Iceland Adventures - Part 3/3
Day Five
Back in Reykjavik we were, and this was the day I stayed at home ill and miserable. We had originally planned to visit the Viking village in Hafnarfjörður and go to Reykjavik later on to pick up souvenirs and I was to meet fukkafyla, but I literally had such a high fever that I just needed to curl up in bed and die go online for a day so that I could be well enough to go on our booked Golden Circle tour the day after.
So, nothing much to say here.
Ate instant noodles that tasted like noodles with hot water even though it was tomyam flavoured - yes they sell these in Iceland :D (I couldn't taste a thing).
Nah, day five was just pretty much erased doing nothing :P Nick went out to buy absolutely everything I needed to get for everyone else back home, so that was alright.
Day Six
This was a lot better - and most of it will be explained in picture form, because only that will do it justice. We got up bright and early to head to the Golden Circle tour which began at 8am from the city center. It. was. freezing.
The tour company picked us up along with about 7 other tourists and we left Reykjavik for the geothermal power plant just outside town. It was still quite dark at about 9am when we got there, and I remember the plant being vaguely spacious and giving me the impression that something huge was going on, but it was so clean and unassuming that you'd be hard-pressed to tell.
There were huge steel pipes going around the plant with steam wafting out from holes in the ground - it was pretty cool, to be so near a place with so much volcanic activity. Nothing much here except we watched a video on geothermal energy and had fun with an earthquake simulator which emitted sounds of (what would have been) previous earthquakes in Iceland.
Next stop was an area with volcanic craters. There was a massive gaping hole in the valley and it was filled with ice. I don't have any photos because it was too dark :/ Still freezing outside, though.
We then headed off to a small(er) waterfall than the one I have photo-spammed you with for the past month or so xD .
Yeah..looks pretty awesome up close!
We then drove on to the infamous Geyser area where hot springs and geysirs lie in abundance.
IT WAS FREEZING. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING FREEZING.
I could barely hold my camera with my gloves on without sticking my hands into my pockets after 30 secs. My feet had two layers of socks on and a pair of boots and my toes froze and nearly got hypothermic.
Anyway.
I didn't really get a good shot of Strokkur, the active geysir that spouts every 3 mins or so. I did, however, get this.
Not really Strokkur at its height, but you get the drift.
Then we had lunch o/ ! Nick and I chose to have an Icelandic lunch buffet at the Hotel Geysir - it was absolutely worth it, although I mostly was dying of flu and inability to taste and a headache and managed to down 3 bowls of soup and a bit of meat only in between. I vaguely registered some pretty awesome lamb, though.
After that, we headed to Gullfoss.
I don't think I need to show you anymore infamous pics :D You've seen it already.
We climbed up to the flat land at the top of the cliffs that flank the waterfall.
It looked like this.
Yeaaaaah.
Now you see why I want to move here? :(
Anyway. This was where I picked up my 'Eg tala ekki Islensku' shirt. :)
We then drove to the final stop, during which our tour guide unexpectedly stopped for Icelandic horses, standing just by the roadside on the other side of the fence! The tour guide was brilliantly nice, btw. He was interested in aviation, and Nick and I spent time chatting with him about the economy, the crisis, and how Icelandic pilots make frequent landings in Malaysia (I KID YOU NOT, I WAS EXCITED) because of some arrangement with the aviation companies there.
I loved the guy. ..I think I love Icelanders in general, anyway.
Anyhow! Horses!
We fed them bread! One nuzzled up to me continuously, d'aww.
We finally left them and made our way to þingvellir. I was thinking as we drove about how amazingly beautiful the world is in general, and how little we get to see of it as industrialisation slowly takes over..
It's hard not to, with views like these.
We got to Þingvellir National Park, the site of a rift valley. What this means is that North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate drifted so far apart from each other (and they're still doing it!) that the valley was formed. The jagged cliffs are the plates themselves!
I think this was when I very quickly became at a loss for words.
The sun started setting.
My heart broke when I realised we had to go back to Reykjavik and return to London the next day..
We got back, waved goodbye to our tour guide for a fabulous 8 hours in the company of stunning beauty, and then waited for...
...the next and final leg of our trip - the BLUE LAGOON.
[edit] I can't believe I forgot this.
I have no photos of it, but this is how it looks like:
We went at night, and it was SO WARM even though my face was so cold, it was amazing..Before going in, though, you have to shower naked without your swimsuit in a communal shower. Malaysian politicians would suffocate and die
..Pretty interesting experience. XD Buat selamba je.
Some Icelanders said hi to us in the pools, and we said hi back. There were buckets of clay that were supposedly good for your skin, so I smeared it all over my face :D
It was a pretty darn good experience ^^
At any rate, we finished at about 8.30 and went back..
We left for the airport really early the next day, and flew home.
=(
Now...who wants to come with me when I next go back?
--FIN--