It was a regular Thursday. I was browsing Twitter while taking the T to work. While doing so, a tweet flashed “Wow Airlines now ceases all operations due to bankruptcy”. I frantically jumped to their website and there it was, no more Wow air. My trip Iceland was ending before it started, giving me flashbacks of that tour to Goa I missed in 2009!
But this blog happened and so did Iceland! In before the prices shot up, we decided to book a flight on IcelandAir and on April 7 we were on that cramped flight. Seriously, if you are taking IcelandAir, leave your legs at home. 😐
This is not a guide to Iceland, but more like my version of the Icelandic experience. So with that disclaimer, lets get started.
Iceland through the South
What’s the first thing you do when you enter a country? I entered the toilet and god damn are Icelandic toilets small. It’s like a hole in the wall and you better practice hitting the targets. 😉
Renting cars is pretty smooth in Iceland. Get a good 4x4 and off you go. So with that Suzuki Vitara glam shot we were off, making our way against the early morning office hour traffic that was heading towards Reykjavik. For us Reykjavik was 2000 kms and 7 days away!
First day was all about Gerua. Waterfalls, more waterfalls, volcanic beaches and diamond beaches. (Before you get too excited, there were no real diamonds though) There were also expansive views of everything but that is Iceland everywhere. Khula aasman, gagan and all that shizz. The day in 6 pictures.
Seljalandsfoss: A quick hike around the waterfall was enough to pump those adrenaline levels. Yes around. You can go behind the waterfall and get a 360 experience of the waterfall. Wearing a raincoat is advised.
Reynisfjara: Ha! Cloudy ascent to top and then sun makes its way through the clouds, making it a perfect setting. The wind, the clouds, the sun and this absolutely stunning view. The experience was unreal. HOLY HELL, that is one word I remember using a lot.
The shaped stones and these apostles. Game of Thrones fans will remember this as the place where they mine dragonglass. (Bum bum ba ba bum bum — humming continues.)
After grabbing a quick lunch at a super market, (99 ISK only! Fuck yeah) we hit the road and this view gave us company for a few hours or so. Iceland’s Route 1 and only is just a sight to behold.🔥
Diamond Beach: Jet lagged and tired, but the Diamond Beach injected us with enough caffeine to keep us awake. This picture is a perfect palette of blues and grays with that backdrop of snow covered mountains.
East Iceland — Snow mountains, the coast and the Wall!
A roster call(literally) came in around 6AM! With that wake up alarm and thanks to a little bit of jet lag I was up early and we hit the road again soon.
We were pretty close to Hofn and decided to make it our first coffee stop. On the way a bunch of horses wished us Góðan daginn.
Hofn is a small town. We got a glimpse of schools and neighborhoods while we were hunting for a cafe. Sadly, 8AM is pretty early in Iceland and that also meant grabbing coffee from a gas station. With that quick pit stop, we were off into the mountains. We were accompanied by a running range of sharp jagged mountains on the left, the Atlantic on the right and a lot of bad jokes about the wall and white walkers. 🙊
We made a bunch of stops that day on our way to Egilsstaðir. There was a lighthouse and then a bunch of fishing towns that were bathing in the warm sunlight. We also made a quick stop at Cafe Havari owned by Icelandic pop-star, Prince Polo. I would say it was never late for coffee! Kaffi núna?
We quickly reached Egilstaddir, in time for a late lunch. Egilstaddir is a perfectly sized town, set in a valley between two mountain ranges. You can make a quick hike to the viewpoint nearby to get a Nandi-hillish view of the city and the mountain range (The Wall).
Also, close by, is this beautiful town of Seyðisfjörður. This town is perfectly perched between two mountains and the ocean. I am at loss of words to describe the beauty of this city but here is a picture below. The day ended with a magical sunset and a glimpse of Aurora. Just a glimpse nothing more. 😐
Egilsstaðir to Akureyri: Waterfalls and Geysers.
The drive from Egilsstadir started with bending roads between two snow covered mountain ranges, peppered by gorges once in a while. With the sun shining brightly we made a few stops to soak in the serene clime.
Our first major stop for the day was Dettifoss. Getting there was a story in itself. Google Maps led us on a route which was impassable. But our over reliance on Google meant we almost went along with it. This did however give us some interesting offroading experience. Here is us surrounded by nothingness!
A nice stranger helped us get back on the route and we reached Europe’s most powerful waterfall after taking a detour on Route 1. Detifoss and Selfoss are a sight to behold!
The snow you see to the right of the image is created from frozen droplets of water flying/rebounding off the falling water.
Our next step was Hverir, a unique wasteland noted for its bubbling pools of mud & steaming fumaroles emitting sulfuric gas. The smell of rotten egg was everywhere. We made good use of the smoke effect to get some cool slo-mos. :)
This region of Iceland is geothermally active. After munching on some pizza overlooking the Myvatn lake we descended down to explore the hot spring caves.
We spent close to 3 hours in Myvatn Nature Baths. Chilling in a naturally heated pool with some chilled beer and some wonderful expansive views — that was heaven for me, right there. Wish I could have time there, forever!😄 Skip the touristy Blue Lagoon and do this!
Spending too much time in the bath meant missing the volcanic crater nearby. We did however make a quick stop in a nearby cafe to grab some supremely brewed coffee! That was probably the best coffee we had in Iceland. Akureyri our final stop for the day was an hour’s drive from Myvatn, which we reached around sunset.
North Iceland — Off the beaten path.
We decided to diverge from 1 and explore the “country side” from Akureyri. The first part of the day was spent clicking pictures of horses and standalone houses set again beautiful backgrounds. (Accidental Wes Anderson fans, represent! 🙌)
And that perfect house set again the beautiful snow covered mountains.
We then went north into remoter parts of Iceland. Parts, where lore of trolls(not the ones from twitter) and myths of magic were commonplace. This was evident in the information boards that were present at each scenic viewpoint. Here is a picture of a lighthouse from the Trollaskagi peninsula and the northern most point of Iceland.
Remote places mean no restrooms too. While the views were breathtaking, I got to admit this did make us restless(pun intended). But here’s the view.
After finding a place to catch a break we headed South where we meandered to some gravel roads to get a glimpse of the inland lakes. We also found more horse and horse-riders.
Our day ended with a stay near Stadur in the middle of nowhere but that somehow looked like Russia. 😄
Snæfellsnes — Iceland in a gyst.
The Snæfellsnes peninsula has everything Iceland offers in one peninsular region. We started out to Snæfellsnes with a stretch of gravel road adventure. With the clouds around and some rain forecasted, the scenes made it look like a scene from a 1800 period movie.
However the sun soon made it’s way through the clouds, and with the rain drops still around we got a view of this majestic rainbow painting the landscape!
We were also lucky to get Kirkjufell for ourselves (for a few minutes). The Game Of Thrones’ arrowhead mountain famous for its shape was a sight to behold.
Our next stop was a volcanic crater. Where I had a moment to remember, clinging on to my dear life. A strong gust had me at the verge of getting me blown off the cliff. Damn! 😆
We took a tour of an underground lave cave. Pretty sure that was stuff of dreams for a geologist. Soon after we headed to this beach filled with rocks that looked like dragon stone and had an interesting landscape. But the wind being too strong we didn’t hang around for a long time.
We then kept going on Route 1 to reach Borgarnes. Our stop for the day. Route 1 keeps throwing some jaw dropping scenes every now and then. And as I read somewhere they call it “Route 1 and only” for a reason, there is nothing like it.
Golden Circle and Reykjavik
We were in the touristy area now. We spent the next day and half finishing the Golden Circle and local sights of Reykjavik. Þingvellir National Park is the major attraction of Golden Circle. The national park has a cool landscape and is surrounded by Þingvallavatn, Iceland’s largest lake.
The Þingvellir National Park can be covered on foot. The park though is kinda underwhelming after covering the very best of Iceland for the past 6 days. But there were some interesting landscapes like these natural formation of jagged rock wall.
The famous Geysir was also a quick stop we made on the Golden Circle. Few other stops we made on the way were the Kerid volcanic crater (which apparently is also a music venue in summer! 🌋 ) and a few waterfalls (or Foss in Icelandic). We then set out to find a Geo Thermal plant in the region and got lost on the way to it. The route to the plant however took us through remote and wonderful roads around the Þingvallavatn. (Though the roads reeked of science-fictiony feel.) To our surprise we did one complete loop of the lake without planning for it. The lake is huge. With a strong wind blowing that meant waves. (As you can see in the pic below)
We spent the next day exploring Reykjavik. The Hallgrimskirkja(Cathedral), National Museum and the Whale Sculpture are some sights we checked out.
It has been a month since I landed back in Boston and when I look back at these pictures(and a thousand more that we took) I just can’t believe what I have experienced! I am going to drown myself in these memories of Iceland, its landscape and the numerous cafes we visited, for a while.
My limited vocabulary stops me from doing justice to Iceland’s beauty. But probably, some experiences can’t be put in words and they just have to be experienced. The Icelandic Experience is definitely one of them. Till the next one then. Ciao ciao. 👋👋
