(readers note: I changed the format, so the pictures follow the relevant paragraphs. Be sure to read all the way to the end. Click on any picture to see all the pictures in full size)
It has been way too long since we’ve had a trip to blog
about. 766 days to be exact, and our
travel muscles seem to have atrophied.
Packing, which had become such a simple task, is quite the challenge. It doesn’t help that we’re going to Iceland
in June with expected highs in the 50s and we’re looping the entire island
country in a couple of weeks. My usual
stack of nice shirts has been traded for rugged, waterproof gear, suede loafers
for Columbia hikers.
This is the rescheduled adventure from 2020. Fully vaccinated and with the pandemic on the
decline, travel is back, but with new twists that we start learning well before
the trip even begins. Our first stop is
in Reykjavik, one of the worlds hottest travel destinations. Pre-rona that is. A month before the trip, Icelandair moves our
flight from Newark to JFK. Curious. A week before we leave, I get an e-mail that
the hotel we booked is Reykjavik simply closed.
Sorry. We panic book another property, but I’m struck that there is
availability at such a nice place this late in the game. A few days later, that hotel sends a “sorry,
closed” email too, but bumps us to an even nicer sister property. Curiouser and curiouser.
We take a long Uber to JFK.
It’s the cheapest option when you consider parking and schedule it early. Good thing too, as the torrential downpour grinds
traffic to a halt. It’s not stressful
because we left plenty of time. It’s
completely stressful anyway cause it’s just taking so long. At the airport we find the next curveball. Iceland is requiring a vaccination “precertification”. Easy enough to do from their website from the
phone, but we can’t imagine why the airline didn’t have us do this days ago
from home. Once done, we sail through
check-in and security with no lines. No
lines on a Tuesday afternoon in a New York airport. Inside, the terminal is a ghost town. Most of the newly renovated restaurants in
Terminal 7 are shuttered, so we sit at the only open bar. We can see half a dozen gates from our stools
and can only count a few dozen people.
Turning to the woman seated next to us, I ask if she is going to Iceland. Turns out everyone in the terminal is and we
break into easy conversation in this uneasy situation. Even with the empty terminal, we’re shocked
with how empty the plane is. On the tarmac,
the skys clear and we’re treated to a double rainbow. Maybe this trip is actually going to
happen. Once in the air, most people take
a whole row to themselves, lift the arm rests and lay on their makeshift couch.
Above the weather now, we take a moment to reflect on the
shear improbability of us being here now.
Mandy loves traveling but still dislikes flying but takes some comfort
in the beautiful sunset out the port window.
It’s 10pm. The sun is still
setting, barely cresting the horizon an hour later. We flip through the onboard screen to find
the progress map and realize that the flight plan tracks almost perfectly along
the sunlight/darkness sine wave. We’re treated
to a four-hour sunset and get some amazing pictures.
Landing, passport control, covid testing and car rental all
go smoothly. It’s 7:30am, we’ve been
awake for 21 hours and need breakfast. Good
thing Mandy has a plan (she’s good like that) because we’re not up for too much
thinking. Max’s at the Northern Lights
Inn provides us much needed nutrition, great coffee and even better views. Well caffeinated, we drive a half mile to the
famed Blue Lagoon. We made 9am
reservations back in January, but due to limited tourism, they now open at
10. We call and a few apologies later
they send someone to open early for us. When
you read on-line reviews, the Lagoon loses some points for being overcrowded. We have the exact opposite experience, the
entire place to ourselves and the staff doting on us, and we get that rarest of
all Iceland pix, a serene, empty Blue Lagoon.
The lagoon is a series of interconnected thermal pools and water features
that shimmer with an iridescent milk blue color. Just the site of it is instantly calming. Our host takes us to start in the massage
area, where our masseuses are waiting. We
get onto thin blue float mats and are covered with warm, wet, heavy towels,
including our eyes. I understand quickly
that this is not just an in-water massage, but an exercise in letting go, a
thirty minute trust-fall, with an experienced guide rolling you this way and
that as she rubs the sore and tired out of your muscles. When done, they park Mandy and I next to each
other when we just be for a while. Once
we finally move, we head towards the mask bar, where we slather our faces with thick
white silica mud that goes on like whipped cream cheese and stays there for 15
minutes. It’s quite the site, dozens of us
in the same Kabuki paint. Relaxed,
refreshed and showered we head down the road.
We’re taking the back roads to Reykjavik with a few stops
planned. It’s tough going as the fog is
thick and dense, limiting visibility to a few meters. First stop is Graenavtn, the Green Lake just
a few yards off the road. It’s a bust -
even though we’re right next to it, we can barely see it and hop back into the
car. It clears a bit by the time we get
to the Seltun geothermal feature. Still
foggy, but the deep gray bubbling earth and multi colored rocks make this quick
20 minute hike feel oddly like exploring a underwater reef. The last planned stop is Kleifarvatn (CLAY-vahr-VAHT)
lake. The black sand beach is enticing,
but Apple maps takes us unexpectantly down “unnamed” (un-PAVE-ed) road. Readers of this blog know that it is undisputable
proof of why you should never, ever, buy what used to be a rental car, but on
most trips were many days in before we subject our car to such bumpy, rock
throwing, bottom scraping abuse. But
here we are and suddenly I do feel like we picked up just where we left
off. Mandy is white-knuckling it and not
holding back on the colorful language as we bounce, swerve and splash our way down
the well-used path. The payoff comes about
a mile and a half down the trail as the sky clears a bit and we reach the “beach”,
a thick, sugary lava sand in a deep shade of black that boarders the large body
of water. Now that we can see it, the
landscape is straight sci-fi, with only thick moss covering the loose lava
rocks.
We check into the Sand Hotel in Reykjavik, a lovely boutique in the hip city centre. Our room is on the top floor with views of the shopping district and the super-yachts in the harbor beyond. It’s 2ish and we change and decide to explore the city a bit. We explore the shops and the murals and end up at Salka Valka, a locals joint out with good local beer and great food. The city is fun, but our adventure only lasts for a couple hours as we’re going on 29 hours awake. We nap for a few hours then get up to try to set our body clocks to local time. We wander out the front door, window shop for a dozen blocks and end up at Forsetinn, an unassuming bar with comfy couches unintentionally decorated like your grandmother’s rumpus room. Floki, the locally distilled spirits, make the perfect nightcap to our 35 hour day.
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