Stunning, Awesome, Amazing, Fantastic, Gorgeous, Magnificent, Splendid, Marvelous… these are the adjectives that we kept using all through the Iceland trip till the very last day. Every day we thought we’ve seen such amazing things, it can’t get better, but we were wrong. We kept getting amazed every single day by the splendour and glory of nature in this country that probably God made at his creative best.
This was my first road trip in a foreign country and we had an automatic Ford Mondeo as our ride. Meena, Manpreet and Meeta had joined me on this adventure and we named our ride Susan and called her Suzy affectionately. We started off from the capital Reykjavik in the south west of the island nation and went along the 1400+ km ring road all along the circumference of the island, in what turned out to be the most awe inspiring and thrilling drive of our lives! Over 8 days, we covered about 2100 kms. We used to stop every 15 mins to admire the beauty of nature, the snow-capped peaks, beautiful swans on the most serene lakes, artistic rock formations in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, gurgling streams and rivers, long and winding roads on the green mountains, clear blue skies, beautiful clouds shaped like fairies and elves … everything we saw around us was like a piece of art. Even the rocks and stones lying on the road seemed like thoughtfully and creatively designed with purpose. We seemed to be driving through a fairy tale land.
The Golden Circle
We started driving east along the Golden circle and our first stop was the Thingvellir National park which is at the junction of two tectonic plates (the north American and Eurasian) on the mid Atlantic ridge. The continental drift between the two tectonic plates can clearly be seen here in the cracks and faults which traverse the region. Having only heard about this in geography class, standing right in the middle of the two tectonic plates reminded me of Mrs. Rachel, our geography teacher who was so passionate about everything to do with our planet. She would have loved to be here. My salute to you Mrs. Rachel; you rubbed off your passion on all of us and made us curious, inquisitive and fascinated by the machinations of the universe (at that time the idea of Multiverses was not yet popular!).
The park was really beautiful, with families of ducks and swans enjoying a leisurely day on the cobalt blue lake, a carpet of yellow and lilac flowers in the distance, the sun giving a golden glow to the surroundings and a quaint little church giving a holy look to the place. We next went to see geysers and hot springs. The Strokkur geyser spouted boiling hot water every 6/7 minutes! The water reached as high as a 3 to 4 story building with a hissing sound, it was so cool to watch it. We stayed on to see the spout for a few more times. The water raises and lowers like milk boiling and at the right moment it spurts out with so much force, spraying hot water all around. Once the water goes down, it creates a suction and the water goes below the surface and then again comes back to the surface level. It’s so surreal, I could keep watching it again and again.
We drove past a quaint little town called Laugervatn, with pretty streets, lovely houses, each with a garden and many colourful flowers. This is a town of natural hot springs and many spas. We stopped by one hot spring and the water was nice and hot. We saw a girl digging sand on the banks and when Meeta asked what she was doing, she said she was digging sand to put a vessel of dough overnight to bake bread! The water here is so hot that many local residents come and cook food here! Amazing right?! Have never seen anything like this before.
The next stop was the Gullfloss waterfall with a wide curved three step staircase and the water plunging into two stages 11 metres and 21 metres into a crevice that is 32 metres deep. It is such a magnificent fall, and right then nature decided to surprise us – we saw a full rainbow across the falls in all its glory. It was such a wonderful sight! We could hear the roar of the falls punctuated by clicks from cameras as huge as bazookas!
Just outside was a horse farm where about a 100 horses were all playing and mock fighting with each other. The Icelandic horses are beautiful and majestic, big and strong, the horse version of Greek gods! While we went up close to admire them and capture them in our cameras, we saw a long line of riders some trotting, some cantering away for a ride. That was such a wonderful scene, young riders in equestrian gear against the backdrop of the magnificent waterfalls with the horses kicking up a sand storm behind them.
The Kerid crater was formed 6500 years ago due to a volcanic explosion, and has the most visually recognisable caldera. It is 55 metres deep with a lake at the bottom that has strikingly aquamarine coloured water. We walked around the rim of the crater that is made of red volcanic rock. One side of the slope has steps to go right down to the bottom! It looks so very enchanting!
Our final stop for the day was the huge canyon Fjadrargljufur. It was formed several thousand years ago due to erosion by glacial water flowing through rocks. The canyon is about 2km long and 100 metres deep with the Fjadra river flowing through it and it ends with a waterfall. That was the most spectacular and breath-taking view! The water was crystal clear and we could see several feet below the surface. The massive rocky walls of the canyon, green with vegetation at some places, the gurgling sound of the river, cool breeze, birds chirping, it was like nature giving us a treat.
Tired from all the adventures of the day, we hurried to our hotel Selid which was actually a lovely guesthouse with the most wonderful host. There was a beautiful, warm and cozy common area. We plonked on the sofa, lit candles, sipping hot green tea and recounting the events of the day. Good end to a good day! We did all of this just in one day! I have to really be selective and concise, else this blog will never end! But then everything we saw was so amazing and we had such a wonderful time every minute we were in Iceland, that I’m finding it difficult to leave out anything. I’m hoping I’m inspiring enough people to go visit this beautiful country that nature has bestowed its best upon.
Waterfalls and volcanic beaches
The next day we started our adventure with the mighty Seljalandfoss waterfalls. The highlight was that we could go behind the falls! We climbed the steps and went to a huge gaping hole half way down the rock so we could actually go behind the falls. Cold water sprayed all over us and we were squealing like little children! Down below we saw three monks in orange robes meditating in the grasslands in front of the magnificent falls and all the tourists capturing this sight. After a while, all three of them were busy on their mobiles and we thought these monks have probably not sold their Ferraris yet 😉
The next stop was these beautiful rock formations in the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite a trek up the mountain, but the stunning views we saw at the end made the trek totally worth it, especially for Manpreet who had a pain in the knee and was dragging herself along. There was a lovely arch and we could see the ocean through it. Several birds – Fulmars mostly – were performing their ritual dance with what seemed like war cries above the water that was glinting in the warm sun. It was a picture perfect scene that is encapsulated in my mind’s eye forever. On the way to the peak, we met a beautiful bride in white and her David Beckham lookalike groom. We wished them well and they were amused when we told the groom looked like Beckham!
A short distance away was a beautiful beach with black lava sand. Yes, pitch black sand for miles and miles as far as you can see. I havevseen golden and white sand, but never even heard of black sand beaches! Right on the beach were beautiful basalt rock formations. There were perfect geometrical vertical long columns and a basalt cave with so many spikes and rocky extrusions. It was all so different that anything we’ve seen before. And every nook in the cave and the basalt columns had the Fulmar bird. An American birder had a bird telescope pointed at a resting Fulmar and he graciously allowed all of us to take a peek. Again it was because of Meeta’s bindaas extrovert nature and eagerness to talk to strangers that got us the opportunity to have a conversation with the birder and his dad and to view the beautiful bird through the cool telescope. Today we stayed at Hotel Laki in Efrivik.
Glaciers and Icebergs
It has been my dream to walk on a glacier and I was excited about trekking on the most voluminous glacier in all of Europe, the Vatnajokull glacier. With an area of 8000+ square kilometres, it covers 8% of the country. There are several volcanoes under the glacial ice cap and the volcanic eruption here in May 2011 had the plume reaching as high as 20Km! And it is this mighty glacier that we trekked with all necessary gear like crampons, harnesses, axe (to get a grip on the ice) and most importantly, excitement, high adrenaline and adventurous spirit! And we were not disappointed. The ice went crunch crunch as we marched along kilometres of a white blanket. Our enthusiastic and helpful guides Daniel from US and Marco from Italy told us that 20 metres of snow gets compressed to 1cm of ice! And this glacier has a depth varying from 200m to 2km! There are streams inside this glacier and caves get formed when the glacier melts. We have to be careful where we walked, else we could end up slipping into one of these caves! It was here that one of the episodes of Game of Thrones was shot as also a scene from James Bond’s A view to kill. Daniel axed away some of the ice and we could see lovely copper sulphate blue colour inside the glacier! Apparently the glaciers are white from the outside due to contact with air, and blue inside, the deeper you go, the darker the shade of blue. I never stop getting amazed at the wonder of nature…
A few kilometres from the glacier, is the Iceberg lagoon. There were scores of icebergs, the old ones white in colour and the new ones in various shades of blue. We were given overalls to wear as we were to go on a small speed boat in the lagoon and go up close to the icebergs. With the wind blowing on our faces, our boat captain Chevy was showing off his skills by speeding into the icy cold lagoon. He had a great sense of humour and gave us a lot of interesting titbits of information. While he was making jokes, we heard a huge thunder. When we looked around, we saw a huge piece of the glacier break off and fall into the lagoon. We actually witnessed the birth of an Iceberg! Some of the bergs were very huge like a two story building. And what you see on the surface of the water is only 10%. The remaining 90% of the iceberg floats inside the water. That’s how the term “tip of the iceberg” was formed. In the middle of the lagoon was a recently formed huge blue crystal Iceberg that was the most enchanting sight we saw! It looked like a precious stone with a stunning shade of blue. The song “Rang de tu mohe gerua” from the movie Dilwale was shot here. We had carried a gerua coloured stole from India, and we shot many pictures here with the stole fluttering in the cool breeze, all of us pretending to be Kajol 😉
Fjords and fishing villages
Day 4 was the longest and the most beautiful drive of the whole trip. We drove all the way from south to the north of the country via east. But before the drive we stopped to have homemade ice cream at a beautiful cozy place recommended by our tour guide Dagny from Nordic Tours. It was the yummiest ice cream and we had a few more homemade ice creams in the next few days, all recommended by Dagny. We saw so many changing landscapes along the way, green mountains with swans relaxing in the streams at the base, lava fields, long and winding roads up mountains, snow-capped peaks, roads hugging steep cliffs along the Atlantic Ocean, stunning fjords, beautiful beaches, stark rocky hills with no vegetation, and so many different kinds of birds giving us company along the way. We also drove through an 8 km long tunnel through the mountains. With wonderful music playing on our iPod, 4 boisterous women for company, yummy ice cream, God’s best creation all around us, life seemed perfect! All of us were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. And I wished that this journey should never end..
We passed through several fishing villages, a lovely handicraft store, soaking in the beauty around us and reached a place that brought us out of our dream like stance. It smelled like rotten eggs! We had reached a place with high geo-thermal activity that had lots of mud pots and fumaroles and was very colourful. Fumaroles are like mini volcanoes hissing like a pressure cooker giving our hydrogen sulphide gas that gives it the smell. Mud pots are similar but depressions in the mud spurting hot water. There are so many minerals in this region giving it the various colours.
Nearby, was an underground cave with hot water with temperatures ranging from 43 to 46 degrees centigrade. The temperatures were lower earlier and people used this as a public bath but due to a volcanic eruption nearby, the temperatures increased. We slowly went into the cave and could see steam coming out and various shades of blue within a small area. The rocks there were all hexagon shaped and it looked quite spooky.
There was a massive black crater Hverfell nearby. The charcoal black colour and the massive size made it look so eerie. But it was a 6 hour long trek to it and we were too tired to do it, so skipped. But then we went to several square kilometres of lava fields created by this volcanic eruption. It was like a maze and if not careful, we could get lost and not find our way back! There was solidified lava all around, mostly black from basalt, but some other colours depending upon the mineral. There were so many structures created like an artist’s sculptures, some small, some as huge as 2/3 story buildings. We even saw several double decker caves. There was a huge gaping hole in one of the tall structures and when we climbed it, we could see the Hverfell volcano that caused these lava fields! It was so surreal, we could actually imagine the volcano erupting, and the lava flowing furiously all around, creating these lava fields and burning down everything along its way. We had seen nature in all its glory earlier, and here we were seeing nature in all its fury!
We had now reached the north of Iceland and were near the second biggest town after Reykjavik called Akureyri. Today was another exciting day as we were going whale watching and that too in the Arctic Ocean, just 66 km from the Arctic circle! We saw about 18 humpback and Minky whales frolicking in the cold water with arctic sterns and fulmars playing with them. We were in an oak boat and I was standing right in the front at the stern. And every time a huge wave came, I would rise several feet along with the boat and then come down with my stomach churning all the bread and cheese I had in the morning! Sometimes the whales would come up to breathe and spout out water with a hissing sound. It was so cool! Sometimes they would flip over and show off their lovely fins. We also saw a couple of puffins. It is said these birds have a single mate throughout their lives. Didn’t know birds can be so romantic! But I didn’t feel quite romantic today. I had sea sickness and kept throwing up! Felt so terrible, I just wanted this whole thing to end…
The Awesome Godafoss or God’s waterfalls made up for the sickness in the morning. A glorious semicircle of roaring milky white falls thundering down the steep cliffs was like a natural surround sound system! We felt like we were apsaras in heaven and half expected Lord Shiva to appear from behind a rock and perform his tandav dance to the rhythm of the roaring falls! The Gods sure do make the best for themselves 😉
Tonight we stayed at Ytri-Vik, the best resort of the whole trip. We had a cottage with a lovely living room, two bedrooms and a kitchenette. The cottage was at the banks of a gorgeous Arctic fjord and had a 360 degree view of snowcapped mountains. Nature seemed to be in a wonderful mood, as we had the most glorious sunset that day. Iceland is the land of the midnight sun and it was never dark throughout the 24 hours. The sun set at midnight and rose again at 3am and in between it was twilight. The warm glow of the setting sun lent a golden hue to everything around us. This was a treat for Meena and she captured the horizon in every possible shade of yellow, orange, pink, and some colours whose names I don’t even know! Manpreet and I kept photo bombing her pictures! But she very graciously shot us!
The cottage had an outdoor Jacuzzi in the balcony with a view of the Arctic Ocean a few metres away and the white mountains in the distance! It was getting cold and so we got into the Jacuzzi, soaking in the serene beauty around us, listening to the song of the Arctic birds and we could literally feel the aches and pains melting away into the hot water. It was so beautiful that no one wanted to sleep that night. Didn’t want to miss out any new shade of sunlight, or a new melody of the birds. It was a treat for the eyes. We kept looking into the horizon and slowly sleep enveloped us like a shadow and we didn’t realize when we went off to sleep…
North Iceland
Next morning I woke up early before everyone else. Like William Wordsworth’s Solitary Reaper, i went on a solitary walk along the shore, listening to the Suprabhatham of the birds, collected a few pebbles as souvenirs, breathing in fresh crisp air, admiring the crashing of the waves against the rocks and feeling one with nature. It was a relaxed morning and we made an Indian breakfast thanks to the MTR and Godbole ready to eat packets that we had carried.
We started late and drove along the peninsula of trolls to a church of historic importance and around it, there were houses with turf on its roof. We then went to a lovely village that had so many boats and yachts along the harbour. There was a lovely little cafe built like a ship where we had hot chocolate with dollops of thick fresh cream. When we came out, we saw a dozen men on their mean and macho motorcycles that looked like wild beasts. We pleaded them to allow us to take pics with us on the bikes and they obliged. I am looking forward to going on a bike riding tour someday.
We passed through so many beautiful and colourful houses in quaint little towns. There were many trailers on the road today and we drove along fjords. As we were zipping down the ring road, our iPod started to play YoYo Honey Singh’s number “Aaj blue hai pani pani” and we wanted to dance. We impulsively stopped the car on the shoulder in the middle of the highway, and Manpreet and I started to groove to the music and dance away! It was so much fun! All the passersby waved at us and encouraged us and we had such a ball of a time.
Day 7 was a dull day compared to the high adrenaline stuff we’d been doing every day. We had to drive through gravel roads and it rained a little so was a bit gloomy. But we made up for the dull day by having the most lively conversations in the evening at the hotel. All four of us shared about our lives, dreams, secrets, and passions. We made a strong bond that is going to last for a long long time. We lived up to the reputation that when a bunch of girls get together, the conversations never end.
Insanely scenic beauty
The last day of our driving started off with a beautiful drive to Hellnar. We trekked through lava fields on a little mountain on the seashore. I am a mountain person and so was enjoying the beauty all around me. Manpreet and I used to hurry up to the most scenic spots and pose so Meena had no choice but to click us! She is hardly there in any pics. But I must say, Meena is a very good photographer and has an eye to capture the frame in the best light. There were several spots from where we could see the artistic rock formations in the sea, the waves thrashing up against the rocks, a huge cliff jutting out into the sea and little Birds showing off their gymnastic skills to the older birds. From one point, we could see White Sea water on one side and aqua marine green water on the other side. In the hurry to explore more scenic places, I tripped and sprained my ankle. Realised after I returned, that it tore my ligament and will take months to recover. But at that time I did not want to miss anything so limped along.
We then reached the most beautiful cove I have ever seen. Strategically placed rocks on the banks, with huge basalt formations behind, it looked like a Monet painting. A cave nearby with a kid peeping out of it added a bit of a mystery to the place. Hundreds of Fulmar birds somersaulting and a bird in every nook and crevice of the rocks. The wind spraying water from the waves onto our faces, it was insanely beautiful. Words cannot express the beauty I saw and how I felt. You have to be there to experience it for yourself.
Then we had the best carrot cake in the world at a lovely outdoor cafe on a hill overlooking the sea. And then began our drive to Reykjavik along the west coast. We even drove through a tunnel in the ocean and reached on time to hand over Suzy. She was a good ride and never once let us down. I didn’t do much in the evening and rested my hurt ankle.
Reykjavik – the capital
Next morning we went on a guided walking tour in the heart of Reykjavik with our guide Osta and a dozen other people from all over the world. Our first stop was a lovely church that had a huge and beautiful organ. We even witnessed a mesmerizing organ performance by a professional organist who was practicing for an event. Next to the church was an artist’s home with a sculpture garden with beautiful thought provoking bronze sculptures. We walked past the Prime Minister’s office and apparently it is always open and anyone can walk in. Osta said we too could go in and if the PM was free he would probably bake a cake for us! But we let him go on with his business and watched a free live music and dance performance on the lawns nearby. We walked up and down Laugervegur street, past many restaurants offering every cuisine of the world. Even the smallest town had vegetarian food so we never had any problems.
In the evening we saw a live theatre performance of Icelandic Sagas at the Harpa concert hall that is made like a glacier. It was a lovely performance by two actors, full of humour, and great acting. They even let us wear their props and take pictures with them at the end of the performance. We followed this up with live jazz at a local pub. I love the saxophone so enjoyed that the most but even the trumpet, clarinet, keyboard and drums pieces were good.
Iceland has only 330,000 people with about 200,000 of them in the greater Reykjavik area. Just the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore with all the IT parks will have that many people! The Icelandic people are very proud of their country, the environment and their history. 98% of their energy comes from renewable sources. It was uninhabited till about 870 years ago when the first settlers from Norway came with Celtic wives and settled near Reykjavik. The Vikings then followed them. In all the days that we were there, we did not see a single speck of litter or dirt. There is a lot we can learn from them.
Lava tube caving
Our last day in Iceland was as exciting as the first. We went lava tube caving in a lava cave by a volcano that erupted 2000 years ago. Lava flows in a huge volume at 1100 degrees centigrade from the mountain top towards lower ground. The outer layer cools and crusts first while lava still flows through it. Eventually when all lava flows out, a several kilometres long tube like lava cave is formed. And we went caving inside this cave! It was high in some places and we could stand straight, had to bend in some places and in some it was so low that we had to literally crawl on our fours. Meeta found it claustrophobic and at one point said she didn’t want to come along. There was lava all around us mostly black from basalt. But at some places where there were other minerals, it took on the colour of the mineral like red for iron, yellow and so on. Lava has a very thick consistency and when it drips form the ceiling, it forms an extrusion which our American guide called shark teeth but to me they looked like shiv lings. And there were thousands of them on the ceiling! We saw many stalectites and stalagmites. Lava roses are formed when gases escape from the cooling lava. When we were deep inside, Eric asked us to switch off the headlights we had on our foreheads and we experienced complete darkness. We could see absolutely nothing, no shadows, we couldn’t even make out the person standing right next to us. There is no way we could have found our back to the entrance without light. It was quite scary and eerie. But very amazing to be crawling inside a 2000 year old cave made entirely of lava. Another first all of us.
Back in the city, we roamed the by-lanes of the city and visited souvenir stores, lava jewelry stores, design studios, cafes, wool and craft stores, art galleries and generally whiling away our time by a pond right in the middle of the city. The warm and freshly baked cinnamon and blueberry rolls from the best bakery in town were delicious and just melted in the mouth! We felt sad that our holiday had come to an end, but we all collectively agreed that this was one of the best holidays and our memories of this trip will remain with us forever.
So long folks, until our next adventure…
Notes on our trip
We had booked the tour with Nordic visitor https://iceland.nordicvisitor.com Visa and flight tickets were to be managed on our own. Once we landed at Reykjavik, we were picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel. They had booked hotels for all the days. Next morning, the car rental agency picked us up and we collected our car. Insurance was covered but we bought additional cover just in case. In Iceland, they drive on the right side of the road, but we got used to it quickly. They also gave us a mobile phone with data and free WiFi in the car. And a map with our route and all the places of interest marked, which was very useful. They also booked all our activities like Glacier trek, Whale watching, Reykjavik walking tour, etc. We could have booked ourselves with the operators but the cost was similar so we just got it done with them.
The speed limit in Iceland is 90km/hour outside the city, 50km/hr in the city and 70 km/hr in the outskirts of the city. Within the city and in the outskirts, we HAVE to maintain speed limits. There are cameras and in case caught, the fine is 25,000 ISK! But outside the city you can go up to 100km/hr and that was our usual speed.
Breakfast was included in the hotels but rest of the meals and the car fuel was also on us. Vegetarian food was not a problem even in smaller towns. But the local food is mostly fish and other sea food so we could not try much. Skyr which is like hung curd both normal and flavored was their local stuff which we tried. Hardly anything grows in the country and they import all fruits and vegetables. Potato is one thing that grows and we had potato augratin. We had some of their local desserts too. We had Italian, Chinese, Mexican, American, Thai food.
The people there are very friendly and almost everyone speaks English. And it is a very safe country. We were out till pretty late in the night. They are very particular about being punctual. We were late a couple of times for the activities and they were not happy about it. 1 INR can get us about 1.5 ISK But everything in Iceland is very expensive. Just one main course costs about Rs. 1500 to 2000. Even entrance tickets to museums, hotels etc. are all very expensive. The tour we had booked was the 10 day tour and the one extra night that we stayed in Reykjavik, we had to shell out Rs. 20,000 for one room
But overall it was a wonderful experience, Nordic Visitor is very professional and they, especially Dagny took care of every little detail. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and would recommend to definitely go visit this beautiful country and use the services of Nordic Visitor.
poorvismusings 