Iceland Day 2 - Waterfalls

On Tuesday, May 29, we awoke to the sound of strong and relentless wind. The winds were powerful, we estimate 35 miles per hour. It was also overcast, drizzling, and cold. With the wind chill it felt like 32 degrees. Nevertheless, we set out in the car for a long driving tour of a different part of the island. We drove along the loop road, Highway 1, along the Southern coast, East of Reykjavik.

Quite randomly, we stopped in a small town to fuel up and make a rest stop. At the gas station, Brock bought a knit cap with the flag of Iceland on it that he was quite happy with. At the gas station there was an attached room where a man had a display of minerals, rocks, and gems found in Iceland. We took a look at that. The man's name was Hafi and he also made jewelry. Brock bought a necklace from him made of Icelandic Obsidian in the shape of an arrowhead. Hafi said that the necklace would protect him from fire and from bad things happening to him. Brock was very proud of the necklace and put it on immediately.

Gradually, the weather changed from overcast, foggy, and drizzling to sunny and slightly warmer. But it was still extremely windy!

After about 2-1/2 hours, we arrive at Seljalandsfoss Waterfall. The landscape had been relatively flat, when all of a sudden we came to a mountain with cliffs. There were many smaller waterfalls pouring off the cliffs.

At this waterfall, you could actually hike behind it, which Brock and John did. They returned rather wet! The wind was still honking and blowing the water a lot.

There was a smaller waterfall to the left of the main waterfall.

There were birds nesting in the cliffs near the water.

As we left, we noticed another waterfall; because of the way it faced, the wind was blowing so strongly that the water was being blown sideways and wasn't really falling to the ground!

About another half hour up the road, we came to the Skogafoss Waterfall. There was a pretty sheep farm right next to this waterfall.

There was a way to hike to the top of this waterfall. John, Brock, and I did this.

The view was beautiful, but I was ready to go down. John and Brock continued hiking and saw the river that produced this waterfall plus other smaller ones.

It was time to start heading back. Not far from here, there was a place where you could pull off the road and view the Eyjafjallajokull Glacier/volcano. This is actually a big glacier with the volcano simmering underneath it. The volcano blew in 2010 and brought European air traffic to a halt for a week. Today there were no signs of the ash it must have created. It was difficult to photograph because it was hard to see against the white sky.

Not far from here, we took a side road to the coast because we wanted to see the sea. We ended up at a ferry terminal; the ferry went to the island of Heimaey. There was actually a ferry boat operating today, which was unbelievable. (You can see the island in one photo, and the ferry in another.) The wind was extremely strong, blowing the black sand. The sea was as choppy as you could imagine. NOT a good day to be out on a boat, if you don't like being sea sick!

As we drove Southwest, it became extremely foggy and cold again.

By 5:00 p.m. we arrived at Grindavik, an area near the airport, to go to the Blue Lagoon. This was a touristy, expensive attraction which was kind of a rite of passage; we were told that everyone needed to experience it once. It was in the middle of nowhere in a lava field. Unfortunately, we don't have any photos, because we did not want to get our phones or cameras wet. But I had seen quite a few photos of it on the internet, and it looked just like those photos. The water had a blue tint to it, colored by the silica it contains.

The operation did a good job of controlling the number of people so that there were not too many people in the pool at any one time. An additional plus: there were very few children in the pool!

When we arrived, we were given wrist bands, which served as the mechanism for locking and unlocking our lockers. We went to the locker rooms, took showers, then put on our swim suits and went out to the pool. It was extremely windy and cold outside, so we didn't want to linger. Becca and I jumped right into the warm water and set about to find Brock and John. There was quite a bit of steam, making for an ethereal scene; we couldn't see very far. The pool was huge, with many little bridges and side pools. It varied in depth, but we could walk with our heads above water through the whole pool. There was a pool-side bar that we walked up to, and that's where we found Brock and John. Our wristbands allowed us one free drink; both Becca and I chose to have fruit smoothies. We noticed several people with mineral masks on their faces; Brock and John showed us where to get the masks; that was at a different poolside station. There was a silica mask which was offered to everyone, complimentary. We all put that on first and left it on for about 10 minutes. When we were ready, we just washed it off our faces in the water. With our package, we also got a complimentary algae mask. This one reduced fine lines and wrinkles. I was the only one in our group to try this mask.

I would guess that we stayed in the water for just over an hour. It was very relaxing and therapeutic! Once we got out of the water, I felt dizzy for several hours! When we got out, we ran inside, showered off, dressed, and met for dinner at 7:00 p.m. at the Lava Restaurant on the premises.

It was a pretty restaurant with a view of part of the pool that was off-limits to swimmers, meaning that we were not looking at bathers while we were having our dinner. Brock and I both started with langoustine (Icelandic lobster) soup, and Brock had the lamb entree while I had the fish of the day, wolf fish. It was delicious, with a lobster sauce on top.

The Blue Lagoon was really fun! For me it was the highlight of the visit to Iceland!

By the time we left the Blue Lagoon, it was raining and cold.

It all made for a very long day; it was an hour drive back to the hotel from the Blue Lagoon, and it was after 10:00 p.m. by the time we got to our hotel. What an interesting day we had!