Canyons, Black Sand Beaches, and Glaciers Oh My!

The last day and a half in Iceland. Oh, how time flies when you are having fun, have no plan of what or where you're going, and the only limitation is getting to the final destination on time.

For the last full day in Iceland, we didn't have much of a plan other than being within driving distance of our 8:00 a.m. entry time to the Blue Lagoon the next morning. The one area we knew we wanted to see was Fjaðrárgljúfur, an immense canyon I'm sure you've seen pictures of if you follow travel photographers on Instagram or Flickr.

Getting to was arguably the hardest drive I had to do on this trip since it is off a narrow road with lots of ups and downs. Even after three full days of driving, I was going gray in fear of stalling out on the road while someone was driving behind me and getting into an accident --- that's one thing I hope to never accomplish. Getting into an accident in a foreign country. Miraculously, and I have no idea how, but we made it to and from the canyon without a hitch and I managed to stop and start on the hill without stalling --- something I'm sure was completely luck.

Preliminary research told us that it's possible to walk through Fjaðrárgljúfur as opposed to along the east rim, but this didn't seem to be possible since the water flowing through was impressively high due to the past few days of nearly consistent rain. Braving the seemingly lake-wide puddles that encompassed the dirt paths, we managed to hit just about every viewpoint that was possible without falling to our doom within the canyon. One perk of having continuous rain was all the small waterfalls pouring into the canyon that wouldn't have been there otherwise. While it was impossible to get into the canyon, the poor nature of the paths and the weather deterred others from walking all the way to the end of the canyon granting us free opportunities to explore and take pictures as we pleased.

Looking inward towards Fjaðrárgljúfur

As Fjaðrárgljúfur flattens out to the countryside

The river, rapidly flowing full of excess water

I also could have sworn that they filmed some Game of Thrones scenes as the entry point to The Vale here, but it turned out that they used a similarly spectacular canyon in Iceland's north.

My favorite picture of Fjaðrárgljúfur

Killing half a day and having a decent portion to drive today, we set out in search of lunch and a gas station. One goal my friend had for this trip was to try an Icelandic hot dog that Stephen Markley had raved about in his book and he had yet to accomplish this, so we were nearing our final opportunity.We managed to hit two birds with one stone not far outside of Vik. I will say that gas station food in Iceland is far better than gas station food here in the States. Maybe it's because of the number of people driving this singular road and the demand for food, but the gas station we inevitably stopped at was delicious and most importantly, they had hot dogs. There was nothing like a nice meal of lamb stew and bread to quench an appetite.

Outside of Vik also put us near our next destination of Reynisfjara. This black-sand beach is puffin nesting ground during the spring, making their nests on top of the basalt columns similar to those found lining the walls of Svartifoss. Granted we were there during the wrong season so there were no puffins in sight. Instead, we had massive waves that looked like they could drag even the strongest swimmer out to sea. In case someone was silly enough to try and go into the water, there was a sign with very obvious pictures that the water was dangerous with big waves and an undercurrent. The other reason why this beach is famous is the tall rock pillars that can be seen in the distance.

The basalt columns of Reynisfjara

According to legend, these columns are trolls caught in the sunlight

Swimming is ill-advised

For the basalt columns and stunning black sand, it was nominated as one of the top-ten most beautiful beaches in the world that are not in a tropical location. One legend says that the two basalt columns are trolls that got caught in the sun while trying to pull a ship to shore. If there is one thing Iceland isn't short on, its myths and legends involving elves and trolls.

Once again, there was a small cafe nearby that had coffee, tea, and snacks that we stopped at to plan our final stop of the day and to figure out where we were going to sleep. This honor went to Solheimajokull Glacier, about a half hour drive from the beach. This would be the only glacier that we got close enough to take decent pictures of and the first glacier I had seen since going to Alaska in middle school.

Water pouring down the path to Solheimjokull Glacier

Runoff where the glacier has receded in the past few decades

With a stop at our third cafe of the day to try and outlast the rain, we decided to brave it and walk the 3/4-mile path to the glacier since we were running out of daylight and being wet no longer mattered since it had been the norm for nearly the last week. The glacier --- once coming directly to the path --- carved a narrow valley that waterfalls were cascading into with the runoff from the past week. At the actual glacier resting beyond a small pond of melt water, there was a single older Chinese gentleman, making this the first time we had a location nearly entirely to ourselves. More importantly, there was a giant boulder that could be climbed and he could take our picture standing on top of it with the boulder in the background.

The beautiful Solheimjokull Glacier

The boulder climbed in front of the glacier

Solheimjokull Glacier

Returning to the cafe shortly before it closed, we decided to check for the last time if there was any possibility of seeing the Northern Lights. According to their national cloud tracker, there was a campsite in Hvolsvollur, under an area that looked like it had a decent chance of being clear from cloud coverage early in the morning while the lights would show their dance. This turned out not to be true, but a little hope can't hurt.

Go figure it took us until the last day of our trip to finally stop at a Vínbúðin to stock up on some beer and a bottle of wine since the campsite we stopped at was a single building with a sink and a stove, we would need some other form of entertainment. We made a pit stop at the town pool and stopped for some Icelandic pizza in a nearby restaurant, soon to be followed by my discovery that Einstok is my favorite of the Icelandic beer. With an alarm set for the estimated 3:00 a.m. wake up in hopes of a clear sky, sleep beckoned. As I stated before, we ended up seeing some night sky but there were no Northern Lights.

My favorite of the Icelandic beer. The porter rang in at number one. 

For our final day, we woke up gray and early for the two-hour drive to the Blue Lagoon. I won't go into this in detail, but that place is worth every tourist-infested penny. I will say to be warned that they make you rinse off naked before putting your bathing suit back on and slowly wading into the water. With about three and a half hours killed here, we dropped the van off at Happy Campers and took a shuttle to the airport. Finally, it was time to bid adieu to Iceland. After a week of consistent gray and being wet, I can't say I wasn't excited to return stateside and be somewhere where we could see the sun and do laundry.

Blue Lagoon at sunrise

Insert typical tourist picture in Blue Lhere

Iceland, I will return for you in the future. This I promise you.