Iceland: Day 2

I am an extremely light sleeper, and I had a difficult time getting any sleep the entire time we were in Iceland. Baldursbra was a 4 story house that had 3 rooms on each floor, and it was full. So that's a lot of footsteps, closing doors, toilets flushing and hushed talking all through the night. Lindsay slept like a baby, but I could hear everything.

We woke up and ate our breakfast of hard boiled egg, tomato, cucumber and toast. We rented a car, and the company dropped it off at 9 AM. We hopped right in and hit the road.



The car was a manual, 4WD, Suzuki Jimny. The stick seemed really loose and was a little tricky to figure out the feel of it while driving in morning rush-hour traffic (it wasn't that busy, maybe Europe doesn't do rush-hour). We had a local-only cellphone and a GPS included with the car, which was really handy for figuring out how to get around in town.

The first stop was Kringlan, basically Iceland's Mall of America. We were looking for rain jackets, since Iceland is very wet. Lindsay also bought some rainboots. We grabbed some food for the road, as well.

As soon as we left Kringlan, our GPS ran out of batteries. We quickly realized that the charger didn't work, so we were GPS-less for the rest of trip. At the time it seemed like a big, scary deal, since we were about to explore the entirely of Iceland alone, but it didn't end up being bad. In fact, it felt more like an adventure.

Once we got out of the Reykjavik area onto the Highways, the roads were wet, foggy and scary. They're very narrow and have no shoulders. Directly off the road is usually rocky, jagged terrain, so if you roll off the road you're going to be in big trouble. It was a tense experience, at first.

We were on our way to Geysir, but stopped a couple times just to take in the sights. The area near Reykjavik reminded me of Ireland, so it was beautiful but not surprising.



We found a massive crater called Kerið. It was actually where the earth caved in, not a volcano or the result of an impact. It was pretty huge, which I don't think you can tell by the pictures we took (that happened a lot).





We thought about hiking down to the water but it would have taken a bit of time, so we just looked at the cute plants for a bit before taking off.







We got to Geysir, which is the first known Geyser which all other geysers were named after. It used to be massive, but tourists threw rocks into it and clogged it. It still goes off, but on an irregular schedule and only a fraction of it's former glory. Luckily, there's a smaller (but still large) geyser right next to it called Strokkur, which goes off every 3-5 minutes.















Luckily my camera has a pretty quick shutter.

Around the geysers, the landscape was steaming, boiling and smelled slightly (in some places strongly) like sulfur. It looked kind of poisonous.



But in some places closer to the geysers there was boiling water bubbling straight out of the ground that looked clean and fresh.



This tiny puddle (maybe 6" or 10" wide) was constantly boiling. It was cute.

We started hiking away from the geysers up the hills. A lot of the land nearby was red clay and gravel, and visitors had made rock stacks everywhere.



It was common to see these structures everywhere in Iceland.

We eventually came to a barbed wire fence, but someone had propped a step-ladder over it, so we climbed over. We hiked a bit until we came to a couple small, steaming springs.



We didn't know where we were going, but we climbed to the top of the hills behind us, and the other side was a cliff and an amazing view.







After we climbed down, we headed to Gullfoss, a massive waterfall that pours into a narrow canyon. The rain jackets came in really handy, there was a thick mist of water created when the waterfall hit the cliffs.





We made out way down to the rocks right along the waterfall, where it was wet and loud from the rushing water.





Afterward, we went to a nearby restaurant to dry off and get some food. We got a bagel with salmon, traditional Icelandic lamb stew and an awesome salad. The bagel was probably my favorite thing of the entire trip.



We stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere later in the day. As I was filling the car, a bearded, toothless, seemingly homeless man came over and started talking to me in Icelandic. I had no idea what he was saying, but I think he wanted a ride someplace. So even in Iceland, I still get hit up by bums.

Later we explored along a river where the mossy ground was like walking on a thick gym mat. It was spongy, wet and super uneven, which made walking around difficult.







It was really gorgeous and quiet, but there was tons of mosquitoes. It was the only time in Iceland we really noticed any bugs, which was strange.

It started getting late, but the sun doesn't set until 10 or 11 PM at this time of the year, so we decided to try to make it to the Þingvellir fissures before the day was over.



This scenery looks kind of small, but it was actually massive and we were standing on a scary cliff... Lindsay scolded me for getting too close to the edge.



Þingvellir is located right between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, so it's a huge rift that goes on for what seems like forever. The plates slowly shift further away from each other each year.









We left in a hurry to find a place to sleep. We went to a nearby town called Selfoss and found a little place, that I think was called Guesthouse, that was a campsite and also had small, individual cabins. We checked in then went out to find some food.

We ended up at an Thai restaurant called Menam. It was interesting, I got something that seemed to be Ramen noodles (like the dried, microwave kind) sans-broth, with vegetables and chicken. Lindsay ordered something else, and it seemed to be the same Ramen with broth, also with vegetables and chicken.

I was confused, but also so freakin' starving that it was the best damn Ramen I've ever had. The waitress seemed confused and unhappy we were there, also. And it took forever to make. It was a strange, strange dining experience.



I was looking forward to a night in our own little cabin, with our own bathroom, and no one above or below us clomping around. Unfortunately the shower drain didn't work, so I had to use a pan to shovel water out into the sink as Lindsay showered, and vice versa.

We we finally went to bed, I realized the bed was built into the wall, bunk-bed style, and that it was about 6 inches too short. I felt extremely claustrophobic and, again, got little to no sleep.