Iceland Adventures, Day 6 - 14 hours on a bus, but so worth it

After a day of rest and relaxation, it was a good opportunity to go out to the eastern part of the country via the south coast. Iceland has one main road that pretty much follows the circumference of the entire country - you can take this road pretty much anywhere, unless parts of it have been washed out by, oh, I don't know, flood or lava flow. But they rebuild sections of the road that have been wiped out very quickly, so no one is cut off for very long.

Our first stop was a rest stop, about an hour or so outside of Reykjavik. This was going to be a long day, so they wanted to give us as many opportunities to pee and eat as possible. Joseph and I picked up some snacks, including a very curious package of bacon flavored crackers. That's right. Crackers. That are bacon flavored. Which were next to packs of paprika flavored crackers... those crazy Europeans.

Bacon flavored crackers... from LU, the tea biscuit people. The crackers were actually pretty tasty - they just needed a piece of cheese to round them out.

Our first actual tour stop was Skogarfoss falls. These falls are about 80m tall, and are very beautiful. They don't have the power of Gullfoss, but an elegant quieter beauty.

Skokarfoss

The sun came out just long enough for a mist rainbow to appear

Our touristy photo... or proof that we we didn't just get these pictures of Wikipedia

We had a photo stop at the side of the road to look at the glacier Myrdalsjökull, which is the larger glacier directly east of Eyafjallajökull (perhaps you heard of that one). You can see the glacier creeping down from the mountains at the horizon of the photo. On the ground in front are stacks of rocks. People stack the rocks to give them luck for safe travels.

Myrdalsjökull creeping downward

Back on the bus. We took a quick lunch break at a hotel in the middle of no-where, and were back on the bus quickly for another hour to Jöjulsárlón Glacial Lagoon. In this lagoon, icebergs break off the Vatnajökull glacier, the largest glacier in Europe, and slowly travel their way down the river into the ocean. The lagoon was jammed packed with icebergs... unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate that much, so the it's a bit grey out.

Here we are!

It's the Snoopy Glacier!

While were were out in the middle of the lagoon, something happens that is not witnessed often - an iceberg flipped over. The lagoon is part sea water, since it's connected to the ocean through the river. This sometimes causes the underside of the iceberg to melt faster than the exposed side, causing a weight shift and flip. Our tour guide had never even seen this happen before. But while she was talking, all of a sudden people were pointing behind her and WHOOOOSH!!!. I wish I got it on video. It was really awesome, and the sound was immense!

The icebergs have been on their travels for hundreds of years... so this ice I'm holding is hundreds of years old... and I ate it! Don't worry, the tour guide gave us all a piece.

The view from the hilltop.

After the lagoon, we drove to the town of Vík, which is the southern-most town in Iceland. This town is very quaint, and has these beautiful black lava sand beaches right on the Atlantic. We stopped for dinner and a walk down to the beach.

The black sand beach, cliff and rock outcropping called "The Three Trolls"

Our final stop was to see Seljalandsfoss waterfall, at the foot of Eyafjallajökull, and near the Þorsmork Valley. This waterfall is beautiful, and you can walk behind it after a short climb...

Waterfall from the front...

and the back...

Back on the bus and back to Reykjavik. We had a couple more short rest stops, and some photo op stops, just to take in the beauty. On the entire ride, our guide told us all sorts of stories about Icelanders, elves, hidden people, etc. It was really cool, and some of the stories he told were really great... mostly because many Icelanders do believe in elves and hidden people and magic. This is a magical country - and everything we saw during our 14 hour tour made me believe it even more.

Next up - Rest and Regroup in Reyk