The Golden Circle

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Day 1 – We arrived in Reykjavik at 11:45pm on Saturday night. It took a while for the luggage to come through, and I got some cash at an ATM while Jeroen waited for the bags. Next stop was finding Fox Rent a Car, operated by Atak car rental. Atak, love it. Luckily Jeroen was looking around and saw my name on a sign. It was Omar, from Atak, and he drove us to their office, about a minute away. We decided to upgrade to a 4x4 car, even though it was tiny. The terrain in Iceland can be bad, so we went for the car. We finally got out of there at 1am or so, and went searching for the bed and breakfast we had chosen near the airport. Since we are so high in latitude, it was still light out, which helped. The sun sets but it doesn't really get dark. Reminds me a lot of Norway last summer.

I didn't sleep well at all that first night and got up around 8am. This place had a general breakfast, which was nice. We ate a bit, checked emails and made sure we had directions to other hotels along the way, something I had overlooked before. Then our Iceland experience began. It was a good beginning, sunny and blue skies. We went from Keflavik, where the airport is, to start our drive around the Golden Circle, which would be a full day experience. We drive first to Pingviller, a national park and the site of the first place where democracy began in Iceland about a thousand years ago. We visited some historical sites and the law rock. The weather was still good when we arrived but slowly started to change over to light rain. We did a bit of walking and then drove on to Geysir. It is the most famous geysir in the world, after which all others take their name. It erupts a couple times a day, but we weren't there for that. Close by though, is Strokkur, another geysir which erupts pretty impressively, every six minutes or so. Very cool to see, but it was cold and more rainy than the last site. Which brings us to Gulfoss, the golden waterfall, which may be so when sunny but not in the rain. We didn't stay long, sadly. Too cold and wet to linger. It's the second time I've been there and the weather has been the same each time. We did have some fun summer music for the journey though. Call me Maybe seemed to be the theme song, at least while we were within radio signal reach. And we even heard the Top 40 from the US, something I haven't heard in years.

By the time we reached our hotel in Skogar, about ten hours had passed since we left in the morning. It's amazing how much of the land in Iceland is untouched and apparently uninhabitable. Much of it is lava rock, some covered with moss and lichens. There are sheep everywhere, but very few people. Only about 300,000 people live in Iceland, and about half of them are in the capital. Even though we saw tons of tourists at the airport and on shuttle buses at sites, we went most of the day, and every following day, without seeing many cars on the road. It was amazing. We were tired and reasonably unimpressed with the Hotel Edda when we arrived in the evening. There are very few restaurants as you drive in the south of Iceland, and the hotel wanted to charge us 32 euros per person for a dinner buffet. Insane. So we we went to the only other place around for a crappy burger instead. The Eurocup final was on and we watched Spain spank Italy. That is when we tried Skyr for the first time. And fell in love. My friend Sue recommended it to me, and we had it for dessert. It is kind of like thick yogurt, but made from curdled milk. It is high in protein, low in fat, and delicious. I loved it and will miss it. Why can't Switzerland import cool things? After this discovery, we had an early night so we could do it again tomorrow.

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