Ice Ice Baby and the Great Puffin Hunt: Iceland Part 2

Day 3

The more we drive around the island, the more I think about how absolutely nuts the early Viking settlers were. Who looks at a country with glaciers to freeze you, volcanoes to burn you, hot springs to scald you and with vast flatlands where the wind wants to peal you off the surface of the earth and thinks that’s a nice place to settle down? But of course, anywhere Vikings went, Irish monks were there first. No one wants to get away from everyone and everything like the Irish monks.

We started the day by scrambling around Svinafellsjökull glacier before heading to the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon.

I did notice that I am wearing the same outfit in almost every photo. The weather was gorgeous for us, it rarely rained and was sunny but it’s still Iceland and still cold so I was wearing multiple layers and my big white sweater was always the top layer. It didn’t look very white by the end of the week.

Again, with the blue! It’s so pretty! I can see why every tourist site was calling this place a photographer’s dream. I’ve seen some photographer’s who have done amazing things in this lagoon, but they normally involved someone getting in the water and I don’t think that was an option for me this trip. Maybe next time. We saw a seal bobbing around the boatloads of tourists. Steve was very pleased about finding ‘quality ice’ and mom decided one ice chunk looked like a crown, Steve agreed. We stuck around for the fish and chips truck to open up. Food in Iceland is insanely expensive, which is part of the reason we tried to bring as much as we could with us. A plate of fish and chips were $19 CAN! But tasty!

We also made a stop at a Viking village by the ocean. Apparently, Universal Studios had plans to make a Viking movie, which I’m sure would have been a mastery of film work and completely historically accurate. However, something got derailed in the process and they left their half-built set abandoned on a farmer’s field, which you can now pay 5 bucks to go see. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, at the site was quickly renamed Günterborg. The black beaches and rocks around the Hornafjordur village were amazing too, and the mountains of Vestrahorn rivalled all the ones I know from back home.

It was around this point that I learned that I’m allergic to the wool hat that I’m wearing in a lot of these photos, so if my face looks abnormally red, that’s why.

We were camping in Egilsstaðir, which is one of the places that is frequently referenced in the Sagas of the Icelanders that I got to read for my Old Norse class. I remember the complicated storylines of Egil himself, and he’s a huge prat but he’s so good at poetry that he gets away with a lot. It’s weird trying to feel connected to an ancient past when you’re swimming in their local pool. We’d already been to a few hot springs and pools for evening swims. Most places will have a sauna and a cold shower, but this one had a small barrel-sized tub of freezing water. I didn’t try it but you could spot the real Icelanders who would go in for a dip.

Day 4

By this point, we were in the northern part of Iceland. Now I do have a few things to say in regards to our car journey. We were five people in a five person car, two of whom are over six feet with legs that had to be folded up like a grasshopper’s. Fortunately for me, since I had to keep jumping out to take photos, I was granted a seat near the door. Our car had portable wifi, which kept us decently entertained during the vast reaches of space between the gorgeous scenery when it’s just flat. It also had bluetooth, so Steve and Ryan would play their music. However, when a phone connected to this system it immediately starts playing the first song you have alphabetically. For us, this meant that every time the car started we would have to brace ourselves for the “boo bup bup bup bup bu-buuuup” of The Jackson Five’s ABC. Every. Time. That song and Iceland now have a permanent link in my brain and I don’t think I’ll ever be free from that.

We did a small hike to another waterfall. Honestly, can’t remember what this one was called, they’re all starting to get mixed up in my head, but it was surrounded by really cool basalt columns. Mom seemed to have an issue remembering the word ‘basalt’ and some sort of Freudian slip meant that she kept referring to them as ‘ballsack' columns.’

I really hope it’s not genetic.

Mom really wanted to see Puffins. We had seen a few of them swimming in the ocean on the south part of the island but while we were up north there was one place that was supposed to be one of their nesting grounds from May until August 15th. We went there on August 13th but the puffins seem to have vacated their lease a tad early. We could see a group of them swimming in the ocean, little black blips rising and falling with the waves, but despite mom’s begging they weren’t coming back to land. These are the times when I really wish I had a massive zoom lens. There was one little guy out there who was paddling around with three fish in his beak who was so cute! After an hour of waiting we were about ready to call it, with Steve encouraging mom to “Curse the puffins for the malicious little #@&%$ they are.” 

We did see one. A solitary puffin who had apparently overslept came waddling out of his little burrow and so for 3 minutes we saw a puffin before he to dived into the water. Hereafter, a pointless excursion will no longer be referred to as a ‘wild goose chase,’ they are now ‘wild puffin hunts.’ 

We also stopped at the newly opened Vok Baths, where they’ve built the hot spring pools to be on level with the cold lake. Again, the real Viking men would jump between the two, but I was very happy to be sitting in warmth. This place was one of the hoity-toity ones, where all the staff speak in a calming voice, like they’re trying to hypnotize you, and encouraged us to take advantage of their FREE cold tea infusions.

Newsflash: cold tea infusions is just water with parsley in it.

Still a very pretty place to watch the sun go down.

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Chasing Waterfalls: Iceland Part 3

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Living Vik-cariously: Iceland Part 1