STOP 9 | Iceland: Prometheus, Mars, Troll City, Whales and Volcano

Dedicated to the Dario & Giulia, who made it to Iceland a couple of months back and shared good pieces of advice. And yes, apparently they took this “dedication” thing too seriously ☺

 

 

Day 5

 

We kicked off the day visiting another waterfall, but this time, it was pretty famous as it was featured in the intro of the movie Prometheus. The name is “Dettifoss” and we also visited other waterfall, named “Selfoss”, walking distance.

 

The following stop was the Namaskard, where “steam rises from the sulphuric terrain”. It was really really stinky (rotten eggs, right?!), and visually it seemed being on Mars (based on some representation of it in movies).

 

 

 

Intoxicated with eau de toilette (or just toilette perfume), we headed to the Lake Myvatn baths, where we enjoyed a couple of hours in the hot water, including natural steam baths.

 

 

I skipped lunch since I had huge breakfast and we headed to Dimmuborgir, “a large area of unusually shaped lava”. Such lava fields are in fact area of legend: according to the Icelandic tradition, this is where trolls come from. Also the legend of Yule Lads developed here.

We still had time for the last waterfall – Goðafoss – where I could take a pic with double suns on my back, before reaching the city of Akureyri.

 

 

We had an amazing dinner at the Centrum Kitchen & Bar restaurant, which was somewhat related to our accommodation - Apotek guesthouse - which was not that great!

 

Day 6

 

We kicked off the day with a Whale Watching tour, where we got the chance to admire the fabulous Akureyri fjord as well as to meet Cosmo, the humpback whale. Tour lasted about 3h and it was about chasing this giant beast across the fjord.

 

 
 

Isaac – a British guy who joined the tour with his grandparents – took the amazing video of it, and I got the tail pic from Tom.

 

 

This day we had a long drive from Akureyri to the Snæfellsbær peninsula. We had a couple of stops on the way, but overall it was slightly less than 400km (250 miles) drive.

 

On the way, we stopped over the Kolugljúfur Canyon, a place not even our guide had ever been to. It was spectacular.

 

 

And slightly after 7 PM we reached our destination: the amazing farm of Lýsuhóll, just on the shoulders of a volcanic system.

 

Day 7

 

The Snæfellsbær peninsula was the most populated area of Iceland, till a while back, as it was rich of fish: cod loved the lava bed, preferred to the plain Atlantic ocean one. The peninsula has 4 volcanic systems + the glacier and they erupted last time centuries ago, so it can now happen again. At the farm/guesthouse they told us they expect the volcanos to erupt in 5 years and destroy the whole area. Hopefully it’s not true.

 

Technically this day would have been an easy day, driving back towards Reykjavík, however in less than 4 hours we saw so many things, starting with the Búðir White Sand Beach: beyond a couple of seals relaxing far away from the shore, the highlight was the body of a whale lying on the sand: it was massive.

 

Steinthor took us to a little black church nearby, really peculiar, in the middle of nowhere and on the way he showed us the house of the only serial killer Iceland has ever had. He used to run a guesthouse, and a guesthouse is also what’s there today…scary…

 

 

The next stop was Arnarstapi - one of the oldest towns in Iceland - where we also the saw one of the first houses over there. Walking over the coastal path was really enriching.

 

 

We did a quick stop at Malarrif Lighthouse, where we observed the nature of the Snæfellsjökull National Park, before heading to the pebble beach of Djúpalónssandur.

 

 

 

Before starting heading back to the capital, we stopped to see the Mt. Kirkjufell - and yes, as you can see I feel asleep on the bus right before taking this pic ☺

 

Steinthor was pretty laid back but had a lot of knowledge and he gifted us with it all the times: do you know the worst insult for Icelanders? Call their horse “a pony”!

 

Icelandic horses are pretty famous: they are slightly smaller than the average horses, but Icelanders are pretty proud of them. Iceland does not have any strong animal diseases, hence it’s not easy to bring animals back to the Iceland: even dogs, they need to quarantine for 4 weeks, if not more. Such horses are exported though, and Germans are the ones doing it big time.

 

Another story Steinthor told us was about the allegedly first settlement in North American by Icelanders - a woman named Gudrid: you can read the story here.

We made back slightly after 4pm and I run to buy the Iceland bracelet: I have been searching for it all over the Iceland, with no luck, so I was ready to go for a lava bracelet or a viking one, instead I found this, just in the first shop I checked. The lady there made my day! And I also managed to visit briefly the Hallgrímskirkja Church.

 

Thanks to Ashley, a fellow traveler, many of us booked the Geldingadalur Active Volcano Hike. What I’ve discovered during the tour is that Iceland has about 150 volcanos, with 31 – now 32 – being active. Just on March 19^th at 8:45pm, a volcano from the Fagradalsfjall mountain, in the Geldingadalur valley, started erupting after being dormant for 800+ years! This phenomenon is really fascinating for many scientists and considered really unique versus any past eruptions.

Iceland got really famous and popular across Europe (and probably the Western world) thanks to the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions in 2010, that stopped/changed so many flights for a couple of weeks back then. Fewer people are aware of this current eruption as it’s not causing any problems, however it’s without precedents.

 

Another interesting thing is that apparently there is no name for this volcano: it’s part of a volcanic system in the Reykjanes peninsula, on the Fagradalsfjall mountaint, in the Geldingadalur valley, however it’s not named yet – at least according to Carlos, our guide.

 

Ashley did such a hike a week prior but was unlucky, as the volcano stopped for a couple of days, right during her visit. Weather was not that amazing in Reykjavík, with some rain and probably fog up in the air, so we were slightly reluctant about the chances to see anything, but we were wrong.

 

Premises were not great:

• we started our tour basically one hour later, as the driver arrived 30 mins late and we stopped for no reason at a gas station for almost – if not more – 30 mins.
• we spent 15 mins trying to find parking, as apparently the company didn’t have any reserved spots for them
• we started the tour with the guide taking a “pee-stop” right after parking, in front of us – thankfully with his back at us 

However, what we were about to see was spectacular. Putting aside the double rainbow, that you can barely see from the pic below and the long way up.

 

 

It took as 1+ hour to get to the top. The hike was a real hike, as it was challenging in many parts, not super difficult but not either that easy: you could risk to slip due to the muddy soil or the pebbles.

 

And obviously I was afraid about my clumsiness, but I did great, as I didn’t really fall – well in full honestly I slightly seated on the way back while taking the rope to go down, but together with Gosia, another fellow traveler, we agreed that didn’t count as I was familiarizing myself with the rope.

 

And Ashley, as well as the other 7 of us who joined her in the hike, got super impressed by what we saw.

 

 

 

Only the day before, at the same hike, the group was not able to see much as the lava “river” was small and it was foggy: we saw the lava in all his magnificence. We would have spent there all night basically. I believe I got 50+ between pics and videos. The last time I saw the lava that close was when I was a kid, at Etna Mount probably, but memories are so blurry.

 

Obviously the drawback of being late to start with is that it will become dark at some point, so you need to walk in the dark, with a head torch on a muddy and steep terrain to make your way to the parking lot – which was the most distant one, due to our parking issues.

All our group made it safe home, however a French woman who was with us, probably sprained her wrist, as she slipped on some pebbles, just right at the end of the shoulder of the mount we were climbing down. We supported her as much as we could, as we had Vivi in our group – a nurse from Switzerland – and Celine, who was French. The woman didn’t stop thanking us.

 

And we made home just 2 hours late vs schedule – midnight – with all the bars/food places already close. So I still owe a beer to Tom, the Irish of our group (well, actually the first of the two Irishmen :D): so hopefully on my way back to Ireland in the future, I can return the “drink”.