Day 2 - The Blue Lagoon
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Our flight landed in Reykjavik about 6:45 am, and by the time we got our bags and got through security it was 7:30. If we had wanted, we could have done tour package activities for the whole trip, but we wanted to be semi-independent, so we rented a car. Even though the rental car facility was just across the airport property, we had to wait in the terminal with the shuttle driver until all the expected renters arrived and then pile in a van for a quarter-mile drive. We rented from Sixt; it was our first experience with them, but other than the standard "scare you to death about how you'll end up paying for the whole car if a rock hits the windshield" speech, it was a good experience. We got through the rental process and then they turned us loose into Iceland.
In early January, the sun doesn't rise until like 11 am, so as we drove out of the airport, it was pitch black and the wind was whipping around at 40 mph. The airport is located in the middle of a barren, rocky lava field, and in the headlights we could see snow on the black lava rocks. Coming into this situation after an overnight plane ride, we kind of wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into.
Our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa that's a popular first or last stop for travelers to Iceland. However, it was still early and the spa wasn't open yet, so when we saw a bakery that was open in a small town, we stopped for breakfast. The one worker in the bakery didn't speak any English (one of the few people we encountered who didn't), but we managed to order some coffee, juice, and pastries and pay for them with a credit card. After breakfast, we drove on in the dark to the Blue Lagoon to wait for opening time. Along the way, we got our first exposure to Icelandic road signs – long words with characters not used in any language that we're familiar with, and basically impossible to figure out from context. We sat in the parking lot, scanned the radio and waited for 10 am when the spa opened.
At 10 am, with the sky only just starting to brighten, we walked into the spa. Iceland is very volcanically active, and uses a lot of geothermal energy. (They have a "hot water grid" throughout the city. They use the hot water (via a heat exchanger) to heat water for home use, and even route it through embedded pipes to keep the streets and sidewalks warm enough to melt ice and snow.) Some years back, a geothermal plant was built in the lava fields west of Reykjavik, and it dumped a lot of spent hot water into the surrounding area, where it formed mineral- and algae-rich natural pools. Somebody got the idea to build a spa around those pools, and the Blue Lagoon was born.
The facility was very sleek, clean, and modern. We waited in a small admission line and paid about $94 each for admission and locker rental and so forth. We went to the locker rooms and changed, then met to go out into the cold to get into the pool of hot water. (It wasn't what I call "novelty cold" while we were there – temperatures stayed between 25 and 35. Cold enough to get your attention, but nothing that we haven't experienced before.) The main pool is huge and the water is about 100 degrees (with some variation as you get closer or farther from the inlets), about 4 feet deep, and a milky blue color. There are bridges, a waterfall, swim-up bars, saunas, steam rooms, and other amenities around the pool. The weather cleared over our heads while we were in the pool, but it was still cold and windy, so staying in the water up to your neck was the best plan.
We soaked for a while, briefly tried out the sauna and steam room, gave ourselves facials using buckets of mineral-rich mud that were available beside the pool, and generally relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. After a couple of hours, we'd had enough and went in to shower and change. One thing I learned was that mineral water absolutely wrecks your hair. I used gallons of conditioner in the shower, and my hair still felt like dry, tangled straw. When I got out of the shower, I found that somebody had taken my towel; having no other option, I did the walk of shame from the shower to the lockers, dried off with a shirt as best I could, and got dressed.
Julie and I explored the spa facility a little more. It had a restaurant and snack bar, so we got a bite to eat, then took some photos from the outdoor observation decks. You could see the surrounding lava fields (with other blue pools that were not integrated into the spa), and the geothermal plant off in the distance. Around noon, we exited the spa and walked a few short trails on the property that wound through the lava field. The sun was still very low in the sky, and we hardly got a glimpse of it after this first morning.
Before driving on to Reykjavik, we took advantage of the break in the weather to drive a loop around the Reykjanes Peninsula, which is a mostly barren lava field where the spa, the airport, and a few small towns and villages are located. We saw a lot of Icelandic horses (small, fuzzy, and sturdy-looking) in the fields as we drove. (Horse sometimes appears on restaurant menus in Iceland – I'm not sure if these were for food or some other purpose.) We soon discovered that the weather can change quickly in Iceland. One minute we were driving under clear blue skies, and the next the wind was howling and it was snowing sideways, hindering visibility. We saw some giant, angry north Atlantic waves crashing on the rocks in the distance, too.
In the midst of that, we came across Jupiter, or at least a scale model of it. One of the geothermal plants has a scale model of the solar system, and the outer planets are scattered along the ring road around the peninsula. I took a photo of our trusty Chevrolet in the snow near Jupiter. Iceland drives on the same side of the road as the U.S., and snow tires apparently work miracles on snowy roads, so we didn't have any trouble driving (but we did stay pretty close to the city to avoid pressing our luck).
As the worst of the weather broke and the sun tried to come out, we arrived at the Bridge Between Two Continents. Iceland sits astride the junction of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are moving away from each other, leaving a sandy "no man's land" gulch between them. There's a pedestrian bridge that spans the gap between the two continents, and you can also walk down into the rift. (This interpretive plaque gives a little taste of what Icelandic looks like.)
At that point, it was time to drive into Reykjavik and check into our hotel before it got dark (sunset was at about 4 pm). The hotel (Fosshotel Lind) was about an hour away in the middle of town. It was an easy highway drive, and we arrived and checked in without incident. After we got our things settled into the small but comfortable room, we went out for dinner. Too tired to be adventurous, we had dinner at an Icelandic version of an American burger joint. It was a little strange to see "Southern Belle Salmon" on the menu ("How y'all doin'?"), which came with a side of grits (Icelandic: "grits"). Although intrigued, I went with a burger instead.
After a long couple of days of travel, what we really wanted to do was go back to the hotel and sleep, but we still had our Northern Lights tour ahead of us. (Although it was already dark, the lights don't really come out until later in the evening, so the tour didn't depart until 8p.) A few folks from our hotel piled onto a tour bus with tourists from other hotels and we drove out toward the first observation point. The tour company has a few different locations that they can take you to, out in the countryside away from the city lights, sometimes with a little café nearby to warm up in. Along the way, we caught a fleeting glimpse of an arctic fox running across the road, and we learned that people in Iceland keep their Christmas lights up into January. In early January (ostensibly the 6th, but sometimes postponed due to weather, like while we were visiting), they celebrate something called Þrettándinn, the thirteenth day of Christmas, with bonfires and fireworks displays, which we saw during our bus ride. (Incidentally, the "þ" is called a "thorn" and is pronounced like a "th.")
When we arrived at our first stop (a café near Þingvellir National Park, which we would visit again later in the trip), the sky was totally overcast and it was snowing. We loaded back up and moved on to another location, but the weather still didn't cooperate, so our first night was a bust. Luckily, you can keep rebooking the tour every night until you see the lights, so we'd just have to try again tomorrow.
