May 29-May 31, 2016
Southern Iceland is packed with breathtaking views and diverse activities. We spent Day 2 evening, Day 3 and Day 4 exploring different sceneries on the Southern coast. On the way to Vík in the Southwest, we encountered more waterfalls (Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss) many immense fjords, grazing sheep, and the southern coastline. We arrived at our guesthouse quite late on Day 2 (around 9:30pm), but since the sun had yet to set, we saw no reason to rest and we (mostly me) really wanted to see puffins. Near Vík, puffins live at Dyrhólaey, and it is best to see them just before night because they return home from their day swimming, eating and playing in the sea. However, Dyrhólaey is a bit difficult to get to in a rental car. I drove the rental car up a dirt road with many potholes to get to the top to a steep hill. It wasn’t a difficult drive at all, but we didn’t want to harm the rental, so I treated the road like many backcountry roads in the mountains of Colorado. We made it to the top without any problems, got our first fill of puffins and saw a 10:30pm sunset.
Day 3 primarily consisted of a hike. Prior to leaving for Iceland, hiking (at least once) was THE activity that I wanted to do. We chose to do a hike that started at Skógafoss, went through a valley, crossed between two glaciers- Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull, through a passage, called Fimmvörðuháls, pass a volcano and down into another mountain range called Þórsmörk (pronounced Thorsmork). This hike truly represents Iceland as Fire and Ice in that you must cross a glacier as well as a volcano. Unfortunately, we could not complete the hike because we did not have proper equipment to cross a glacier and an active volcano, which last erupted in 2010. Therefore, we hiked the first part, which consisted a valley of waterfalls. We stopped slightly before the glacier and found a secondary path to travel back to Skógafoss. While we did encounter hikers, and we kept running into the same British couple (who we eventually hiked back down with), we pretty much were completely on our own, with no one around us. Walking through green fields and passing many waterfalls, with snowcapped mountains in the near distance and the coast in the far distance, left me in awe. At some point we ran out of water, so we just filled up our water bottles with the crystal blue water and it tasted so fresh. Our hike took about 5 ½ hours in total, but we were quite tired by the end. On the way back, we decided to check out a crashed DC 3 Plane. In 1973, a US navy airplane crashed on Iceland’s black beach, leaving a desolate, eerie scene. What we did not know is that it would take an hour and ½ one-way to walk to the plane from the airport. Not the best decision after a hike, long car ride ahead of us, and hunger. We spent the rest of Day 3 driving to Höfn, in the Southeast. During our drive, however, we passed Jökulsárlón and were stunned by the scenery as pieces of ice broke off of the glacier and floated out to sea.
Day 4 consisted of exploring glaciers located in Southeast Iceland. We drove back to Jökulsárlón and visited Skaftafellsjökull. The highlight of the whole trip occurred on our way back. We decided to visit Heinabergsárlón. What we did not know was that the glacier is about 2-hour drive on a dirt road and somewhat secluded. Initially, we ended up on the wrong side of the mountains that separated Heinabergsárlón from another glacier. We almost decided to turn around, but my partner convinced me to continue on, so we did. After some time, we finally found Heinabergsárlón. As we walked up to the glacier, the scenery completely stunned us. I will let you look at the photo to see what I mean. We then continued on our drive back to Höfn. For dinner, we planned to go to a restaurant that served reindeer and langoustine. What we did not expect was to see reindeer, right off the side of the road. In my camera, then, I had an image (not good quality because they were far) of live reindeer with the following of an image of reindeer on my dinner plate.
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