To the elves, volcanoes and whales: at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and geothermal wonders of Iceland
Three of us (myself, K & S) eliminated our travel fatigue and woke up quite relaxed on Friday, 26th May 2023. I was still dreaming of the Whales with my eyes open this time, while others got ready for the day. We have planned for whale watching but we haven’t booked a tour yet because tours depends on the weather. Since the weather today isn’t promising, we planned something else for the day.
But first, food! We checked for a cafè with good ratings and found one called Grái kötturinn. It was drizzling and also a bit cold outside. We drove to Reykjavik city centre and explored Icelands parking system a bit and walked in the rain to the cafè. Even though Reykjavik is Icelands capital city, the city centre was spacious with too less humans to be seen outiside.
Unlike outside, the small cafè was crowded at the first glance and I thought that we might have to leave. But fortunately, a man came to us and said that they are leaving and we may take their table. That was perfect timing! Anyway, I was thankful and we took our seats. The table was near to the entrance and we could get a good view of the entire cafè from there. They had a small library set up inside the cafè (those books were written in Icelandic), the wall decoration was interesting with several wall art and paintings. Overall, the ambience was pretty nice. Our eye balls however soon fell on to the family sitting next to us and their plates, what they ordered looked delicious. It was a western breakfast with eggs, bread, butter, potatoes, herbs, beans, bacon etc. All of us ended up ordering the same menu except for the drinks.
While waiting for food, I tried to book our tour combo (Whale watching and Horse riding) via email at a popular tour company in Iceland. Icelandic horses are special breeds unique to Iceland, hence that experience is undoubtfully inevitable. Horse riding is scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday. But we were still unsure about whale watching : it could be either tomorrow or the day after. The tour company themselves were not sure about the date/time due to the rough Ocean. They asked us to call 2h before every scheduled departures (which is 09:00 or 13:00 or 17:00 every day) to check with them if the tour is really happening. In the meantime our delicious breakfast arrived. We enjoyed the food and left the place soon and headed to our first destination: Grindavik.
The drive to Grindavik area was fun. We smelled strange gases on our en route and found that it was volcanic gases. There were geysers all over the place. It felt adventurous. We were not alone, we saw one or two other cars: one cannot expect more in Iceland. Iceland has a very rough climate. It gets 100+ earthquakes each day, strong winds (which made me wonder if the first humans to ever fly without any mechanical parts might be from Iceland), geothermal activity etc. Regardless, we had to exercise caution and monitored the weather warning systems each time we headed to a particular direction.
First, we stopped at a geyser in the area. There were few wooden bridge remnants near this geyser. May be it was possible for the tourists to walk through the now active geyser area once, before it turned out to be this vigorous. Geysers are basically outlets were steam comes out of earth. They are formed when magma heated rocks get in touch with ground water. So this is no child’s play. There were danger signs all over the place. Geysers are an indication of geothermal activity underneath our feet. Iceland used this geothermal energy to meet most of its energy demands, which is really cool, to not to depend on fossil fuels like other countries.
Next, we headed to a light house near by. The Atlantic was so close to us and because of the extreme winds we decided not to go to the beach. S went up the light house. Me and K decided not to go up as it was very windy and cold on top. We met a guy from Boston at the parking. He went up the lighthouse with S. The wind was getting stronger and there were signs of no other humans up in the lighthouse. We saw a white tourist bus full of people traveling to the Atlantic coast. After few minutes, S came down and the guy said here is your friend safely handed over to you. We thanked him and waved good bye. We got in the car and decided to drive to the coast and take a look. This was the best decision we ever made! The view was amazing. There was a song scene taken from here (with the red piano) in the Eurovision movie. I imaged the time when the now thick black solidified lava met the ocean tides long time ago, when the lava was still hot and fresh from earths mantle. I could feel the history of this place. The ocean looked fierce. The wind was strong. We felt a rush of happiness every minute we spend there and enjoyed the spot to its zenith. What magic does Oceans and Seas have on human mind, I wondered.
On the way back, we also stopped at a small bridge near another coast. We could see the sea moss even on the road area. At high tides, the Atlantic could be walking all over here, I thought. The smell of the ocean was remarkable. I felt like staying in Iceland forever.
We were getting late for our visit to Blue Lagoon: the geothermal spa and pool. Many of the natural hot springs here are hotter for humans. It is still possible to experience a natural hot spring at certain locations. But in the spas, people take hot water out of the natural hot springs and cool it down for a comfortable experience. The Turquoise blue water in the Blue Lagoon amidst the pitch black lava rocks looked magical.
We had a fruit drink from the lounge and enjoyed the sight of the waters for few minutes. Later, we got our keys (which are armbands) and headed to the changing room. We had to remove any ornaments (metal) like ear rings because geothermal waters are rich in silica, which is not where you want to go wearing your metal ornaments. We had to take a shower before getting into the pool. It was too cold outside so we literally ran to the warm water. K was afraid of deep water so she stayed in safer depths. We grabbed our first face masks (with volcanic ingredients they say) and then our welcome drinks (no volcanic ingredients). It was then that K and S mentioned that they met the Boston guy here at the reception and speculated that he might have come for a ticket but left as he did not get one. Hyped spas in Iceland always need a ticket in advance and last minutes may not work always. Anyways, Blue Lagoon was a relaxing and splendid experience.
We drove back to Reykjavik and had our dinner from a junk food place (burger and stuff) because shops and restaurants in Iceland closes early just like Germany and we were getting close to starving for the rest of the night. After dinner we headed to our hotel.
Today was well spent. The Ocean was cool, the drive was awesome. Experiencing geothermal activities was amazing and time spent at the spa was refreshing. But we were really tired. I knew sleep would come in seconds as soon as the bed is in the vicinity. While it was still ambiguous if I could meet the whales tomorrow, I fell into sleep like a clumsy penguin on an icy slide.