The End of a Magical Experience

We went to bed early because we had to wake up at 4 am to go to the airport. We packed everything before going to bed to be as ready as possible in the morning. We drove 54 minutes to the airport and when we got there reality hit me like at no other time in my life.

I am amazed by what four days in Iceland can do to you. You breathe with a different rhythm. You become one with nature. You forget about how crazy real life is. You forget there are people around. Then you arrived at the airport and the moment you set foot in the property you have to start running and figuring things out. You must snap back to reality with no warning. We were dropping off the car and the bus to the terminal arrived. My friend asked the driver to wait for me while I dropped off the keys. The bus comes every ten minutes, but I was very tight on time. Keflavík is not a very big airport. It is rather small, but still you don’t expect to see it completely full of people at 5:30 am. You couldn’t move or walk anywhere without hitting somebody with one of your bags or saying “excuse me.” And of course you have to find your way. You check in yourself and then have to drop off your bags. But they have a line for “odd size” bags, meaning backpacks, and another one for regular suitcases. The lines were ridiculously long. We were in one for about 15 minutes when I decided to ask one of the ladies from the airline if I was in the right place. She told me that I had to go to the “odd bags” line and that I could drop off both of my suitcases there. That was not the case. After I dropped off my backpack, I had to go stand in the other line again. I wasn’t going to make it to my flight. Another lady told us that the “self-drop off” was faster, so we went there, but it wasn’t faster.  Imagine a bunch of tourists trying to figure out how to scan their bags… In desperation, I asked another lady if there was anything I could do, and she was kind enough to take me to the front of the line.

I wouldn’t normally do that, but I have a pretty tight travel schedule for the next few days and couldn’t miss my flight.

I abandoned my friend, but her flight was later. I said goodbye really quickly and headed to security. It was very interesting to see this airport’s operation. You scan your boarding pass yourself to get to the security line at a gate, metro-like. Then a machine distributes trays where you put your things (brilliant idea!). You don’t have to deal with getting four trays with two hands and delaying everybody, thus, there were no big lines in security (everybody was trying to scan their luggage instead). I was able to run to a restaurant and get something to eat (I had a three hour flight ahead), and walked across the entire airport to get to my gate. I made it just in time.

I slept the entire flight. I was exhausted. I arrived in Geneva, got my luggage and headed straight to the train station. I had to run to catch my train (more running!), but I did. I think the speaker of that train didn’t work, because at the first stop a guy started knocking on the window of our car, yelling in French (which most of the passengers didn’t speak) that we needed to get out of that train and go to track six. And of course, I had to run there to. But I made it safe and sound to my destination.

Thank you for reading my blog and following me on my travels. I hope that you have found it entertaining and perhaps educational too. Until the next trip!

Takk Ísland!

Hidden Gems

This is going to be a long post, but I promise you’ll enjoy it. We woke up earlier today to go to Dyrhólaey, one of the rock formations by the beach we had seen a couple of days ago. We wanted to see it more closely before going on our ice hike. I had the day very well planned in my head and I had the times right. Or so I thought. We first stopped to get gas and the now customary free coffee and sandwich for the day. We enjoyed the drive like always. We had decided to stop on the way at one of the waterfalls we hadn’t seen from up close and then we made it to Dyrhólaey.

We got there, took our sandwiches with us and sat down to contemplate the breathtaking view. The day was beautiful! It was even warm; we could have just worn a t-shirt, except for the fact that we were going to be walking on ice after that.  We took pictures and headed to the glacier at a time that I thought was good. I even thought we were going to be getting there earlier than requested. The ticket said to be there 15 minutes before starting the walk, and we were going to be there 30 minutes before.

Except that, at some point my mind decided that the walk started at 2:30pm, and not at 2:00pm, which was actual time. It must have been the magic of the country, the fact that I was very relaxed and happy, or all of that together. I realized my mistake when we were pulling into the parking lot and I saw a group of people starting a walk. My heart stopped. How did I do this? I parked, jumped out of the car while my friend was pulling up the ticket on her phone and we ran to a couple of guides next to hiking company’s van. I was so worried that I don't even know if I made any sense when I tried to explain to the guide what had happened. As calm as he could be, he looked at the ticket and said, “Yes, this is us.” So I quickly asked him if he could wait for us to grab our things and to run to the bathroom (I always have to go at the worst moments). He did wait for us. The group was pretty much ready to leave, so one of the guides started the walk with them and the other one stayed with us to adjust our crampons. I haven’t felt relieved like that in a very long time. Had I missed that hike, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.

When we purchased the tickets, we received an email saying that due to a “change in conditions” there was a 15-minute walk from the parking lot to the glacier. I thought that was interesting, but didn’t think much of it. When we started the walk the guide explained. In the last two years, the glacier melted a great deal. It is probably hard to appreciate that in the picture, but the glacier hikes used to start right where the parking lot is, and now there is a 15-minute walk on dirt to be able to start the hike.

I have worked in conferences where the main topic is climate change. I have learned a lot about what is happening to our beautiful world right from the experts. However, seeing it and understanding it is a very different feeling. I felt sad and worried. I immediately asked the guide if these walks have a negative effect on the glacier, and he said no. One might think that he said that because guiding hikes is what he does for a living, but his answer made sense. He said that the ashes from the volcanoes and the shifting temperatures are what have a negative impact on it.

I absolutely loved every single thing we did in Iceland, but this hike was the best of it all. When we arrived at the actual glacier, we caught up with the rest of the group. The guides explained how to put our crampons on and then one of them checked to see if we had done it right. They told us how to walk with them and gave us safety instructions.

At this time of the year, the glacier is pretty much covered by volcanic ash. One of the guides told us that in the winter, the ice is so clear that you can see pretty deep into the glacier. He gave us a distance, but I can’t remember what it was. He said that there are people who are afraid of heights and don’t really like that. I would have loved to see the ice like that. Maybe on my next trip. The hike lasted about three hours. It was a good workout, but nothing extreme, and it was an amazing learning experience. The guides stopped several times to explain how the ice forms (it takes 10 meters of compact snow to form 1 cm of glacial ice). They showed us the different kinds of ash from the volcanoes: the old kinds and the newer ones. One of old ones (from an explosion back in 1918) is so fine that it forms a paste with the water of the glacier. He said that it is full of minerals and it is a good insulator. The newest one (from an explosion back in 2010) is basically small rock. He even showed us another very old one, which was lighter in color and could be used as a facemask.

We walked down to a place where the ice looked as blue as you can imagine, and they explained why the ice has different colors: oxygen and sunlight, basically. The bluer the ice is, the harder it is. We also drank water from the glacier explorer style. The only problem is that I needed help to get back up both times (between the lack of sleep in general and the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing because I couldn’t get back up, one of the guides had to help me). And I don’t have the words to describe the taste and freshness of that water. We also saw other groups ice climbing and our guides explained how it worked. At some point they let us try on a very small wall in one opening of the glacier that we walked into.

The company that we went on this hike with is Mountain Icelandic Guides. They have all kinds of expeditions that I definitely want to do one day. They are experts on mountains and glaciers. They keep their groups small and they are wonderful. They even do expeditions in Greenland…That left me thinking. I just added Greenland to my list of places I want to visit.

I was absolutely fascinated by the whole experience, taking it all in for the full three hours. We met two guys and a gal from New York who were very nice. They told us about a secret waterfall next to the big waterfall five minutes away from the glacier.

After the hike, we finished our sandwiches and headed to the hidden waterfall. Luckily, my friend found information online on how to find it, and when we parked the car, a couple was coming back from it to confirm that we needed to jump over a fence to get to it. The fact that you have a very popular big waterfall that everybody goes to right next to a hidden one that few people know about didn’t cease to amaze me. This seems to be the case at almost all of the popular waterfalls. A lot of the information I obtained for my trip came from blogs. I don’t have a clue how people find the hidden waterfalls, but they do, and the information gets passed by word of mouth.

Iceland is an island, a pretty big one, but an island nonetheless. It has the most wonderful landscapes I have ever seen. It has it all. Sometimes you even feel like you are walking into a Lord of the Rings set. But more and more people are visiting it, and some places are already being transformed into accessible, comfortable touristic sites. I honestly don’t like that at all. It takes the charm away from it. I hope most of the waterfalls and amazing places we saw stay the way they are. We humans tend to turn beautiful natural wonders into ugly man-built sites to see them. There really is no need for that. I hope we learn to respect nature and leave it alone.

Going with the Flow

The days are so long here that your body can't keep up with your mind. There is no darkness in Iceland at this time of the year. So your mind thinks you can keep going even though your body is tired, and you lose track of what you have done.

In my post from yesterday I forgot to mention that we went to one more place: Thingvellir National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is very big and we got there around 8:30 pm. We were really tired and didn't have as much energy to explore as we would've liked to.

Besides, we were trying to make it to a waterfall that we thought was 40 minutes away and on our way home, when in reality it was 5 and a half hours away northeast. And all because the waterfall and a city have the same name.

Anyways, this park is pretty cool because, as Wikipedia tells us, "the continental drift between the North American and Eurasian Plates can be clearly seen in the cracks or faults which traverse the region" and part of that is in the pictures. It is also very interesting historically speaking.

It was pretty nice. Then we drove to Selfoss thinking we were going to a waterfall, when really we went to the town and  drove back home when we realized that.

The point of a road trip, of course, is driving to get to wonderful places and sometimes that means spending most of the day in the car. The original plan wasn't that, but when I planned the trip my trip times were mistaken. And that is another important thing to keep in mind when road tripping: you have to be flexible and adapt.

We headed to Hvítserkur, which is an amazing rock formation north of Reykjavik. It is quite far, about three hours away. The landscape was very different than what we saw on the south but still quite nice. 

When we got there and it was very windy and cold. The good news is that we were prepared and were able to layer up to be more comfortable. We didn't spend much time there because we had to be back in Reykjavik on time for a whale watching tour.

We enjoyed the scenery, took some pictures and headed back.  When we got about thirty minutes away from Reykjavik we stopped at an overlook to stretch and I checked my email. Bad news.  Our whale watching tour was cancelled because of the rough sea conditions. We were heartbroken. But I have to admit that part of the drive was scary because the wind was so strong that it kept pushing our little car. So I knew they were right in cancelling it.

We went straight to the tour place to get a refund, but since we booked it through an agency we needed to do it with the agency. Reykjavik was really cold and windy. We decided to take the opportunity to sit down at a restaurant and have a proper meal. It was probably for the better. We were almost falling asleep while eating. We also need good rest for tomorrow, which is going to be very exciting!

The Green is Greener!

Yesterday when we got to the car rental office to get our car, the guy looked at us and said: "You've got a manual car..." and paused waiting for us to say something like: "Oh no, we want an automatic," but that didn't happened. We told him that it was fine, and he was puzzled.  He said that Americans normally get automatic cars.

After today, I am very happy we rented the manual. The Golden Circle was on the schedule today. I have to confess that I had a hard time trying to figure out what exactly the Golden Circle is. I did as much research as I could and we ended up doing a customized version of it. It also gets really hard given the fact that all signs on the road are in Icelandic and there is practically no information about anything anywhere. 

The first stop was a waterfall called Háifoss. It was far and it didn't make sense to go, so we went. Most of the time the road was fine, but about the last 10 km was a little bit of an off-road drive with lots of rocks and hills. Needless to say we did not rent a 4-wheel-drive. We rented a small VW Up, which is a really wonderful little thing that we put to the test today. There was a point where I thought we weren't going to make it. But we did! And the fact that it was a manual car made things a lot better.

The picture was taken in the nice part of it on the way back. Anyways. It was absolutely worth the effort. Getting to these places is a little weird because you don't see cars on the road. Some times a car passes you, or you pass a car, but we were alone for most of the drive this morning. And it makes you wonder if you are going to the right place. It is also refreshing. We are not used to being anywhere like this. And it feels really good.

When we got to the place there were just two more cars. We walked to the waterfalls and they were, as majestic and wonderful as they could be. We spent quite a long time there. Long enough to see two rainbows come out and a sunlight show like no other. You feel so small when you are there. This planet is really a wonderful place and we desperately need to learn to take better care of it.

It was hard to leave, but we had many places to go to. The drive down was better. Then we arrived at Gullfoss. The contrast was really impressive. There are no signs of humans taking advantage of the natural wonder Háifoss, whereas Gullfoss is a little bit like the Grand Canyon: built pathways, fences that stop you from going farther, coffee, a gift shop and even a bathroom that is not free. The amount of people was also a bit too much for me. But the place is still worth it. 

We were super lucky with the weather all day. Some very hard rain hit us while we were driving. But overtime after we arrived to our destination, it cleared up. After this waterfall, where we also saw a rainbow, we went to Geysir which is the place from where the word geyser comes from. I've never seen anything like that. This Earth is such a wonderful living thing. The water comes out with no warning and is so silent it leaves you speechless.

After that, we tried to go to two other places that we thought were not far away, but our information wasn't right. We ended up going to a cave in the middle of nowhere, where people used to live in the early 1900's and is now, as we learned, occupied by sheep. 

And this really was in the middle of nowhere like you can see in the photo below. We, of course, were the only people there. It was kind of cool.

Also, as you can see, the green here is greener, the blue is bluer the sun is brighter. And I am not exaggerating. Iceland looks exactly like every single picture I have seen and being here is like walking on the clouds. There was lots of rain today, which caused I don't know how many rainbows during the day. We saw about ten. I don't get over it. 

And...We Are Here!

We made it here. Of course, things don't always go like you imagined. I had planned to sleep all five hours of the flight, because we were going to get to Iceland and hit the road. 

But the flight didn't take off at the scheduled time and I really didn't manage to sleep as much as I would have liked to. I was surrounded by babies who would not go to sleep and one particular baby screamed for a very long time. I think I slept about 2 hours, may be three.

We arrived in Keflavík, which is a beautiful airport by the way, close to eight in the morning. There was no line in immigration and everything went very smoothly.

My friend's flight had a longer delay then mine, so I waited for her at the luggage bands. When she arrived we headed straight to get the car and left. We rented the car with what seems to be a local company and it was great. They were super nice. We rented a mobile router to be able to find our way through the island, and that so far has been our best friend.

Icelanders are very nice and happy people, and the women are strikingly beautiful. Our first stop was in a grocery store. We got our goodies and started our drive. I had planned a schedule for us, because I didn't want to spend our precious time here trying to figure out where to go.

So we knew where we were going and how long it was going to take. Driving through Iceland is like driving in a story book, a TV series or a surreal movie. The landscape is breathtaking. The clouds move constantly giving you a sunlight show like no other. There is green everywhere and almost no trees. You see horses, cows, and sheep all over the place. And the air...the air is so pure and clean...Being here just renews your system without you even trying to do so.

Icelanders are aggressive drivers, which was a bit scary at the beginning, but then you get used to it. You have to be careful with the animals on the road. At one point a car in front of us swerved because a bird was flying very low on the road and I ended up doing the same later, but my bird was walking on the road.

We went to a couple of amazingly beautiful waterfalls. Being there is unbelievable and we loved and enjoyed every minute of it. We also went to black beach which has amazing rock formations. The beach was not on the schedule and it was a bit farther than we expected. But it was all worth it.

We closed the day at the Blue Lagoon which was cool, but I am not the kind of person for that place. I rather walk through nature wonders and get my shoes full of mud.

The fact that it is summer and that it really doesn't get dark messes with your mind. It was 10 pm and we completely forgot that we might find businesses that could be closed. Oh well.

I am in love with this place. I thought I wasn't going to be able to survive the whole day without taking a nap at some point, given the fact that I slept little to nothing. But my excitement for being here kept me up and running longer than I expected. I can't wait for our the rest of it!

A Long Awaited Trip

My heart has always been a traveler. A friend of mine once told me I was probably born in a suitcase. That was not the case, but I was raised by wonderful parents who always encouraged me to expand my horizons and I have always been fortunate enough to be able to do so. I work hard for it. And I love it.

Of course every trip is different. Now I am just realizing that   certain kind of trips make you really comfortable and you kind of forget how it feels to be uncomfortable.

Let me explain. Last time I went somewhere far and completely alien to me was almost 10 years ago. Back then I had the opportunity to travel to places often and far away, completely unknown. The last trip was to Egypt and I went with my cousin on a tour. I remember being happy and excited, but not anxious. The fact that it was a tour made things a lot easier. It was an extraordinary trip. I had lots of fun and loved everything I saw and learned.

After that, all of my trips have have been in the USA and Mexico. Don't get me wrong, I've seen the most wonderful places and you learn something about yourself with every trip. But I knew the drill. I speak the languages. I felt pretty comfortable finding my way around. 

Until yesterday, right before boarding my flight to Reykjavik, I hadn't realized how much I needed to get out of my comfort zone. It's been a long time. I am a different person now and age does affect the way I feel about it. I am now an adult with responsibilities. And I am a freelancer. So going to far away places for a long time has a different effect now. 

I felt nervous the two weeks leading to the trip. I was stressing about things like packing and making sure I took care of everything I needed to before leaving. It wasn't until I was at the airport that I thought "I'm ok. I feel good about this." 

I am now at Reykjavik's airport waiting for my friend to start our four-day adventure in Iceland. And I can now say that I loved listening to a completely strange language, walking through a whole new airport and breathing this wonderful air.