We have finally arrived after something like 1 and a half days of travel...Saving the few hundred dollars or so flying out of Seattle didn't seem quite as worth it after a half hour+ border lineup (where we unfortunately chose the only line that didn't branch twice...arrg), a 3 hour drive, a salty dinner at Oliva Garden and a hotel stay near the airport. However, we made our early flight out to JFK airport. Corree and Daren decided they wanted to try to get emergency exit seats, and the flight attendant screwed up and gave Daren my seat, and then screwed up again and lost my seat, and then put me somewhere else and Corree and Daren together in the same row. Meanwhile, my mom and I were near the front of a VERY LONG security line since we were happy with our seats and didn't go talk to the airline (by the way, the line was so long due to some sort of GIANT Catholic group wearing matching green T-shirts who were traveling to Spain just for fun, because they are all Catholic and want to hang together, or something...) when Corree and Daren come up and hand me my new boarding ticket, for my new seat lol. So mom left the line and sorted it out so that we would still be sitting together, I had another new boarding pass with my old seat back, and soon we were on our way.
During the 5+ hour flight to Reykjavik I tried to "sleep" (listened to my soft music and dozed in and out for most of the flight), but noone else really slept successfully. So we were all a little drained today, to say the least. We decided to start the Ring Road right away because there was some kind of gay pride festival in Reykjavik this weekend = large influx of tourists = difficulty finding accomodation there. We rented a "Toyota Corolla" through a website, and they met us at the airport with the car (after we rather embarassingly took our time buying very cheap booze in the duty free store (6 500 mL cans of beer for $9!!!! :O :O and going to the bathroom and ATM)..anyways it turns out they gave us some other Toyota model which was a hatchback and about the size of a Yaris ...=yikes. Our luggage did NOT fit. So they were very apologetic and said they would meet us with a 4x4/bigger car around 12 pm near Reykjavik (we are thinking, SWEET - free upgrade to 4x4! off-roading!).
Mud Face Masks at the Blue Lagoon
Meanwhile, we killed some time at the Blue Lagoon - this giant blue hot pool in the middle of a very barren, rugged lava rock landscape. It was very expensive to get in, but the amount of technology they used with fancy sensored wrist bangs/lockers/etc was impressive, and the hot pools were very cool and relaxing. There was also a hot water fall which gave the shoulders (sore from carrying a very loaded carry-on backpack for many hours) a nice massage, and mud masks that you could put on your face, as well as black silicon sand you could exfoliate with. There was also a pool-side bar that you could swim up to. I got a blue-raspberry slushy and it was delicious :). The salty water ended up kind of irritating my skin, however, but even worse - it appears the "showers" after also used salt water, because we all come out with the GROSSEST feeling, dry, rats-nest-y hair EVER. I still shudder to touch it, (but am too lazy to have a shower right now). It was still an amazing experience though.
After, we met the car rental people who managed to find a Toyota Corolla for us somehow (which still barely fit our bags due to my mom's and my massive ones, but still fit better than before), picked up some groceries and were on our way. The Icelandic landscape so far has been gorgeous and rugged, with lots of volcanic/lava formations. Some parts look like the moon. (Oh, I forgot to mention - no puffin babies this year!!! :( :( We were really looking forward to seeing them, but apparently the puffins have not been able to find enough fish to survive well this year, so they didn't lay any eggs :( So sad!)
Rugged Mountains on the Southwest Coast
Anyways, TONS of beautiful, tall and rugged mountains (and cone-shaped volcanos!). The landscape has been colours from grey to brown to red to green to black to white. There are very few trees, and the trees that exist are quite short evergreens or bush-like trees. There are sheep EVERYWHERE (and lots of horses too) and it is VERY windy, to Corree's dismay. I have still been warm enough to wear my capri pants with my boot though. Oh, and the country is extremely unpopulated on the whole, and very quiet (besides the wind)! We haven't seen much wildlife except the farm animals and some birds. Hopefully there will be more to come.
We took an interesting drive on one of the "highways", a gravel road the wound up north through the interior of the west coast. The landscape is always changing, but sheep are always present somehow. We saw a couple of pretty waterfalls, a hot pool (the strongest water-shooting-out geothermal pool in the world apparently, and yet it wasn't a geysir - it was almost like a hot tub jet which very turbulently spout out water from the ground, and the amount of steam it emitted was immense! I stood downwind and was damp. It smelled terrible too (sulfur).)
Navigating and driving were a little difficult because we were all so tired and near melt-down point (we had to take a nap break at one point), but we made it through the journey to our HI hostel destination up in the Northwest. Corree and Daren went to bed without dinner, mom went to bed after dinner, and yet somehow I am still up (acclimatization successful I guess :) ). I better be off to bed though! More later!
Hraunfossur Waterfall Pouring from Under a Plate of Lava Rock
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