If You Keep Busy, You Won’t Pass Out

We have officially been in Iceland for about 14 hours, now, but we’ve been busy:

Here’s a little summary:

1 national park, 1 waterfall, 1 old church yard, 2 hikes, 1 home-cooked meal in our little cabin, followed by 1 Icelandic chocolate bar, and 1 visit to an extremely local geothermal pool.  The rule of thumb to beat jet lag is generally to stay up as long as you can the first day until you collapse, which is truly what we have done.  Now it is almost 10 pm, though the sun is still up and it looks like about 4 in the afternoon to my California brain, so I thought I would add a blog post to the list of activites before I pass out.

We landed at 8 am in Keflavik airport, one of the more charming little airports I’ve ever been in.

Just before boarding our flight – we somehow got bumped up to premium economy, which believe me, we made the most of.

First glimpse of a puffin! In the bathroom at Keflavik airport, yes, but this bathroom was nicer than several hotels I’ve stayed at, so…

A very nice young man was waiting with a sign (with my name on it!  so fancy!) for us to pick up our rental car/home base for the next three weeks.  He very carefully went over all the insurances we could buy.  We splurged on the gravel insurance but declined ash and sand…hopefully there won’t be any nasty sandstorms anytime soon.  Already from one day of driving I am used to the pinging sound of tiny rocks flying everywhere on some of the roads we’ve been on, so I’m thinking the gravel insurance was a good call.

We made our way to our little cabin on Lake Thingvellir, stopping for groceries along the way, and exclaiming over most of what we were seeing as we drove.  The landscape would go from utterly beautiful: sunlight-dappled meadows of wild lupine and other wildflowers – to utterly strange:  choppy, moss-covered volcanic lava fields, steaming and smelling of sulfur.  Also: cairns.  Everywhere. Some very large ones were made to look like people, some were just small piles of rocks.  A few of the biggest ones we saw had warning signs that it was illegal to add or remove rocks to these special and significant symbols of Icelandic life.

A veritable field of cairns along the side of the road. I overheard a lady comparing them to the trolls in “Frozen”.

Looking out over Lake Thingvellir, where we are staying for two days.

Our cabin wasn’t quite ready, so at the urging of the owner, we headed about 5 minutes up the road to Thingvellir National Park, which has the distinction of being the location where the grinding and separating action of the North American and European techtonic plates is more distinctive and visible than anywhere else.  I’m far more of a geography geek than a geology one, but I must say, it was amazing.

Two friends, two different continents…

Hiking down into the rift between the plates.

Was so distracted by all the beautiful wildflowers!

First waterfall, and this was just a little one. Öxarárfoss spills over the North American plate, to the delight of countless tourists – it’s an easy walk from the visitors’ center.

Another shot from our little hike

What happens when two jet-lagged visitors take a little break on the viewing platform…

Iceland’s flag flying on the site where the Icleandic Parliament, such as it was, was established in 930 A.D.

A very long-lived Icelander in the churchyard of an old and tiny church we wandered into.

I’ve been noticing our fellow tourists, especially since some of the folks that were on the plane with us from JFK kept turning up at the same tourist spots all day.  Here’s the loose profile of the many American folks we are joined by here – and we are definitely part of this group.  They come in all life stages, but regardless of age, almost every single one of them has new or newish hiking boots or trail walkers, some sort of sporty zip-off pant, and a fleece or puff jacket from either North Face, Patagonia, or something else you could buy at REI.  I keep looking at them and admiring their sportiness – they look ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice – and then looking at myself in my new puff jacket and trail running shoes and not recognizing myself.  I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.

But we did do something tonight that involved being the only Americans in the whole place. We had read about a geothermal spa one town over that had natural hot tubs, etc….but then we also read about a community pool right next door, also geothermally heated, but for one tenth of the cost. We paid our (equivalent of) $3.50 each and happily joined locals soaking in one of three hot tubs, alternatively swimming a few laps in the big warm swimming pool when we felt like it. Perfect. As was the sign that made it very clear to wash carefully before entering the pool.

Does the job, doesn’t it?

New discovery: Sirius chocolate, made here in Iceland. Tonight’s dessert.

One last shot of the lupine by our cabin, taken around 9 pm tonight.

More tomorrow about our little cabin and our attempt to swim in the extremely famous AND extremely touristy Blue Lagoon!