There are a couple things I really happen to like in this world …

• Scotch
• A good curry duck …
• Gondolas / Skycars
• Waterfalls

If you love waterfalls as much as I happen to … then the next place on your bucket list should be Iceland. The land of fire and ice has a couple great things about it

• Extreme landscapes with raging glacial rivers
• Vast sand deserts
• Simmering hot springs
• The cleanest air and tap water in the world (Probably some of the coldest tap water also)

however, you can’t really pass up looking at waterfalls in Iceland.

As you navigate the country on the Ring Road in your rental (and you really must rent a car in Iceland, even though it can be horrifically expensive … it is one place in the world, where it is completely worth it), you can see most waterfalls with a simple detour off the Ring Road.

As you drive from Reyjavik, your first waterfall stop will probably be :

1. Gullfoss.

I don’t know why it’s called the Golden Falls, but it is the most famous waterfall in Iceland because of its size, volume and accessibility – it is also by definition a major tourist spot.  The Hvita River, coming off the Langjökull Glacier, falls 32 meters into a deep canyon that is hidden by a wall of mist.

A safe walk way has been built for people to walk rightup to the falls, while at the top of the falls is another viewing deck where a different vantage point is available – I do love the fact that there aren’t a gazillion safety rails blocking you from the falls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcQwzDurYgY

2. Seljalandsfoss

Your next stop from the road will probably be Seljalandsfoss. Seljalandsfoss is another famous waterfalls – due to the fact that you can walk behind the falls with no issues whatsoever. Also it’s right by the ring road and you can see the falls from the road – how much more convenient, would you like your attractions and waterfalls?

Now you have two options for viewing this waterfall.

1. You can take the safe route and go see it in the day … this is understandable and you’ll enjoy yourself.
2. Or you can go the waterfalls in the darkest night at 2am with wind and freezing rain slapping you in the face and then traverse the trail that goes behind the waterfalls

Guess which option, I prefer? Obviously, excuse my pronunciation of the Seljalandsfoss – but I did manage to figure out how to say Kirkjubæjarklaustur (pronounced [ˈcʰɪrcjʏˌpaɪjarˌkʰlœɪstʏr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVaKAjsc0cU

 3. Skógafoss

Your next stop about 15 minutes down the road from Seljalandsfoss is Skógafoss. Again, super convenient and awesome … how much better can you get for a lazy Trinidadian. I want all my highlights quick and easy to get to – to hell with all this damn nature hiking and fresh air and clean water! The cliffs are a former coastline, much like Seljalandsfoss. Those cliffs, among other mountains, mark the borderline between the coastal lowlands and the highlands of Iceland – that’s a nice fact isn’t it?

Want another awesome fact : Skógarfoss is astonishingly white, just like everyone in Iceland!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5-8grbZQVo

Along the way, if you manage to get some sunshine (the weather can be notoriously fickle in Iceland), you run into random waterfalls just to grant you awesome pictures. Foss a Sidu (or more accurately Foss á Siðu, which literally means “waterfall at Siðu”) was a conspicuous waterfall as we drove along Southern Iceland along the Ring Road … and thankfully the sun made for a great picture.

4. Svartifoss

The first waterfall that we actually had to get out and do a bit of hiking was Svartifoss. You can see the people walking on the rock bridge in the distance.

Svartifoss was one of those memorable waterfalls thanks to hanging hexagonal basalt columns underlying it. While basalt columns aren’t anything new around waterfalls nor is this waterfall very big (it’s only 20m tall), it seems that the basalt columns on this waterfall are very pronounced.

Unlike Gullfoss, which I couldn’t figure the Golden Falls nickname … The name of the falls is translated into something like “black falls,” … it’s pretty easy to figure out the name. With the basalt columns, it looks like something from Star Trek …  but it is definitely another tourist haven. I really liked these falls …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhtTx0pGdTY

Driving along the Ring Road, you’ll continue to see more waterfall at the side of the road, again with very little hiking or walking. Litlanesfoss is shown below.

5. Barnafoss

Another one of my favorites is the little hike to see the children’s falls …

We did a little bit of a walk to reach this rapids flanked by lava walls and rocks. The walk probably takes around 20-30 minutes round trip.

I am missing two obvious waterfalls in Dettifoss and Goðafoss – the days we passed by those waterfalls, we had extremely bad weather … and it was pretty unfortunate, since those are also great lazy waterfalls.

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Post tags: iceland, Iceland’s favorite waterfalls, land of fire and ice, skogafoss waterfall iceland, svartifoss travel blog, waterfalls, waterfalls iceland travel blog, waterfalls in iceland, waterfalls of iceland

I can’t tell you how many people were tickled by our attempts to pronounce the name of this town. It was ridiculous and I think that while travelling through Iceland, the two trickiest town names that we tried were Kirkjubæjarklaustur and Höfn.
Trying to pronounce Höfn is like trying to inhale and speak at the same time, and there doesn’t seem to be a firm rule on how it should be pronounced. Its seriously pronounced like you hiccup and get startled at the sametime. Another blogger described pronouncing Höfn somewhere between “hep” and “hup”, with a glottal stop. I always wonder about how people come up with this stuff… the same question comes up when I think about the rotting shark dish : Hákarl or kæstur hákarl. Who exactly decided that they would eat this stuff??

I found a receipe on how to prepare “rotten” shark but the awesome thing about this webpage was the warning that you shouldn’t try this at home unless you know what the end product is supposed to taste like and that Putrefied shark can become spoiled. WHAT!?!?!? How can something that is rotting become more spoiled?? It is like a dead person being more dead – you dont have more than one type of “DEAD”. Dead is always dead! Yanno!!!

So quoting from http://www.simnet.is/gullis/jo/shark.htm

I read in a book that fresh shark is unsuitable for eating because there is uremic acid in the flesh. This I am inclined to believe, considering that cured shark smells like stagnant urine or ammonia. It has also been claimed that that there is cyanic acid in shark meat. Fresh shark meat is said to have caused people to vomit blood. The curing process removes the acid from the flesh and makes it easier to digest. Connoisseurs of strong cheese generally like cured shark on the first bite. Others find it to be an aquired taste…

Traditional method:
Take one large shark, gut and discard the innards, the cartilage and the head. Cut flesh into large pieces.Wash in running water to get all slime and blood off. Dig a large hole in coarse gravel, preferably down by the sea and far from the nearest inhabited house – this is to make sure the smell doesn’t bother anybody. Put in the shark pieces, and press them well together. It’s best to do this when the weather is fairly warm (but not hot), as it hastens the curing process. Cover with more gravel and put heavy rocks on top to press down. Leave for 6-7 weeks (in summer) to 2-3 months (in winter). During this time, fluid will drain from the shark flesh, and putrefication will set in. 

When the shark is soft and smells like ammonia, remove from the gravel, wash, and hang in a drying shack. This is a shack or shed with plenty of holes to let the wind in, but enough shade to prevent the sun from shining directly on the shark. Let it hang until it is firm and fairly dry: 2-4 months. Warm, windy and dry weather will hasten the process, while cold, damp and still weather will delay it.

Slice off the brown crust, cut the whitish flesh into small pieces and serve, preferably with a shot of ice-cold brennivín.
 
The modern method for curing shark relies on putting it into a large container with a drainage hole, and letting it cure as it does when buried in gravel.

Like seriously! Who figured this stuff out??? How does that first person figure out that they can eat this stuff??? It still amazes me!!! The Icelanders have a festival in which the goal is to eat the most crap. Its called Þorramatur and this consists of many different foods. The only thing in the list that I would even consider eating would be the dry bread.

It includes:

Kæstur hákarl, putrefied Greenland shark
Súrsaðir hrútspungar, the testicles of rams pressed in blocks, boiled and cured in lactic acid.
Svið, singed and boiled sheep heads, sometimes cured in lactic acid
Sviðasulta, head cheese or brawn made from svið, sometimes cured in lactic acid
Lifrarpylsa (liver sausage), a sausage made from the offal and liver of sheep kneaded with rye flour
Blóðmör (blood-fat; also known as slátur, meaning slaughter), a type of blood pudding, which is prepared like lifrarpylsa without the liver and adding blood.
Harðfiskur, wind-dried fish (often cod, haddock or seawolf), served with butter
Rúgbrauð (rye bread), traditional Icelandic rye bread
Hangikjot, (hung meat), smoked and boiled lamb or sheep meat
Lundabaggi, sheep’s loins wrapped in the meat from the sides, pressed and cured in lactic acid
Selshreifar, seal’s flippers cured in lactic acid

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Post tags: how do you pronounce Höfn, how do you pronounce Kirkjubæjarklaustur, What is Hákarl, What is kæstur hákarl

Jökulsárlón is the best known and the largest of a number of glacial lakes in Iceland. It is situated at the south end of the glacier Vatnajökull between Skaftafell National Park and Höfn. Appearing first only in 1934-1935, the lake grew from 7.9 km² in 1975 to at least 18 km² today because of heavy melting of the Icelandic glaciers. Approaching a depth of 200 m, Jökulsárlón is now probably the second deepest lake in Iceland.

Jökulsárlón is separated from the sea by only a short distance, and the combined action of the glacier, the river that empties from the lake, and the ocean may eventually transform it into an inlet of the sea. There are plans to prevent this from happening, since the only road in the area passes over the narrow isthmus.

After loving the icebergs, then it was back to the road again

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Post tags: how to get to Jökulsárlón, Icebergs in Jökulsárlón, Jökulsárlón, pictures of Jökulsárlón, pictures of Jökulsárlón icebergs, what to do in Jökulsárlón

So after heading past Myvatn… we decided that of course we would attempt the Western Fjords… but Myvatn is full of a lot of things to see…from awesome convection rainbows, mud volcanoes, real volcanoes, lava fields, dormant volcanoes with lakes in them….you get the idea… Iceland is a nature lover’s paradise, but definitely if you are into Volcanoes … Iceland is really one of the must go places in the world….

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Two days ago, our intrepid travellers braved the dangers and stupidity of crossing a slightly dried out river bed downstream from a glacier. I of course, fell into a nice little sinkhole but bravely jumped out and ensured no catastrophe, while Lev decided that Ice Caverns were his things, thinking he was a mountain barashka, hopping from boulder to boulder, realized that you couldn’t hop, if a boulder disappeared into the river. We passed test 1 of Iceland, which would be Glacier diving and falling!

Yesterday, we attempted the Super 4X4 relay, where an adventurer decided to go hard core off road driving, but in an attempt for Bonus points for the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, we decided that off roading was too tame for us, we would create our OWN road through foot high rocks, crevasses and soft mud with a Santa Fe Hyundai (Korean made) 4×4. This in the end left us with mild heart burn, took 4.5 yrs off our lives, when we realized that in doing this, we could destroy the axles and be stranded 50km at the end of nowhere with only some sheep and horses to keep us company. Oh yeah and how I could forget the gales… oh the lovely gales!!! In the end, we passed test 2 of Iceland, which would be exhibiting superior driving skills and not destroying the undercarriage of a vehicle.

Well today, since everything comes in 3′s, it was time for the Toyota Rock/Wind Challenge, where our intrepid explorers will attempt to sightsee across Myvatn and environs with Hydrogen Sulphide gas in their faces from mud volcanoes, climb volcanoes with 85 km/h winds whipping pebbles and stones at their skin and faces, walk across lava plains and sulphuric pits with -5C wind chills caused by the 85-100 km/h winds.

So today’s path will lead our explorers through the following terrain and areas of Iceland from Myvatn to Blondous. Take a look from the Center of the Map to see where  Myvatn is… and then we are heading to the end of the Map.

The Myvatn area looks like the following

Things to see and do in Myvatn would be on our list include:

• Höfði, where one-of-a-kind lava clusters rise out of the lake
• Dimmuborgir, where the interaction between the magnificent lava formations plays with the imagination. Dimmuborgir sports a lava formation that can be walked into and looks like a church dome
• Grjótagjá chasm is yet another wonder; it has an underground flow of hot water and can be explored on foot.
• Hverir are natural clay springs with boiling clay. They are quite a remarkable sight.
• The volcanic area Leirhnjúkur, which last erupted in 1984, is a breathtaking area where you can explore the lava fields and see how new life emerges in the fresh lava. This route has been called the “diamond route”. Trips to Herðubreiðarlindir and Askja with a stop in the great Drekagil canyon are also available. The astronauts involved in the lunar landings were trained in Drekagil before their historic voyages to the moon. These trips are available either in organised group trips in super jeeps or in a sightseeing flight (only available during the summer time). 
• Whale watching is offered from Húsavík and has become extremely popular. Since the whale watching started, 12 whale species have been spotted in Skjálfandaflói bay. There are various reasons for the good whale watching conditions in the bay, one of which is that a deep current runs through the bay, which is 755 feet deep at the most, relatively close to shore.
• Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall, and Jökulsárgljúfur national park within which you will find Ásbyrgi and Hljóðaklettar
• Herðubreið mountain, which is considered the queen of all Icelandic mountains and Askja mountain, which has Askja lake and Víti crater.

So this was the path today, yesterday we went to Dettifoss, but the high winds made viewing it quite tough, Lev and I walked down the path and within two minutes our pants were soaked from the high winds carrying the mist from the waterfalls. Dettifoss is quite the waterfall, but having seen so may waterfalls here in Iceland, it kinda just looked like another of all the others. It is quite the huge waterfall though.. it is the most powerful in terms of Volume in Europe. The roar is quite loud!!! Due to its size and the canyon it comes down from, you can walk right down to the bottom like most of the other waterfalls.

So really our day started with two things, the Hverfjall Volcano Crater

If you look closely in this picture at the center of the road, you can see a white dot .. that is our trusty 4X4… but this was the first part of the challenge, since the winds and pebbles taken by the wind served to hinder us… not just hinder us, but smack us around ..literally… Lev has a video of his hat and everything being taken off by the winds.

and back to the mud/clay volcanoes at Hverir…. but anyway .. time to head out back on the road <to be continued>

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Well it is about 8.21am now, and we are greeted by some gale force winds, so the travel plan for today is to head from Thorshofn to Fontur, then to Mvatyn then Akureyri.

The point on the map at Hraunhafnartangi is the Northern most point over here and is into the Arctic Circle…. so we’re kinda excited at that…. the official description is the following:

Langanes is a large and long peninsula to the east of the Thistilfiord Bay. The undulating landscape, 200-400 m high, gradually narrows to a sharp point called Fontur. The highest mountain, Mt. Gunnolfsvikurfjall, dominates the landscape on the Gunnolf’s Cove. On top of Mt Heidarfjall the NATO forces built a radar station, and operated it between 1954 and 1968. Its ruins commemorate Iceland’s part in the history of the Cold War period.  Another radar facility was built there and started operation in 1989.  The coastline was dotted with fishing outfits in the past and the biggest concentration was Skalar, where a hamlet of 117 people developed. During the fishing season, some 60-70 open fishing boat were operated from there. The harbour there also became important for the rapidly growing trade, but because of the modernization of the fishing industry and difficult communications, all farms and fishing outfits were abandoned.Two ocean currents, the Gulf Stream, and a mixture of a small branch of the Gulf Stream and the East Greenland Stream (Irminger Stream) meet off the east coast and create excellent conditions for all kinds of fish species and consequently very good fishing grounds. No one lives on Langanes any more. A 4wd track lies all the way to the utmost point of the peninsula. The weather conditions usually are windy and humid, but there are always fine days in-between.

 

So the morning is clearing up nicely after all these gale force winds really…and onwards North we go….

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This should be watchwords for everyone… regardless of circumstances, but today on day 6 of the Icelandic Express passing through. Getting out of the house this morning was something else, especially since blogging for two hours since 6.15am. So on the way to Fontur, the road is quite rough but we thought hey this car is a 4X4 and it should make this road with no issues… well we did make the road with no issues aside from a blown fuse for the cooling fan which caused the engine to overheat but we saw it and flipped a fuse and we were good to go.

It was windy as hell yesterday and going to the end of nowhere in Iceland, since Fontur is the most northeastern point of Iceland, off the Ring road and truly off the beaten path, it is kinda scary in someways. If you shut down or anything happens to you out there, you are pretty much SOL until someone comes by, which could be in an hour or 5 days. However is it beautiful out there and there is something enchanting about there being nothing between you and the North Pole except the Greenland Sea.

The wind was that strong that I could try to fall over and the wind would keep me upright!

Hanging over the cliffs at Fontur when there is nothing separating you from the wildness of the Ocean and the North Pole, it is truly an exhilararing experience. The waters were so rough….

This is the direction were heading into…. to the END of Iceland!!

Just so one has some context of where in Iceland we were… I love the big wheel Icon of the 4X4

The cliffs and the water combined for a truly surreal experience out there….

However leaving all of this and heading down a road that doesnt exist on your GPS… well it did exist on the GPS, but it didnt exist in reality… maybe not such a good idea…..so of course we decided to take the road less travelled… BY ANYONE…. and then for the next hour and half, proceeded to pray to someone that our car would not break an axle, get a flat, overheat or generally shut down at the edge of nowhere!

The rocks on the road were “Yay high” and after bashing the crappiness of the SUV in terms of our A/C shutting down earlier in the trip, we were petting good old 4X4 and praising her for getting our asses out of a tight bind. I can’t really convey how tense that 90 mins was to us, since it wasn’t the fear of the car breaking down, but rather the consequences of breaking on the End of nowhere…..our contingency plans included

• Breaking into the lighthouse for shelter if we stalled… although it was now 10 km away
• Breaking into a farmland stable which was about 4km away
• Jogging in a 40mile headwind to the only campers we saw on the way… about 30km away
• Waiting in the SUV till help arrived

Thankfully none of those scenarios played out….. but everytime we hit a rock or spring, or the axle crashed into a rock, there was palpable wincing and pain in the car. I grimaced to the point, I had to get out of the car to help guide Lev over rocks, but also not to hear the car creak and groan!!!

Lesson for this trip : Go back the same damn way you came! Even though Trinidadians invented everything, we have our limits at inventing roads from nothing!!

So after that experience, we were just glad to get back to the main dirt road … at which point we happened to see some Sheep Shearing…

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Sept 16th 10.20 pm IST: One of the great things about travelling is that you are always … and I mean always surprised by something during the trip. Trinidad used to be a place, a long time ago… long long time ago, where people wouldn’t lock their doors, they weren’t behind huge metal fences, and didn’t have to worry about someone trying to kidnap them if they had visible money. Well tonight, we ended up in a nice little town of Thorshofn, (North East, Iceland). It is a small fishing village that also serves the surrounding rural farming area. It is probably the best place in Iceland to experience what it is like to live in an isolated village almost 60 miles, 100 km from the next village. Around 400 people live in the village itself.

Well when we got in after a long long day of driving up the east coast and through North East Iceland, we ended up in Hotel Jorvik. Completely randomly, just like yesterday’s hotel/homestay…so we call the number listed and we get this guy who tells us to call another number. BTW we are in front of Hotel Jorvik when we call, after walking inside and looking around for anyone… yes the front door was unlocked! No one inside… we call the second number and nice old lady answers, she gives us a rate of 6900ISK for the night and that was that.

Oh yeah! One thing… she said she was outside and couldn’t come home, if we could make ourselves at home, and she would be back in the morning to collect payment. To describe Hotel Jorvik… it is a lovely house with very tidy, comfortable rooms downstairs and upstairs. It is not a hotel but rather the woman’s house with guestrooms. Her fridge had tons of food, wireless internet and comfy couches to do my thing! Her door was never locked, and there were no locks on any of the doors in the house…..this woman basically let her walk in, stay, and trusted us to pay her – sight unknown!!

(Update: 8am on Wednesday – Day 6 – She came by last night for 10 minutes to collect cash, and then left….we were again all alone in this house with all her things….it blows my mind! Oh yeah, did I mention I actually felll asleep with our room door open and the front door to this house unlocked and my laptop behind upstairs; it was on all night so I could upload as many pictures as I could on the 8kbps internet!). I don’t think I have ever done that in a strange place before…. no matter how remote.

And the food in the town, there is one bar, that serves as the local watering hole here….Liverpool was playing Marselles. Easily the best meal we have had in Iceland. One of the things when you travel the road, is that you become accustomed to the conditions, so that we eat candy and sandwiches while on the road, but you miss the creature comforts of home and “familiar” food, like Pho, Curry, Cheap Chinese, Sushi, Arabic food, etc …. but today we had some of the freshest halibut, trout and shrimp you could imagine; washed down by some good Icelandic beer.

Side note: When you go a bar, and order 4 pints, Fish & Chips, Fried Shrimp in Sweet and Sour Rice dish, Grilled Halibut with Potatoes, and Local Clam chowder, you expect a hefty bill. But in Iceland, a bill of 9300ISK, is a reasonable one. When considering the seafood in Hofn, cost us around the same price, and I need to eat 3 more meals after that dinner to feel full, Thorsofn feels like a god damn bargain. Again, I’ll reiterate, anyone coming to Iceland, make sure most of your money is on a credit card (Visa or Mastercard..since AMEX won’t get you far in the country)

Sept 16th 5.20 pm IST: Well it has been a long long day of driving from Hofn to Thorshofn.

So going from Hofn, there aren’t many huge landmarks to see but the driving is spectacular and there are many quaint old towns to see. Now in a country of 300,000 people, where 2/3 of them live in the capital, you expect some tiny towns but small villages in Trinidad would metropolises over…. a town can be a group of 4 houses!!!

So the morning part of the journey consisted of the following path through the Eastfjords…

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full travelogue to follow but random thoughts so far

• The same way Americans have Mexicans in the US to do certain things for them, I have decided that I must find each countries version of Mexicans, hence:
  • The Polish are the Mexicans of Iceland
  • The Guyanese are the Mexicans of Trinidad
  • The Indians are the Mexicans of Germany
  • The Algerians are the Mexicans of France
  • And Mexicans are the Mexicans of the US ….. more Mexicanisms to follow
  • Oh yeah, Quebecers are the Mexican-ts of Canada
  • <updated Sept 2010> Nicaraguans are the Mexicans of Panama
  • Colombians are the Thai hookers of Central America and the Caribbean (I couldn’t even lump them into the Mexican category)
  • Moroccans and Algerians are the Mexicans of Spain
  • Moroccans don’t have Mexicans … they do have Berbers but that doesn’t count.
• Stupidest question of this year:
  • Lev and I have just come off a glacier..where I almost died in a sinkhole. We are going into our 4X4 when a bunch of girls in a car pull up next to us and the following conversation takes place. Note that you have to drive 7 km offroad on a dirt road to get to this place.
    • Girls: Hi there.. how are you guys
    • Lev: We’re good <insert random useless chatter> / Rishi is trying not to die from sinkholes
    • Girls: Well guys, do you guys know if there is a store up there ???<points up to the fucking glacier… like the middle of the glacier>
    • Lev: Yeah there is a Wal-Mart up there
    • Rishi: Yeah next to the fricking Target… like what you seriously expect up here, dumbass???
• Icelanders really have only fish and lamb and nothing else worth eating. Pretty much anything else is shit! Don’t think this is true….??? Try eating any fast food here… if you have eaten it somewhere else!! Come to Iceland for the wonder and beauty… do not come for food!! Bring your own
• I have seen so many waterfalls, I am now so waterfalled out..its disgusting!! All waterfalls here are amazing, of course when you have a massive set of glaciers feeding all these glacier… after a while, you just expect a great waterfall to be around the corner. In South Iceland… gorgeous waterfalls are always around the corner?
  Being in Iceland is like being in reverse Spanish Harlem, you expect everything to be amazing here.. the same way you expect to shit in Spanish Harlem.
• You want to confuse an Icelander… ask for a bag of Ice!!!
  Seriously if you want to completely confuse them, ask for a bag of ice. They will ask you if you want ice cream, ice tea, ice smoothie, soft serve ice cream, but they cannot comprehend why you can want a bag of ice. Ironic…. you can’t find a bag of Ice in Ice-fricking-land!!
• Anyway those are my random thoughts for today… will blog and upload later.

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So after the adventure of last night with the lighting and scaling of the falls… we were both pretty hyped up for today going down South Iceland. My first priority was really get back to Seljalandsfoss to take some photos by day, since we were so blown away at night. Now one of the great thing about travelling is that you sometimes meet some very extraordinary people who all have their own personal missions and philosophies about travelling. In the hostel, this morning while I was uploading last night’s pictures, there was this bunch of elderly people; and by elderly I would say their ranges were from 60-72. They were cycling across Iceland!!!

What?!? You might ask, but yes… these were very sprightly people who were enjoying their retirements by cycling over Iceland. I could only listen in amazement, as they told us their stories. The funny thing is the disgust I felt at myself after hearing stories of cycling across Canada and all over, and here I was finding it so hard to just get out of bed sometimes….. meh! Anyway, after the knowledge download and swapping of information, we were off to Seljalandsfoss.

South Iceland is known for the beaches and the rock formations throughout as well as for tons of waterfalls.

Side note:
Iceland is definitely one of the most expensive places I have been. I keep repeating it, but it truly doesn’t sink in here, until you see that it costs about 120$ to fill up your gas tank. Yep! So in addition to our rental.. which was a steal at 1100$ CDN, the gas for the trip would be about the same as the rental… unreal… so just having the car and transport would be about 2200$ CDN for the entire trip. So readers and travellers, just be prepared for some serious sticker shock here. That being said, after 3 days of Iceland, with stunning vistas, idyllic scenes, bizarre rock formations, translucent Ice Caverns and clean pure glacial water in my bottles, it is worth every penny so far. While I haven’t “knocked” off any personal goals on this trip so far, in terms of my Hillman’s wonders… Iceland is one hell of a gorgeous country! And so plesantly free of the tourist humdrum that infects the other parts of the world.

The town of Vik is nicely situated between mountains, sea cliffs and gorgeous black sand beaches. The main sight to see in Vik is the Reynisdrangar, which are these huge spiky basalt sea stacks, created by the erosion of soft base rock. The photography is absolutely lovely in this part of South Iceland.

So this morning we hit up Reynisdrangar.

Reynisdrangar are basalt sea stacks situated under the mountain Reynisfjall near the village Vík í Mýrdal, southern Iceland.

…..

So after the peninsula, we ended up in Skógafoss. Skógafoss is one of the biggest and most beautiful waterfalls of the country with a width of 25 meters and a drop of 60 meters. Due to the amount of spray the waterfall consistently produces, a single or double rainbow was visible, even on this cloudy day. According to legend, the first Viking settler in the area, Þrasi Þórólfsson, buried a treasure in a cave behind the waterfall. A local boy found the chest years later, but was only able to grasp the ring on the side of the chest before it disappeared again.

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So after Skogafoss… we finally decided to head back to Sejalandsfoss

And of course the flood plain lower down from the valley

So after the falls… we decided that we needed to see a glacier. Now where was the nearest glacier … something we saw on the way to the falls.. so we decided to make a 6 km drive inside to the nearest glacier. Mýrdalsjökull was the nearest one for us……now Lev is below trying to eat a piece of old ice….

Now in the following picture… one might see an ice cavern in the middle of the picture….

Well Lev decided that he would bypass the organized tour of people and drag me along across a flood plain and river to see the Ice Cavern. Things that Trinidadians don’t know about….

• Trinidadians have no experience with f-ing glaciers
• Trinidadians don’t really know what a glacier is, unless it is some kind of Vodka
• Trinidadians don’t truly know about Sinkholes in Glacier Flood plains
• This Trinidadian is about 251 lbs right now and this weight does not mix well with unstable sinkholes

I didn’t know that walking across flood plains with Lev, with rain falling, was a bad idea. Of course Lev, skips over cracks and crevasses…. while I am simply walking and all of a sudden, my left leg sinks knee deep into the ground and the rest of me starts sinking!! Oh yeah!!

Guess what happened??? All that lack of knowledge about flood plains and don’t be an idiot and walk across them, well I foolishly didn’t pay attention to the tour guides avoiding walking on the plain! Obviously, I’m blogging today and I wasn’t sucked into a sinkhole and crevasse, but it was truly scary stuff…. since I had no sure footing and I did sink very quickly.

After that sinking, I was careful to the point, that I just stopped hiking and went back to the car.. or tried to!! Being scared like that.. makes you walk really slowly! Meanwhile, this was Lev’s response to my near death experience!

So after the hiking through the cliffs at Fjallaskalar, it was absolutely gorgeous with these stunning bluffs and cliffs. We decided that we wouldn’t head to Hohn since it was late in the day and we ended up here in Kirkjubaejarklaustur.

So we go to local N1 and order a $12 burger that was of course horrific and decide to go through the Lonely Planet book and find this hotel .. we ended up here at Hotel Laki

The hotel didn’t really cost a lot by Icelandic standards… 9500ISK, but we were pleasantly surprised at the standard of the accomodations. Typically, I expect a European room to look small and not a North American style bathroom… this hotel was pretty nice….we had a decent meal.. Lev has the Arctic Char and I had some Lamb. One food tip in Iceland.. always have the fish and the lamb!! My lamb was spectacular… and I normally hate lamb but this lamb was just spectacular.

So it’s about 11pm and we’re pretty much now just chilling … so off to the hot tub!

© rishiray for Rishi Sankar: Ah Trini Travelogue / Ah Trini Traveller, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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