of Reykjavik (during the day). The
city itself doesn’t have that much to do, and I spent a couple evenings
wandering around and only one full day of visiting museums and exploring. I
felt like I had seen all the “must-see” things in Reykjavik, but I really
enjoyed the atmosphere in the city, and I could have easily spent a few days
just relaxing there. Outside of Reykjavik, there is tons to see and do. Renting
a car and driving around Iceland via the Ring Road is definitely on my to-do
list, and that would probably take between 7-10 days. I could have easily done
at least 1 or 2 more daytrips from Reykjavik as well, if not more. I think 2
days in Reykjavik and 4 days day-tripping from Reykjavik would be about the
ideal amount of time to spend, although if it is possible to rent a car, I
heard great stories from everyone who had driven the Ring Road, and that should
take a minimum of a week to fully enjoy it.
TL;DR: Go to Iceland. Stay about a week. Leave Iceland
amazed and happy. Vow to go back soon.
Final note: Icelandair offers free stopovers in Reykjavik,
meaning that if you fly Icelandair to/from the US to/from Europe, you can spend
as long as you’d like in Reykjavik for no additional flight charge: The ticket
is priced the same whether you spend 2 hours or 2 weeks in Reykjavik.
Icelandair’s prices are generally competitive with most major airlines, and
being able to visit Iceland along the way is a great bonus. Their frequent
flyer program is practically worthless and they don’t have any partners to
credit their flights toward, but that isn’t really much of a consideration for just one
flight. Something to consider is that you don't have to fly Icelandair both ways: If you book a one-way on Icelandair, you can fly
back to the US (or Canada) with Norwegian or a few other airlines who don’t
charge extra for one-ways. Another option would be to book a roundtrip flight from Europe, leaving you with the same
problem of getting back home at a future date, but potentially saving hundreds
on a second trip to Europe depending on the situation (and time of year)
I’ll pick up with Scotland (and my adventure getting there
while running on no sleep) soon.
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