Our Last Reykjavic day

Greenland from the air
"The Dragon" Drakir

Meryl and Tererir "Blood"

Sheep's head with a sweatband...
Reykjavic and Fjord

We had a fast paced last day in Iceland. The Icelandic Horse is pure bred, no outside horse has been interbred with an Icelandic Horse since the Vikings arrived and brought horses from Scandinavia. They are small, shaggy and super playful. They are the only types of horse aside from an Argentine breed that 'Tolt'- a type of gait between a trot and run, making them very efficient for long distance travel with big Viking people on their backs. We were able to ride on our last day...but they made us wear space suits...but we got caught in a small blizzard so they did keep us warm!

We will post more pictures to sum up our trip, so stay posted

Return to the smokey bay

Today was the day everybody...Today was the day that Meryl and i have been waiting for...Today Meryl and I ate the national food of Iceland, the Icelandic Hotdog! And wow did it blow our socks off! In all honesty, they blew american hotdogs out of the water, very very delicious and quite affordable all things considered. You can buys hotdogs all over town, but we scoped this place out...a long line of local Icelanders, decent prices and a great advertising campaign drew us in. yumm.
Also we visited the Saga viking museum, the mid-atlantic continental rift and the location where the Viking officially converted to Christianity in 1003 Ad.


The sign for the Icelandic Hotdog stand.
"Do you feel lucky punk?...Well?...do ya?
Meryl lookin' good in chainmail
Oh my god! Is this the Mid-Atlantic Continental rift or the location of the Viking conversion to Christianity in 1003 AD? Amazingly...its the same place!

Are we in iceland or on the moon

The drive from southeast back to southwest went from blue skys to a whiteout blizzard.

The largest glacier in europe... is big

Captions coming soon...

Iceland in the off season

Lobster dinner with lobster springrolls....ummm

Forrest enjoying a cocktail and his viking book while wind and rain howl outside of out window (that faces the harbor).

I spotted my first Reindeer!!! We saw about 7 of them cruising the countryside.

Waterfalls flowing up instead of down, it was windy, very windy. The waterfall on the right sometimes made it to the ground.

Forrest rocking out to Bjork (icelandic musical artist) while driving across the masive outwash deltas below the Vatnajokull glacier.

Drowning in Hofn...

Well...its raining...its raining very hard...and its windy...and we can't see a damn thing.
But here is the good news: We arrived in Hofn (pronounced 'hup' like an unexpected hiccup). Hofn is the lobster capital of Iceland so although our small, plain hostel room cost about $100 USD for the night, tonight we will be splashing out and eating Lobster!
Other good news: we went into the liquor store and the same bottle of gin that we purchased in the duty free shop for $17 was $70 USD in the town...so we took the liberty of buying a lime. Currently we are staying dry in our Hostel room while 'wetting our wistle's' with gin & soda's!
Normally from town and throughout our drive today, we would have been able to see beautiful glaciers, green cliffs and mountain peaks....we mostly saw rain. haha
However! On the Chilean coast we saw South America's largest Glacier and today we viewed Europe's largest glacier, Vatnajokull!
An example of how windy today was is thus: we stopped to take a photo of a waterfall, the wind blew the water fall back up and over the cliff preventing the water from actually falling to the ground. We also witnessed a seagull who found it quite difficult to fly forward...diligent though he was, no matter how hard he flapped, he only made negative progress...

Iceland Volcano - Say What?

haha!

Vik ---- driving the volcanic south coast

After some last minute decisions and a late departure from Reykjavik, we set off for the south coast in our spacious toyota Yaris outfitted with "nailed" tires (aka studs). Forrest skillfully navigated the bustling streets of Reykjavik and got us on to highway 1, also known as the ring road. We were expecting a highway (since it is considered one of the busiest roads here) and were a bit surprised to discover that it was 1 lane each direction complete with round abouts at most intersections and 90km/hr speed limit. We drove through snow, rain, slush, hail and a little bit of sun. Unfortunatly the clouds were low so we could see the 3 volcano's that we passed or the glaciers, including the one that erupted last year, Eyjafjallajokull (youtube video coming soon). What we did see was an ash covered landscape (see photo below) and evidence of flooding that caused rivers to expand and fill vallies full of sediment.
We also stopped at a waterfall and drove past many Icelandic horse and sheep farms, before stopping for the night in the most southerly town in iceland, Vik (which means bay). We went for a very, very, windy walk along a beautiful black sand beach. Tomorrow we will continue to head east past more volcano's and the largest glacier in Europe (hopefully we will be able to see it through the clouds).



Black sand beach along the town of Vik.

Ash covered landscape of southern Iceland.

The famous Icelandic horse.

Waterfall

Leaving Reykjavik

Hello all-

This mornig we are leaving Reykjavik. Originally we were going to drive to Isafjordur in the Western Fjords, however the roads seem 'unpassable' according to the websites and hostel owners. So we are headed south towards the town of Vik and then Hofn. Our rental car is a tiny Toyota Yaris with excellent studded snow tires. It is illegal to rent a car in Iceland in the winter without having studded snows and full insurance.

Gas will be pretty expensive, about $2.50 USD for 1 litre...or about $10.00/gallon! Now that we are headed south instead or north, the drive will be shorter with better conditions.

In Reykjavik, the weather has been awesome, but very cold. Cruising around a foreign town is a bit different when its 15-20 degrees instead of 85 degrees in South America. The entire island is heated with a surplus of very hot geothermal water. These hotsprings provide all the hot water for the towns drinking supply and all buildings are heated with this hot water. Steam rises from the ground at random areas in the countryside. The hot water from the faucets and sinks smell of sulfer but your nose easily adapts to the smell.

Food is very expensive (almost $40 for two plates of fish and chips) so Meryl and i have adapted to 2 meals per day, our free breakfast at the guesthouse and a big dinner/lunch around 5:00.

More to come...

Reykjavik

fishing boat about to set sail in reykjavic harbor
"And that Meryl, is how you pronounce the volcano 'Eyjafjallajokull'!"

in a cave at the Blue Lagoon
Hot water steaming from a geysir at the blue lagoon
Awesome fish and chips...It cost $40 with a coffee

TEAM SOUTHIE GOES NORTH!

After a slight off-highway detour to the SEA-TAC airport, Meryl and i are finally on our way to Reykjavic Iceland. Alcohol is extremely expensive on the island so we bought a duty-free bottle of gin for those windy seashore G&T's!
My carry on consists of the book "The Vikings" and our Icelandic travel guide so meryl can hear all about my favorite people in history...the Vikings!...She will soon know as much about these sailing and marauding peoples as anyone...because she will not be able to escape that very talkative and annoying person next to her...me!
We will try and post some awesome pictures and soak in the natural hotsprings for all of you with those 9-5's!
F & M