Day Two - Lagoons, Geysirs, and Waterfalls

We landed earlier than planned at 6 am and collected all our gear to get off the plane. Everyone was thankful to be free from the toddler that had decided to scream bloody murder the entire flight.

We got through the airport and I was getting hungry for some breakfast so I attempted to buy some food at one of the shops, only to be refused because I wasn’t about to fly or transferring planes. Apparently, when you arrive you can’t buy any food. You’re kicked into customs without anything to eat. Ugh. We then proceeded to stand in customs for the better part of an hour as four custom agents checked a hundred people though.

We made it through alright, and located the rental car area right after, so I could pick up our car for the road trip! We got a cute little silver Nissan and went outside for the first time to locate it.

45 degrees is pretty cold. The wind makes it a bit colder. And that’s going to be the high for the rest of this trip. Layers are going to be critical, that’s for sure! We got all our luggage (barely) packed into the back of the vehicle and mercifully the car has Apple CarPlay so I don’t have to rig my phone dash mount up for navigation. Whew! We were on the road to the Blue Lagoon in no time, albeit about half an hour later than I wished :(

As we drove down the peninsula I made a point that we were not allowed to stop or have an emergency during part of the drive to the Blue Lagoon because it’s possibly the most active

Volcanic site we’d be close to on this trip. The lava fields were crazy though. The old ones were covered in moss and lichen and the new ones looked like the lava could have only just cooled, before they chiseled it off the roads.

We made it to the Blue Lagoon at 8 am, changed and packed our things away in our lockers before making our way out into the lagoon. The water was the most unusual shade of milky blue and just the perfect temperature for the outside air to be 45 degrees. We had gotten the option that included three masks and a drink, so we proceeded to spend the next couple of hours applying a mask, drinking lemondade, and then washing off and reapplying masks. Highly recommend, especially directly after getting out of a rough international flight with minimal sleep…

We had one thing scheduled for the afternoon, so we needed to get moving by 10 am so that we could stay on track. We took a few last photos, changed, and got back on the road at 10:30 am.

It was about a 45 min. ride to the north east side of Reykjavik where we stopped at a Bonus (grocery store) and picked up some snacks, breakfast foods, and food for lunch. It was a lot of fun seeing all the different foods (I just HAD to buy the chocolate covered corn…), but we picked up some fixings and got back on the road a short time later. On to Thingvellir!

Thingvellir (actually written Þingvellir in Icelandic) is the place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. And you can walk in between them at a place called the Almannagjá Gorge. We calculated the amount of time we had before we had to get on the road again, and started our hike into the gorge. It’s remarkably close for tectonic plates, and it looks just about how you would expect it to. Enormous walls rising on either side of a path that humans keep attempting to keep there. It was starting to mist so we were all thankful we had kept out our rain gear for this first day (although my ears were getting cold because my hat was still packed and we didn’t have time to disembowel suitcases).

We continued walking until we reached Öxarárfoss, a large waterfall that falls over the edge of one of the plates into a river below. It was gushing spray into the air with the force of the water and the overcast sky made for some beautiful pictures. We quickly wrapped up our visit and booked it back to the car to hopefully make it on time for our only timed activity for the day, watching thermal bread baking at Laugarvatn hot springs. It was a 30 min. drive and we had 33 minutes before our reservation, so I proceeded to annoying everyone as my driving continually set off the “exceeding the speed limit” indicator on the car (but seriously every time I drive 1 km over the limit there needs to be an annoying ringing??).

We made it to the thermal bread baking right when it wasnsupposed to start and then couldn’t find the place to check in. After getting behind a bus group we spotted our actual group walking to the lakeside led by a woman carrying a shovel and a metal bowl, a key indicator that someone is attempting a creative cooking merit badge for sure…

We piled in behind and our guide proceeded to explain to everyone how the bread is made by burying it in sand that’s been heated by boiling water for 24 hours. After we dug up the bread, we got to go inside and taste it! Traditionally this type of sweet rye bread is served with copious amounts of butter and fish. I opted for just the butter and it was alright! Somewhat reminded me of the brown bread we used to make just because…

After trying the bread we got back onto the road because there were two more stops to go! The first one was the Geysir geothermal park where the very first geyser was found. The original geyser is now called the Great Geysir and while it’s currently dormant, there is an impressive geyser called Strokkur Geisir nearby.

We parked the vehicle and walked through the park looking at the various geysers. We waited long enough to get to see Strokkur erupt, which was fun! Afterwards we stopped by the gift shop for some souvenirs and then got back on the road, this time to another waterfall!

The last stop of this epic day was Gullfoss Waterfall, a massive water feature churning and spraying entire clouds of droplets into the air. We made the excellent decision NOT to go down to the lower path where we would have been soaked. Instead we stayed up top and got great shots of the waterfall during the golden hour before sunset. It may have been a cloudy day with occasional misting but the photos were amazing.

We stopped by the gift shop because I had seen a lavender lopapeysa sweater that I wanted to get as my one souvenir for the trip and then we got on the road to backtrack a few miles to Hotel Gullfoss where we were going to be staying for the night. We got checked in and then dropped off all out bags and travel detritus in the room before we went in search of dinner. The hotel dinner didn’t really vibe well with us, and we tried to stop at a little bistro that ended up being closed, but the Geysir Restaurant was open and had a very swanky menu. They were able to find us a table sans reservation and we were seated at a (very dark??) table with a view of Strokkar and the geyser fields.

While expensive (as expected) the food was excellent. I had the prime lamb, Aunt Vickie and Aunt Janet split the beef tenderloin, and mom got fried shrimp (that ended up being pan fried and not fried fried…and also only three shrimp??). The waitress mentioned lava cake and all four of us decided that was the best idea ever after a long day of walking (20k+ steps!). It didn’t disappoint!

Once we finished dinner we checked the aurora

conditions, which were unfortunately very bad due to the cloud cover and low activity. All well…we have a couple more chances! Back at the hotel we rearranged bags, got ready for bed, and decompressed after a VERY long first day!