After a year of restricted travel, I jumped at the chance to revisit the place that first allowed vaccinated Americans in, Iceland. This time I decided to rent a camper van, so I can take my time when needed and camp nearly anywhere, as the country has over 170 campsites. We even got a portable toilet for the camper, which avoids the biggest problem that I have had in nature heavy places such as Scotland.
We drove to Washington Dulles airport, a seven and a half hour drive, in order to get a direct flight to Iceland. The international terminal was as empty as I have ever seen an airport. Regardless, we took the extra precaution of wearing goggles in addition to masks.
After we picked up our bags in Iceland, we were put in a line to greet customs and to be given a covid test. There was both a mouth and nose test. After waiting for an hour or two, we were picked up by our camper van company, and then went straight to a local hotel for early check in and a long nap. We woke up a few hours later, received the "all clear" from the covid team at the airport, and ventured out.
Unfortunately, the weather was extremely poor. It was dark, off and on rainy, and it was the windiest day I have ever experienced in my life to my recollection. We tried anyway. Our first stop was the church of Hvalsneskirkja. I got off two pictures before the wind smacked into me like a brick wall, followed by light rain. It was so powerful that we both retreated to the van.
We waited for ten minutes, hoping the rain would stop. It didn't. Into town we stopped at a supermarket. We have a small refrigerator in the camper, so we stocked up. Paper towels, toilet paper, coffee creamer, skyr yogurt, chips, and some indian wraps. We had more of course, but in the end the grocery bill was $120. Iceland isn't the third most expensive country in the world for no reason...
We moved on south to Bruin milli heimsalfa, the rocky fissure marking the North American and European tectonic plates. It had stopped raining momentarily, although the wind had no abated. It was pretty rough until we stepped down into the hole. Down there we were temporarily relieved of the wind gusts.
The landscape around this area, especially in the darkness of this particular day, looked utterly alien.
On the way back to the car the wind was so strong that it felt that I was drowning underwater. We drove a few more minutes south to the sulfuric smelling hot springs. I stayed in the car. Stephanie ran up. Along the same side road was a beautiful lighthouse and landscape that looked perfect for a short hike but the weather was just too rough. We went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
We woke up and had a small buffet breakfast. I stuck to styr, an Icelandic kind of version of yogurt. Stephanie told me that it was actually closer to cheese than yogurt. The hotel had good coffee. We drove away in rain, hoping that weather would improve as we went north as the weather reports indicated. Once outside of Reykjavik, we stopped at a recommended highly discounted supermarket named Kronan. We picked up remaining essentials such as coffee to accompany the creamer that we bought at the first supermarket.
About halfway to our final destination of the day was Grabrok, a set of craters, one of which you can up and around. It had stopped raining long enough for get most of the way around. My height based panic set in along the end of the top circle, just as Stephanie was yelling something about sheep. As much as I like sheep, I needed to get down, so I rushed on ahead. Just next to one of the craters was an old sheep pen, according to what Stephanie read.
We planned to stop at a local farm that had a bunch of animals to interact with, but the rain came back fierce, so we continued on to our final destination of Reykholar, which marked the beginning of our journey through the Westfjords region of Iceland. We arrived in the small town and went straight to the campground. The bathroom was functional and there were paths right into the wetland area known for birds. However, no worker was present and there was no way to pay.
We took some of the trails but it was pretty dark out. We saw some birds that we had never seen before, including one in particular that made a sort of ringing noise that sounded like a laser gun.
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| This birding was landing on the other side of a hot spring, so there was smoke between it and I. |
