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| Flight Path from Seattle to Iceland |
Two years ago upon our return from our Silk Road Odyssey, we booked a last minute flight home on Iceland Air. The airline has a promotional program that we didn't take advantage of then, but on this trip to Europe, we made the promotional seven day stay in Iceland with no extra charge for airfare a part of this adventure as a part of our travel agenda. We were one of the first people to book a flight on this plane early in the year. Russ and I almost always travel economy premium with a little extra leg room. I book a window, Russ books the aisle. If we are lucky, nobody books the middle, and this usually works well for us. Besides, we just can't bring ourselves to pay 2 to 3 times more for first class.
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| Flying High in First Class |
Somewhere along the line, unbeknownst to us until we were getting updated flight information, we had been bumped into first class from Sacramento to Reykjavik. Nice anniversary surprise and a real teaser...our seats returning home are in economy. (May have to rethink that now ;-).
For those of you who fly first class regularly, you are probably thinking this is more info than you need to know, but for economical friends, I just want to share what a nice experience this was. We received little travel packs with eye blinds molded away from the eyelashes, cozy little socks, tooth brush, paste, chapstick, Before we lifted off, we had sparkling wine, followed by a snack, beverage, and steamed towels. We were issued a down quilt and big pillow with a cloth pillow case, and noise canceling headset full earphones. Seats were spacious and there were foot rests. The halibut dinner was superb, as was our ham and cheese croissant and fresh fruit breakfast Real dishes, tableware, glass, along with linen napkins were pretty cool, too. Nice!
Our flight across northern Canada and across bottom part of Greenland to Iceland was very smooth .
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| Frozen |
Unfortunately, neither Russ nor I sleep well on planes, and even though we had comfy seating, Russ slept a little and me not at all. Our plane arrived in Iceland at 6:30 am on August 10, but our biological clocks were still on Pacific time of 11:30 pm August 9. With no sleep, we had a full day ahead of us.
After passport control, luggage pickup, and ATM stop, Russ picked up our rental car for our self-drive tour (car, sightseeing route around the island with notes about each suggested stop and walk, and booked guest houses for seven nights returning us back to Reykjavik the night before our departure). While Russ checked in, I dug through the luggage to pull out some warm clothes to change into. The temperature was in in the low 50's with rain and fog. We got in our 4x4 VW SUV in the poring rain and headed north through a rugged volcanic moonscape of ancient lava plains.
Once out of the urban airport area, we turned onto a narrow two lane road which looks like it will be the standard for the rest of the trip around the island. There is a small to non-existent shoulder marked by a broken white line defining life and roll over, undulating elevations with blind rises, impatient cars, tour buses and campers passing one another. There are a surprising number of camping cyclists vying for space on these roads.
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| Spacious example of bicycle lane and road width |
Bet they had no idea before they signed up for the cycling adventure how perilous these roads can be, particularly with with sight seeing drivers shifting their eyes from the road to see the rugged mountains, ice fields, and glaciers. It's scary. The roads farther from Reykjavik have fewer stripes so what we thought original was standard is not. Since it rained most of the day and the forecast looks like a rainy week, we were thankful we had chosen a car over bikes.
We spent most of the day just ahead of the tour buses. Our first stop was the giant rift between the North American and Euro-Asia tectonic plates are bumping into each other! The pathways were filled with bus tourists.
We took a few quick photos and left before the buses. Our next stop was the Geysers. As soon as the buses pulled in, we left for the Gullafoss waterfalls, and so it went for most of the day until we were out of the Reykjavik Day Tripper Range. Nevertheless, tourists and tiredness aside, we enjoyed the variety of beautiful scenery.
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| Spring flowers on thermal hill |
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| Strokkur Geyser spouts upward every three to 5 minutes. |
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| Extremely clear and boiling thermal springs |
The volcanic mountains, cascading waterfalls reminds us both of Norway and New Zealand.
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| Gullfoss Waterfall |
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| Seasonal Fall, No Name |
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| Receding Glacier |
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| Black Sand Beach where puffins hangout |
Along the way we picked up two hitchhikers Philip and Barra from the Czech Republic, both working on their masters degrees in journalism and teaching. They are here with summer jobs at a campground. With the thousands of daily tourists here in Iceland, the the 330,000+ Icelanders can't fill all off the jobs needed. Phillip and Barra accompanied us to the Puffin colony, and the Ocean caves and pillars on the black sand beach before we dropped them off at a campground. They spoke excellent English and were able to give us some good recommendations of what to see and where to eat.
We loved the Puffin colony. It was cold, rainy, and windy. The puffins are pudgy little birds who have to flap their wings hard to stay in the air and land like a helicopter on the cliffs. Today was especially challenging. It was hard to hold the camera still enough in the wind for a clear picture and the puffins were working extra hard.
We pulled into our hotel around 6:30, have just eaten dinner, and can't wait to go to bed, exhausted after being awake for about 36 hours. It's been a long soggy an scenic day.
But all is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Vic, Iceland.
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