Well the driving certainly continued today (Friday February 19th). Today we headed further out east to check out the Glacial Lagoon and the Ice Caves created in the Northern Icecaps.
It was a long 5 hour trip out to the meeting point, and then a longer than expected (roughly hour-long) 4×4 trip through the snow, ice and water pits to reach the short climb down into the Ice Caves.
We had a small idea from researching of what we were getting ourselves into, but the real life version was so much more than we expected. The sheer beauty of the way the ice caves form, the way the air bubbles get trapped within the ice, is almost magical. We had thought it would be more of an open concept walk through cave, but were surprised to find some areas where we were down on our hands and knees crawling through these tiny spaces to gain access to more of the cave. Rod was able to capture some of the light, and with the help of our headlamps, try to take some photos to share with everyone back home of the beauty that hangs within these caves.
Following another almost hour-long 4×4 drive back through the snow off of the glacier, we arrived back at our vehicle a little later than expected. We had another 5 hour drive back to Reykjavik in front of us, but thankfully had a wonderful night sky, stars, a beautiful mountain backdrop, and a small aurora to take us home.
It was late by the time we pulled up to the hotel, and thankfully knew that tomorrow would bring a day of relaxing and far less driving than our previous adventure days.
Saturday February 20th
Today was our sleep-in day – maybe a little more than we expected, but you need some relaxing on a vacation, right? We woke up at our leisure, and then once ready we headed downtown for a light lunch, some tourist shopping and checking out the city.
Later on in the afternoon, we headed southwest towards the town of Keflavik, to check out the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal hotspring spa, in the middle of nowhere. Next to the main power plant that runs the city of Reykjavik, the run-off is utilized for a huge, hotspring pool for visitors to enjoy. We enjoyed the beautiful amenities, the large (not crowded) pool, the mud masks, and the poolside bar – I even found myself a Somersby cider on tap!
After a thorough soak, we dried off and headed back into Reykjavik for dinner (thankfully on time, making sure we were there before everything shut down). Taking a route from Trip Advisor reviews, we found this Asian/Japanese Fusion place downtown called K-Bar. With some interesting luck, our order had been forgotten, and after an 1 hour of waiting, we received a nice little discount that helped make what we thought was going to be a very expensive meal turn into a very reasonably priced meal.
Following dinner, we headed back to the hotel to hangout and head to bed, as tomorrow we know is going to be a long travel day.
Until Next Time,
– Tracy