Iceland

For my only solo adventure this year I chose the beautiful Nordic island west of Norway. And I was incredibly lucky with the group for the guided part of my trip, but I'll get back to that.

I started out a little wary as I had a surgery, removing my thyroid gland, a month before the trip. I hadn't expected it to affect me as much as it did for as long as it did, but luckily it seemed I did get better the day before and the day of the trip. When I arrived in Reykjavik I checked in and went for a walk to explore a little. I quickly found the area with the most restaurants and bars, and geocaching led me to three charming buildings by the harbour. After catching a bit of the sunset over a small lake by city hall I got some food and went to get ready at the hostel. I had booked a bar crawl for the evening, but when I arrived at the meeting point I couldn't find anyone. I called the number on my ticket and apparently the crawl was cancelled. They'd sent me an email, but I rarely have time to check my emails when I'm traveling as I'm trying to see and do as much as possible wherever I am. I went to a bar for a drink on my own, since I had gotten all dolled up I wasn't about to just go to bed. The night didn't go quite as I had hoped but I did find someone to dance a bit with.

I started my first full day by going down to the harbour for breakfast and hot chocolate. Which was a good call, the cafe I found was charming and both the food and beverage were lovely. I decided to walk out to a lookout point and look for another geocache. I didn't end up finding the geocache, but the lookout point was pretty great. On my way out there I passed a whale museum and as I was going to do a whale watching excursion a few days later, and this saturday was a cold and windy one, I decided to go in on my way back. Get warmed up before going back into town. It was quite interesting to see the lifesize whale models and the audio tour provided loads of information.

After the museum I walked back into town looking for a headband and/or hat as I'd forgotten to bring this on the trip, and then got a sandwitch to eat at the hostel. I had a nap, this was the most active I'd been since the surgery and all the walking was taking a lot out of me. Then I went for a sunset geocaching walk. I didn't find the first one I looked for but I found the second one, so at least I had one find for the day. After catching the last rays of sunlight, behind clouds, over the water I went to find dinner and a drink. Finding places I'm comfortable sitting down for dinner alone isn't easy, but I figured the American Bar was alright, the food wasn't the best but it was okay. After having a drink in the English bar after dinner I went to bed, I had an early morning after all.

Waiting for the tourbus got a little cold, but by 8:30 we were on our way out of the city, headed for the "Golden circle", the area has geysers and waterfalls and has gotten the name because it's THE area for tourist daytrips. I quickly "found my place" in the group with an american girl, we were both solo travelers and got along great. The group was really great though and felt very fluid. Everyone talked to everyone and everyone seemed to bond over something. I'd still say it took a couple of days before everyone felt they knew each other though, and I was a little disappointed the guide didn't do an introduction round or anything like that, it really would have been helpful. Other than that I was pretty happy with the tour and would recommend Arctic adventures to others.

So on this first day we saw a few waterfalls, one of which we could go behind, so cool. We saw the Geysir, and the hot springs around it, these things stinks but they're pretty cool. And we went to one of the beaches, all beaches on this island are black, it's all basically lava sand. After the beach it was getting dark and we headed for our hotel for the night. It was in the middle of nowhere, and had the skies been clear and the moon not been full we might have seen some northern lights, but I don't think any of us had tought about the fact that the full moon could make it more difficult to see northern lights if it wasn't really strong. Because the hotel was in the middle of nowhere we didn't have any dinner options either. And for a picky eater like my self that's not ideal. Luckily the vegetarian option on the very short menu was okay. The fact that we all had to eat at the same place I'd say is a plus though because it obviously helps you get to know your fellow travellers.

Our second day was a rather big one. After breakfast we headed south-east on the island. Iceland is the country of fire and ice and this monday was all about the ice. Our first stop, and main event for the day, was by the biggest glacier the country has. We were going to walk on one of the glacier tongues. After getting fitted for crampons and beeing warned that it could get cold up on the glacier we got into a huge bus. When we were dropped off we were greeted by a guide who would walk with us to the glacier tongue. This took about 20 minutes and by the time we got there the sun was shining and I regreted that I'd put so many layers on. We were split into two groups and after spending another 15 minutes getting everyones crampons on, and a few instructions, we walked onto the ice. We spent about an hour walking around on the glacier and learning about it. Such a cool experience. I have to admit though, my favourite stop of the day was yet to come. After eating lunch we got on the road again and it started raining pretty heavily. We were incredibly lucky though and by the time we arrived at our next stop it had stopped. Our first of two close by stops was diamond beach, my favourite stop on the whole trip I think, if I go back I want to spend hours on this beach. Bits of the glacier tend to end up on this beach making it look like it's littered with clear and blue diamonds. It's so beautiful. And the next stop was the ice lagoon. Here these bits of ice were like icebergs floating around and the seals were playing in the water. We spent the night in a little town called Höfn, we had dinner together at a cosy local restaurant, and after dinner a couple of the girls went with me to find a geocache.

The plans for the next day had to be changed as the weather was making the roads more dangerous. We were supposed to have gone for a long hike to a waterfall, but because the company decided it was too windy for our bus to take that route we got a day on the bus instead. We had to take a longer way to get to our next hotel driving round the fjords of the south-east, our driver made sure to give us a few stops by lookout points and a waterfall though, so we missed out on a hike to a waterfall, but we got to see another. After arriving in Egilsstaðir most of us went down to the local supermarket, but not really together. This was the only day the group got all split up. I ran into some of the girls going down to the supermarket, they stayed longer than me as I knew what I wanted where they were a bit more facinated by the products, which is understandable being from another part of the world. On my way back I ran into a few of the others from the group as well, but it was becoming clear that people didn't really want to make dinner plans with the group. My american friend and I ended up going to the hotelrestaurant (which I had looked at before arriving and it really did seem like a good place to eat). Another american couple had sat down there too and invited us to join them. So it really did end up being a lovely evening with great conversations.

My sixth day, and the fourth day of this tour, was a busy one with many stops. We stopped at a lookout point in the "mountains", and it was ridiculously windy. Our first bathroom break of the day was at what looked like a farm, but with a cosy cafe and a church. We stopped at another beautiful waterfall and by some hotsprings.

And then it was time for the main event, the spa. Now most people have heard of the blue lagoon, Myvatn Nature Baths is basically the same thing, just not as commercialised. We could smell the sulfur as we went into the water but it was faint. We found a nice and really warm part in the pool and soaked it up in the beautifully blue water. And thanks to one of the guys bringing his waterproof phone out to the pool most of us also got photografic proof that we were there. After a quick lunch for most of us, because we stayed in the water for as long as possible, we headed to Dimmuborgir, meaning dark fortresses (or castles or cities, but being Norwegian I would take borgir to mean fortress). It's an area of really interesting lava formations. After walking around this area for a little bit I realised I didn't remember having the bag with my swimsuit when I walked out from the spa, so my mind was somewhat distracted for the last part of our walk. And checking on the bus it was confirmed I indeed correct. Luckily we weren't too far away and our guide assured me that it wouldn't take much longer to drive back to the bath as there were two options for where we were headed next and that way was one of them. That did make me feel a little better, it's not fun to think you might cause problems for the rest of the group. Getting the bag only took a few minutes, it was right where I expected to find it. Our next stop, and the last one in daylight, was a big, beautiful waterfall. We looked out over the river and the waterfall as it got darker and then got back onto the bus.

I think half of the bus had a little nap during the next 45 minute stretch, we were all tired from a long day and the relaxing hot bath. Our next stop was a dinner stop in Akureyri, a small city in the north. I don't think I was alone in feeling really happy as we ate our food. Some of the guys were being really adventurous, trying whale and other native things. I was not being that adventurous but I was really happy with my meal and my white wine, really enjoying the meal and good conversations after a long day. After dinner it was time to head for our hotel, which was still a bit of a drive away. We arrived in Dalvik late, but the skies were somewhat clear and we were hopeful for northern lights. So I went for a walk with my american friend and as we were about to loose hope we saw something. It was faint, and we couldn't see any colours in it, but we knew it was northern lights. We ran up a dark road to get to a better place to see them, and we stayed there for quite some time. When we felt it wasn't going to get any stronger we decided to walk back to the hotel, but then it got a little stronger and we actually saw some propper rippeling and a slight hint of colour. We may have jumped up and down a bit from excitement.

The next morning we could sleep a little longer than other mornings as our first activity of the day was in the little town we had stayed in so there wasn't much of a drive in the morning. We were going whale watching.

We got our overalls and spent some time getting them on and then walked over to the boats. Some had upgraded to rib boats, most of us were on a bigger boat though. The rib went ahead of us and started looking for animals, something they found and radioed our boat about. So we all got to see a humpback whale, it wasn't as close to us as I would have liked but it was still a really cool experience. On our way back to the harbour we spotted some harbour porpoises. Some of the others fished some cod and then we went back. We went to a soup restaurant for lunch, they were known for their fish soup but luckily for me they had an alright vegetable soup too. After lunch we got into the bus to head towards our next hotel. We had a few stops along the way, including a beautiful lookout point where we saw humpback whales in the distance, probably about 8 of them. We also stopped in a little town where some of us found a bakery selling cinnamon buns covered in chocolate. After a few more stops we arrived at our hotel, a really nice hotel with not much around it but fields. We had an elegant dinner and great conversations before getting dressed to find a place to look for northern lights. They were still not very strong but standing in one of the fields we could see some faint movements in the sky. Some of the people in our group had gotten a few photos of it the night before, my american friend and I had not managed to capture it. But we were a little more prepared this time and managed to find the right settings to get photos. After a trip inside to get some more layers on (some of us put 2 jackets on) we discovered my friends new phone actually captured the northern lights so well we could be in the photos. So thanks to her I have some pretty cool photos of me with northern lights. And it helped us keep warm for a little bit. We still couldn't see the colour, but since the cameras did capture the colour the phots turned out pretty cool.

When we got up the morning of our last day around Iceland the grass was frozen, it was a beautifully sunny day though. We had a stop at an old volcano, one I believe was long dead, and we walked around the crater. A beautiful but very windy walk.

Then we visited a farm and got to make some new friends; Icelandic horses, puppies and a kitten. I quite liked this little visit, I loved talking to the horses and cuddling the puppies and the kitten. Before heading back into Reykjavik we went to see some more fantastic waterfalls and an old church. It actually felt really sad to be heading back into the city, I honestly felt like staying out in the country side. Some of the others suggested meeting in the evening though and I ended up deciding to join them. First we were all dropped off close to our hotels around the city though, and mine really didn't meet my expectations. Before going on the trip I thought I might want my own room after spending the week with a group, also because I expected to be rooming with someone else, I didn't though. And I was so disappointed about the guest house and the room, looking a bit like a mini industrial kitchen, that I regreted not booking a hostel instead. I was running out of time if I were to meet the others though, so I had to get changed and go. We met by the famous hot dog stand and tried that. I honestly feel it's like a pretty normal hot dog though. But it was nice to meet up with some of the group. We went to get some more food and a drink at the Irish pub, and eventually ended up getting ice cream to eat in a couple of the girls' hotelroom. It was nice to just hang out and chat, have a relaxed evening with new friends and reflect on some of the things we had experienced together. When I got back to my room around midnight I decided to book the hostel for the next night. I also booked another whale watching experience, by rib boat this time. So the last full day of my Icelandic adventure was started by packing up my suitcase once again, leaving the key at the reception and walking to the hostel where I'd spent the first 2 nights, and would now spend my last night of the trip. I left my luggage and then went for a walk. After walking around the area a bit I started going down the main shopping street, I'd say the shops are mostly outdoor gear and souvenir shops though. But I was meeting up with the girl I'd spent the most time with the past week, and her hotel was in that direction. We met up and had a lovely lunch before she had to leave for the airport and I had to head towards the harbour for my rib boat experience with special tours.

I was surprised to find that there was only one couple and me on this whale watching rib boat tour, that meant we could talk to the guide more though. I still didn't get quite the close encounter I would have liked, but it was still fun and we saw minke whale, white beaked dolphin and some harbour porpoises. After the boat trip I went to get a few souvenirs and then got checked into my room at the hostel. I needed to relax a little and have a shower before getting ready for some food and a bar crawl. When I was dolled up enough I went in search for a place I'd be okay to sit down for dinner. I found a place that was alright, the food wasn't what I expected, but I ate enough to fill up. Then I did something I've never gotten myself to do on a solo trip before. I went to hard rock cafe alone. I collect the glasses, that and shot glasses from every country are my travel traditions, I have a rule that I have to eat or drink in the cafe though. So I asked if they had room at the bar and I went upstairs and had a drink by the bar. I'm actually really proud of myself for that as that is another step I've made outside of my comfort zone. After the drink I bought the Reykjavik shot glass and popped into my hostel room to leave it before going to meet for the bar crawl. I knew this one was going to be on as it was confirmed the weekend before. What I didn't expect though was that the others would all be one group. So it was a group of 5 american girls who knew each other well, me and the guide. The crawl was decent, nothing fantastic, but the fact that the guide went to get the drinks while we took our seats helped. (This was a beer crawl, where one beer at each bar was included in the ticket price.) The last of the three bars was a night club and it was a bit loud, with me still having some problems with my voice after the surgery, and the girls all knowing each other, this got a little challenging for me. But then we headed for the dance floor, so at least I got to dance a bit again.

So, to sum up. Great trip. A little challenging to travel one month after a thyroidectomy, but it was definitely the right trip to make at a time like that. As my main problems were fatigue and voice problems, nothing too serious, I could relax on the bus and have the energy to participate in everything. And I couldn't have been more happy with the group I got to spend the 6 day trip around Iceland with. Iceland is a beautiful country, and I might be back to explore some more later in life.