Blogs from Southwest, Iceland, Europe - page 29

Can you be a guide with some Indian ladies? They are coming to Iceland in March, six ladies all from the same family. Ah, I haven’t had many Indians on tours so I welcome such an opportunity, nice to get to know people from all around the world, hear how they live their lives, their culture. Worst is they arrived around midnight. I can’t say I enjoy picking people up at midnight. Well, let us make the most of it and since the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) will most likely be in the sky that evening then I will stop on the way to Reykjavik to show them this phenomena. And they were! A great show in the sky. I think my Indian ladies were tired after a long flight, they did not show much interest ... read more

Our trip to Iceland didn’t start very auspiciously, with our flight being delayed for 2 hours because of French air traffic control strikes! We wriggled and fidgeted and worried until they finally told us we were going, but we were pretty lucky that they hadn’t cancelled our flight like a lot of others. In our spare time we did manage to buy a bottle of duty free gin as we had heard alcohol was very expensive in Iceland, so the time wasn’t totally wasted. And before we knew it, we were touching down in Reykjavik. The sun was shining and it wasn’t unbearably cold, we couldn’t believe it! We’d been told that Icelandic people had been voted the friendliest in the world, and before long that was readily apparent. Some excitable and possibly slightly drunk locals ... read more

Monday 29th July, 2013. Reykjavik, Iceland. The northernmost capital in the world, Reykjavik lies in the south-west corner of an island whose very name sends shivers down our spines. For a truer picture of this marvelous place we think that Iceland and Greenland should swap names! Iceland is the second largest island in Europe (behind Britain). The island lies just below the Arctic Circle and has a coastline measuring 3,700 miles (much of this accounted for by the crablike pincers of the north-west peninsula known as the Westfjords). Iceland measures 300 miles from east to west and nearly 200 from north to south, with a total land area of about 40,000 sq miles. We had decided to give Reykjavik a miss as we had already reserved a car with the Reykjavik Renta Car company based near ... read more

Today was our last in this beautiful city of Reykjavik. We were up and eating breakfast by 7:30. The Guesthouse is run by Etta and her husband, the communist. Etta was our guide for the Golden Circle and she makes a-killer rhubarb crisp. Today was the arctic rafting trip. We had a 90 minute drive to the outfitter for our frigid excursion. We slept most of the way and learned just how cold this was going to be. They gave us wet suits (pre wet for us), booties, nasty fleece jackets and a water-proof jacket to cover everything. Watching everyone cram into the wetsuits was quite humorous. We got our helmets and paddles and we were off with our guide from Nepal, Lama. Fortunately as happened on our snowmobile tour, we were the only ones on ... read more

Our first night in Iceland and it does not get dark, at all. It’s very weird to see the crack between the curtains and it is totally light outside. Before we went to bed last night, Kirsten was messing with the lights and were flashing them off and on, and then she plugged in her phone for the night and then . . . wait for it . . . she blew the fuse in the room. No biggie, but funny none the less. Chester had taken her favorite little helper, popped in her ear plugs and slipped on the eye mask and was out! Seriously out for the night. Kirsten thought she was going to be out for the night, until there came a pounding on our hotel door. Yes, Gene and Judy finally made ... read more