Vik to Seljalandsfoss to Hohn…. ok we didn’t get to Hohn….we’re now in Kirkjubaejarklaustur

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.

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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!