General Impressions
A short post while my friend is in the shower and doesn't need her computer.
Our days on the road tend to be pretty long. We rarely arrive at our accommodations before 6pm and then we make dinner. Because I'm still sick (the cold has moved down into the chest, freeing up my head to enjoy travel, everything except walking uphill), I aim to be in bed by 10 every night. Neither of us has been sleeping well, so we rest until 8am. All this is to say that we have about 3 free hours in the day.
At first I spent my spare moments catching up on my written log (which I was previously too unmotivated to start). Nowadays there's handwashing, more journaling, organizing photos a little. The second half of our trip hasn't been as pre-organized, so we also spend up to an hour every night summarizing and ordering the next day's activities in a little book which we consult as we drive. It's easier than trying to follow along in the travel guide or forgetting things on the map (which we don't really have). My friend bought a Lonely Planet (it was the only one she could find at the time) and it is often vague or incorrect. Understandably the prices have all gone up. Some of them have doubled since my friend was here three years ago.
Some general thoughts to keep you going:
- there are gravel piles all over the place. I guess glaciation was convenient in that regard. Many roads are gravel, hence the popularity of 4x4s (apparently Iceland imported more land rovers than the rest of scandinavia combined before the crash).
- we have come across only one not hot shower. Most of the time they are scalding. Geothermal fluids are convenient too.
- Iceland might have more sheep per capita than New Zealand. The sheep like to hang out by the road.
- Icelanders like coffee and chocolate cake.
- it is usually very windy. And cloudy. We have had maybe three days with sun so far?
- even the horses have winter coats. Most of them have shed the over coat otherwise they look cute and a little bear-ish.
- there is a crazy amount of surface water here. The waterfalls have to be three times as good now for us to even take notice.
- lava fields are pretty unwelcoming.
Today Iceland celebrated its independence, won from Denmark during the second world war (while the king was too busy dealing with other issues). Most places were closed but we came across the most entertaining celebrations in a small town. Different neighbourhoods were assigned a colour and all the houses had decorated in that colour (red, blue, yellow, or orange). The decorations were hilarious. Orange totally won. There were having potato sack races in the field when we drove through. Surprisingly the field didn't have a large soccer ball statue outside denoting its purpose. That seems to be quite common. Not all the fields are multipurpose for rugby, field hockey, ultimate, etc?
Tourist season is starting to pick up. When we started in the west we were often nearly the only people in a hostel. Now they are quite busy. Many people from France, and about half of the travellers are seniors. Yesterday we passed so many caravans of RVs. As well as a few groups of old VW vans and beetles. I think they were congregating for a meet or something. We even saw an old beetle towing a camper trailer. Our rented new VW Polo has enough trouble getting over the hills.
Okay. Time to return the laptop.
Our days on the road tend to be pretty long. We rarely arrive at our accommodations before 6pm and then we make dinner. Because I'm still sick (the cold has moved down into the chest, freeing up my head to enjoy travel, everything except walking uphill), I aim to be in bed by 10 every night. Neither of us has been sleeping well, so we rest until 8am. All this is to say that we have about 3 free hours in the day.
At first I spent my spare moments catching up on my written log (which I was previously too unmotivated to start). Nowadays there's handwashing, more journaling, organizing photos a little. The second half of our trip hasn't been as pre-organized, so we also spend up to an hour every night summarizing and ordering the next day's activities in a little book which we consult as we drive. It's easier than trying to follow along in the travel guide or forgetting things on the map (which we don't really have). My friend bought a Lonely Planet (it was the only one she could find at the time) and it is often vague or incorrect. Understandably the prices have all gone up. Some of them have doubled since my friend was here three years ago.
Some general thoughts to keep you going:
- there are gravel piles all over the place. I guess glaciation was convenient in that regard. Many roads are gravel, hence the popularity of 4x4s (apparently Iceland imported more land rovers than the rest of scandinavia combined before the crash).
- we have come across only one not hot shower. Most of the time they are scalding. Geothermal fluids are convenient too.
- Iceland might have more sheep per capita than New Zealand. The sheep like to hang out by the road.
- Icelanders like coffee and chocolate cake.
- it is usually very windy. And cloudy. We have had maybe three days with sun so far?
- even the horses have winter coats. Most of them have shed the over coat otherwise they look cute and a little bear-ish.
- there is a crazy amount of surface water here. The waterfalls have to be three times as good now for us to even take notice.
- lava fields are pretty unwelcoming.
Today Iceland celebrated its independence, won from Denmark during the second world war (while the king was too busy dealing with other issues). Most places were closed but we came across the most entertaining celebrations in a small town. Different neighbourhoods were assigned a colour and all the houses had decorated in that colour (red, blue, yellow, or orange). The decorations were hilarious. Orange totally won. There were having potato sack races in the field when we drove through. Surprisingly the field didn't have a large soccer ball statue outside denoting its purpose. That seems to be quite common. Not all the fields are multipurpose for rugby, field hockey, ultimate, etc?
Tourist season is starting to pick up. When we started in the west we were often nearly the only people in a hostel. Now they are quite busy. Many people from France, and about half of the travellers are seniors. Yesterday we passed so many caravans of RVs. As well as a few groups of old VW vans and beetles. I think they were congregating for a meet or something. We even saw an old beetle towing a camper trailer. Our rented new VW Polo has enough trouble getting over the hills.
Okay. Time to return the laptop.