Chris & Amber's most Excellent Adventure

So today was our last full day on the island of Iceland!! We got up early again and we went horseback riding on Icelandic Horses! How cool was it?...pretty stinkin' cool!! I thought it was great because I haven't been riding in a while and also because Chris has never been before!! It took us about 35 minutes to drive out to the stables where we met the staff and the horses we would be riding. Horses in Iceland are shorter then horses in the states and they are very gentle and sweet. We got all suited up in rain gear because the forecast was calling for it and got our helmets on and hit the trails. We rode the horses through a river, lava fields, meadows and down a road where we got to try out the horses famous gait, tolt. Yeah you are like what in the world is that? It was interesting i'll give you that...hurt my bum too, and Chris's as well. I think he had a good time on his first horseback riding excursion. After we were done riding they invited us into their hotel at the ranch where we had home baked goodies and tea and coffee to drink. One of the home baked goodies was like cheesecake and had a spongy texture but it was delicious!!
We caught a ride back to our guesthouse where we hung out for a little bit and then we walked down to the bus terminal to buy our tickets that will get us back to the airport. They are going to be picking us up at 1:30 and our plane leaves at 5 p.m. In Iceland we are 4 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. From Boston it was just shy of 5 hours to get here...on flights back will put us at about 12 hours of flying....ugh!!! We have a 6 hour layover in Seattle where we might try to go out and explore the city just a little bit since we've both never been. I love traveling but I also love coming home to my family and friends!! We are both very sad to be leaving but very excited to be coming home!
Since we really didn't see any Northern Lights on our first try because of the full moon, we are attempting it one last time tonight. The sky is finally clear after buckets of rain this past week, so we have our fingers crossed!!

Oh and p.s. if you didn't know it already via facebook, Chris and I are ENGAGED!

Chris and Amber on their valiant steeds Oh, aren't are orange jumpsuits cool? not!

Horse

After sleeping in this morning, which was wonderful, we were wondering what to do today. Since tomorrow it is supposed to thunderstorm we thought then that it would be a good day to go to the blue lagoon. First we headed down to a bakery and had a cinnamon roll drizzled with caramel, yum!! Then we lazily made our way to the bus terminal where they sell tickets for the blue lagoon. We left at around 3 on the bus and arrive around 3:40. It was almost like going into an exercise spa, in the fact that they had huge changing rooms where everyone changed out in the open...awkward! Of course it was segregated into men and women though, ha, wouldn't that have been ever more awkward?! Anyways after we changed Chris and I met out in front of the doors that lead outside to the lagoon. It has been windy and cold today and they want you to shower before you get in the lagoon so you walk outside, already wet, in cold wind...brrrr!! The lagoon was SO cool though. The water was so blue and after we practically ran to get in it it felt so wonderful. It wasn't super hot so it was comfortable. It is heated by geothermal water and there are 3 main "ingredients" in the water that you need to know about: algae (anti-aging), silica (strengthening), and minerals (revitalizing). They had wooden boxes around the lagoon with silica mud in them so you can put them on your face and body and let it dry for 5-10 minutes and then wash it off. We only put it on our faces because that is the only part sticking out of the water since it was so chilly! They had steam rooms though with open wooden floors that had water underneath to cause the steam. It was almost like you were in a lava cave and it was really intense! They also had steam baths you could get into and a waterfall with warm flowing water that you could stand under!! They had signs up that said you had to have a professional photographers permission to take pictures so we snapped as many as we could without getting caught!! We wanted a picture of us in the water but that was too much trouble!
After staying in the water for about an hour we decided to head in and rinse off. So we got ready and came back out in the lobby to meet up and grab something quick to eat at the cafe there. Nothing fancy, just some chicken sandwiches and a banana smoothie. We didn't buy anything in the gift shop because they were way over priced but we looked around to kill time while we waited on our bus. The ingredients in the water make your hair super dry feeling, like you've been in the ocean, so we rinsed off again once we got home and now we are relaxing watching some Icelandic cooking show. It's been a good day .

Blue Lagoon

Blue Lagoon

Blue Lagoon

Blue Lagoon

Silica rocks.

Blue Lagoon

Sunset

As I said yesterday morning in our short little blog, yesterday we hit the road runnin' and drove across the bottom of Iceland! We got up at 7 am, again, and I went down after I got ready to pick up our car that we rented. It's only like a 5-8 min. walk to the bus terminal from our guesthouse, and that is where you can rent a car. We got a cute little gray hatchback and it was fun to drive! We had already been down part of the coast on one of our tours but it was so much different when you are driving it yourself. We stopped a lot along the and took photos whenever our eye caught something interesting....which was everywhere!! Would you believe it if I told you that on our drive across southern Iceland we saw over 35 waterfalls, 2 glaciers, the ocean, lava fields covered with neon green moss, volcanoes, lakes, high bird cliffs, and Icebergs?! Absolutely took my breath away! I couldn't believe with my own eyes how much beauty Iceland has to offer!! It's so crazy though how you can look to the left and see a glacier and then to the right and see the ocean. Some of the people that live here have waterfalls in their backyard!!
The drive there was supposed to take 5 hours, but with all of our stops it took about 7! It was beautiful most of the way there and then once we got about an hour away to Jokulsarllon it started getting foggy and rainy!! Go figure, right? The weather here is so unpredictable! We stayed at the Glacier Lagoon for about 45 minutes and walked around and waited to see if the rain was going to let up at all. It never did so we decided to head back. The drive back at night was crazy. All you can see is the road and the orange post on either side with reflectors. Most all of the bridges are one lane and you pass a car maybe like every 20 miles. We were exhausted when we got home. It was a long day and we drove a lot just to see a Glacier Lagoon but we're young and crazy and love adventure! We went straight to bed when we got in and slept in late today and I loved it! : )

Scene off of route 1

Church in Vik

Road in the lave fields

Moss covered lava fields

Chris in front of huge rock mountains!

Our little car, meep meep

Amber in front of the Glacier Lagoon

Jokulsarlon

Jokulsarlon

Jokulsarlon

Jokulsarlon

Glacier

Colors of fall!

Hey folks, so we are up and at 'em this morning getting ready for our drive down across the southern part of the island to Jokulsarlon, a glacier lake. It's about a 5 hour drive so we might end up sleeping in the car on the way back or splurging and getting a room at a hotel. It's going to be an adventure. We rented a little compact car, meep meep, and we are going to go pick it up at 9 this morning. If you didn't know, Icelanders drive on the same side of the road as us in America and on the same side of the car! That should be helpful on our journey! The guy we talked to at the rental place said we don't need a GPS because well it is only one road there and one road back....there aren't too many roads in this country since the center of it is pretty much impassible. So depending on how today and tomorrow goes we may not get a blog posted up until a couple of days from now. Who knows though, maybe we will get Wifi somewhere along the way and can stop to update on how our adventure goes today. Have a good one!

Love,Chris and Amber

Another long day of adventures....and we love it!! So today we got up at 7, ugh, and got ready to go on out next tour....glacier hiking! It took about 2 hours to get out to our destination, Solheimajokull glacier. We drove along the south shore of Iceland to get there and it was fantastic! The ocean on the right and the huge mountains with bright green moss on the left. The beaches were black from the volcanic lava and ash from the last big eruption from Eyjafjallajokull, in March of this year! We got to drive right past it on the way down the coast. Iceland has so many volcanoes, it's unreal! They have a volcanic eruption at least once every 4 or 5 years. One of the things that the tour guide told us is that compared to other European countries Iceland is about the same age as a 3 month old baby.
Iceland doesn't really have a lot of trees but the plants that cover the ground seem to change with the seasons and are a variety of colors from green to red to yellow! We passed by houses that are built into the mountains and it is said by Icelandic folklore that that is where the elvish people live, or use to live. There was a lot of cool houses a long the way with roofs covered with moss and grass. It was a cloudy day and it rained off an on but it was so cool nonetheless and we had a blast. On the way back from hiking we got to stop at two very tall waterfalls, Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss. The last one we stopped at we actually got to walk behind and Chris and I went do to the pool of water at the bottom to stick our hands in the water....FREEZING!! We got back around 7 pm that night and we just vegged out for the rest of the evening. The all day tours kick the snot out of us!! But before I go let me tell you a little about our Glacier hike!
When we stopped at the tongue of the Glacier everyone got to get out and walk up to it if they wanted to see the glacier up close but only 6 of us got to walk it! We had an another guide for that and he suited us up with crampons (spikes to go on our shoes), a harness to go around our legs and waist in case we feel down a crevice or cauldron, and also an ice axe! Once we were all suited up we started up the glacier. The first little climb was steep and it felt so uneasy at first to walk on ice. You felt like any minute you should slip and fall! He told us to step flat footed with our feet shoulder width apart and step hard into the ice!! It was a workout! We climbed for a good hour and a half. The guide would stop and let us look into some of the cauldrons and were formed from water and gravel mixing and running down the glacier. Some of these cauldrons were almost 400 feet deep! In some of the photo's you are going to see our guide has to use his ice axe to make steps for us to use going up, down, or across a crevice! It was amazing to me how our guide, Siggy, would just walk up to a huge hole and look down it! He only had 60 meters of rope so if one of us fell down a cauldron or crevice that was deeper then that then we were in trouble! My fear though was what if our guide, the only guy with rope, fell down one!!?
The huge cones that you can see are layers of ash and ice! The ash acts as an insulator to the ice and then when it rains and ice is exposed a little will melt and uncover another layer of ash. Some of the ash that is in the glacier has been there for hundreds of years. The newest ash on top was from the recent volcanic eruption in March! The view from the top of the Glacier was beautiful. You could see the mountains on either side of you and straight out were fields of lava and rivers and then the ocean. Out in the distance you could also see the Westman Islands. It was definitely something we will never forget!

P.s. A bit of sad news...The lens Chris was using crapped out so hopefully we will get that fixed soon or it looks like iphone photos from here on out! The last few photos we put up of the waterfalls were taken with his iphone! Sorry Folks! Chris is sad.

P.s.s. We're expecting cruddy weather the rest of our stay here but we're gonna work around it. We still have a few adventures we need to check off our list i.e. icelandic horseback riding, soak in the blue lagoon, driving adventure to Jokulsarlon (the glacier lake), hunt down the northern lights (this will be hard with the clouds of course), etc.

Amber ready for some climbing!

View up the glacier

Chris with his ice axe

Large crevice/cauldrons in the ice!

Ice and Ash

Our guide making steps for us!

Chris and Amber....Chris's eyes are closed, haha!

The group hiking up

Glacier

Large crevices in the glacier

Cauldrons

Amber with her ice axe

View from the Glacier

From the Glacier looking out to the Ocean

Hike, Hike, Hike

Glacier!

Mountains

Small charming village in Vik

Skogafoss Waterfall

Skogafoss Waterfall

Steam from geothermal pockets

Living under the cliffs

Farm in the country

Mountains

Seljalandsfoss Waterfall

Chris behind Seljalandsfoss Waterfall

Amber behind Seljalandsfoss Waterfall

Amber in front of Seljalandsfoss Waterfall