The Golden Circle

...is oh so rich.

09/23/2010 48 °F

Hey guys! Sorry about no blog yesterday but we had a long busy day! It all started at 7 am...we got up and got ready and then headed across the street for some yummy breakfast! Then we waited outside our hostel for Reykjavik Excursions to pick us up to drive us to the bus terminal where we would catch our bus to go on the Golden Circle! We left Reykjavik around 9 a.m. and headed east. Our first stop was at the geothermal power plant where we learned how Reykjavik gets all of their water and electricity from geothermal energy! Not the most exciting stop on our trip but it was interesting nonetheless. Next we headed to the famous Gulfoss waterfall. This is said to be Iceland's Queen of waterfalls and she was a beauty. You can walk almost right up to the ledge of the cliffs and look down to see how far the water falls. While walking down to the bottom you get a nice cold mist of water on your face...as if you aren't cold enough! Chris took a lot of photo's of the beautiful natural wonder and then we headed on to stop three!

The next stop was the very cool Geyser! It was so cool to see one up close and in person! There were pockets of boiling water all up and down the mountain side where 1 km down into the earths surface the temperatures reached up to 200 degrees Celsius! The grandaddy of them all erupted every 7-8 minutes and even though you stand there and wait for it to go off it scared us every time! While we were at this stop we had the opportunity to hike up this tall mountain and see gorgeous 360 views of the valley around us. To one side you could see snow covered mountains and to the other you could see the winding river and pastures of horses grazing. It felt amazing to be up that high with all of the beauty Iceland has to offer around us. We were there about 2 hours and then we headed on to stop four!

On our way to stop four, Pingvellir National Park, we came across some Icelandic Horses that were in the road and we got to step out for a few minutes and pet them and take photos. The horses here were brought over to Iceland from the Nordic countries over 1,000 years ago. Since then they have not come in contact with any other horses on the planet! If you are to take an Icelandic horse off of the Island of Iceland then you cannot bring it back. They are a pure and very gentle breed are so beautiful! After we got back on the bus we drove through the park where we came to the split of the Eurasia and North American Tectonic Plates!!! You could stand on one and see the other...how cool is that? The bus driver let us out with our tour guide at the bottom of the cliffs and we walked up to the top of the other tectonic place where there were stunning views of the Prime Ministers vacation home and a beautiful large lake and mountains. After this stop we headed back into the city of Reykjavik where we were dropped off at our guesthouse.

We were sitting there wondering what to do next and since the weather said that it might be the only clear night for the rest of the time we are here we made the quick decision to call and book our Northern Lights tour that left at 10 pm and we didn't return until about 1:30 in the morning. We drove out of the city lights where it was darker and waited there for a while and then drove down towards the sea. They say that the lights come out close to midnight and you can see them first in the North. Although we had the advantage of a clear night to see them, it was also a full moon, which of course bathed the sky with light. When we were to the tail end of our tour and were heading back in to the city we were able to catch just a small patch of green in the sky above a mountain. It was very faint and didn't last long . We might try again later on even though it is supposed to be overcast the rest of the time we are here. Hopefully the weather forecast is wrong and it will clear up some. Although I have to say it was quite breathtaking to be our int he middle of the Icelandic country with a clear starry night and a full moon.

Since we got in so late last night we slept until about 12 today!!! aaaaaaahaha! We decided to get up and go get some chai latte that I was determined to find!! It was delicious! Then we just walked around some more and enjoyed walking down some streets we had never been down before. I also walked down to the pond where I sat and enjoyed reading a good book. It's been a nice lazy day which was much needed...however tomorrow we take on the glaciers...

stay tuned ....oh here are some photo's!
Amber inside the Geothermal power plant