JC's iPhone Blog

We had quite the night in the van last night. It was blowing a gale almost all day and when we turned in, it was blowing so hard that it felt like there were 8 or 10 football players encircling the van and randomly shoving it hard every few seconds. The wind kept up a steady roar as well. All of that combined to make for a less-than-perfect last night of sleep. We had an 8:30 ferry to catch back to the mainland, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and made a quick cup of tea before getting in line for the boat. Fortunately, the weather had calmed a bit, so the crossing wasn’t too bad. All we had to do then was drive about an hour and a half back to Reykjavik for a little last minute shopping (I never found anything in the way of a souvenir, but Mallory found a beautiful classic Icelandic cardigan sweater a few days ago; today was mostly gifts). We’re now sitting in our humble little guesthouse room; Mal’s writing postcards and I’m processing photos and trying to catch up on email and the blog.

Where was I on the travelogue? Oh, that’s right, Friday. That morning dawned cloudy and cool again, but your intrepid vanagers weren’t going to let a little rain stop us. After all, we had a lot more waterfalls to see! Actually one of the coolest (er, hottest?) things we’ve seen the whole time we’ve been here was our first stop that morning. Deildartunguhver hot springs is the largest in Europe, by volume. It puts out 180 liters/minute, at 97° celcius. It heats all the surrounding towns, through a 74 kilometer pipeline (considered the longest of its kind). Here’s a video I shot to give you an idea of what it was like:

It was really quite amazing, and only about a mile from our campground. You could see its giant cloud of steam from miles around. When you get close to all the little geysers, the steam envelops you; we ended up quite damp when we walked back to the car, just from the steam!

From there, we had went another short way up the road to see an museum dedicated to Snorri Sturluson, a famous Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He lived from 1179 to 1241, and wrote many of the most familiar (to them) Icelandic sagas. Here’s a striking bit of brightly painted carving that surrounded the entrance to the exhibits:

The museum is in a beautiful building too, but we just didn’t have the energy to brave the crowds, so we did a quick circuit, checked out the giftshop, and headed out to the first landmark of the day, Hraunfossar and Barnafoss:

The blue water in all the creeks and streams around Iceland is quite striking, isn’t it? I’m not sure why it’s so turquoise. I’ll have to read up on it.

Also fascinating are the obvious lava formations in the rocks everywhere:

Next up was a side trip to catch a lesser-known waterfall called Bruarfoss. I found it quite remarkable, especially since it’s essentially unmarked from the nearest paved road, and the photography book in which I found it recommended said that people are often thwarted in their efforts to find it. I did actually have a little trouble with Google Maps when we’re in the nearby settlement, and had to switch to the Apple Maps app to finish the job. Perseverance paid off, as you’ll see:

Just because I can, I’ll also share one of the little Live-Photo-converted-to-video-using-Motion-Stills bits that I shared on Instagram:

Phew! I’m really sorry if I’ve overdone it with the waterfalls, but it’s really a big part of what Iceland’s all about. I think Mal joked at the beginning of the week that it could really be called Fossland!

On our way to catch the ferry out to Vestmannaeyjar (the Westmann islands), we stopped to make a little ramen tuna casserole dinner, while parked below our first waterfall of the week, Seljalandsfoss. We stopped next to the highway just before the falls, so I could grab this giant lupine field with the falls in the background:

So that leaves our 36 hours on Heimaey, the main island in the archipelago, as my last bit to post about here. I’ll probably write that on the plane tomorrow, and publish it when we land in NYC. We have something like a 7-hour layover, so we’re actually going to leave the airport and meet Rosy at a Himalayan restaurant in Queens for lunch, then zoom back to the airport for our flight to Denver. Louisa will pick us up at DIA at something like 10:45 pm tomorrow night. Sheesh, if we don’t have some jet lag for a few days, I’ll be amazed. At least we get to see both girls for a bit before we get home.

Until tomorrow!

Yikes, we’ve been traveling so long, I’m starting to lose track of time! ;•) It’s now Saturday evening, and we’re on Heimaey, the main island in the Westmann island archipelago. The weather has definitely taken a turn for the worse, but we’ve continued to be lucky with patches of clearing at opportune times. I’m going to report on Thursday, and then attempt to get caught up as we wend our way back home over the next couple of days.

Thursday morning was cloudy and cool, and had rained a fair bit during the night. Fortunately we had some indoor activities on the agenda, and then just a couple of sights to see along the Snæfellsnes peninsula north of Reykjavik. First was a couple hour drive to Borgarnes, then a visit to the Settlement Museum there. The exhibits there were fascinating, with one section that covered the little that is known about how the first Norse settled the island, then another that was a great example of the Viking ‘sagas’ that are so common here. This is one small sample of the wood carvings that were the highlights of the second exhibit:

From there, we headed out onto the peninsula to take in the iconic mountain Kirkjufell, and it’s sister waterfall, Kirkjufellfoss, on the north coast. The weather was very rainy at that point, but I still managed to capture some decent shots:

One of my primary goals of the whole Iceland trip was to visit (and get a photo of) Snæfellsjökull, the iconic ancient volcano that inspired Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, and is actually the namesake of our own Mt. Sneffels! It’s located at the far end of Snæfellsnes Peninsula, which was completely covered by clouds and rain by the time we got there, so I guess it just wasn’t meant to be on this trip. The salvation of the day, however, was that we’d made dinner reservations at a hotel/restaurant recommended by friends in Ouray (thanks Kathleen & Carla!) in the tiny coastal town of Búðir. After driving the main road from Kirkufell west a little ways, it climbed into the clouds and we proceeded for about 5-10 miles in 20 feet of visibility. Suddenly dropping out of the clouds, we saw Hotel Búðir in the distance. We had the most incredible meal, sharing perfectly cooked Iceland lamb chops and Dover sole. It was the perfect end to our first day of less-than-ideal weather. As we got in the van to drive to our next campground, we even spotted Búðir’s famous Black Church:

As I wrap up for today, it’s blowing a gale outside, but we’re enjoying the warmth & international commradery of the campground’s communal building. We had a delightful chat with some German students who are part of a group of 16 staying here tonight, and are surrounded by folks speaking several languages (none of them English). Tomorrow we catch the early ferry back to the mainland, drive to Reykjavik for some last-minute shopping, and then on to our guesthouse near the airport for our 8:35 flight to NYC on Monday morning. I should have lots of time tomorrow afternoon to get caught up on the last couple of day’s adventures. In the meantime, here’s yet another waterfall, seen flowing out of the clouds above Búðir:

I can’t believe it’s Thursday evening already! I’m going to report on our day yesterday, and then do the same for today, tomorrow (I hope that makes sense 😜).

After our long first half of the day catching up and enjoying the Viking Café (which, despite a bit of a shabby exterior, served a amazing latté and had the fastest internet we’ve seen yet), we took off in the van to work our way back west, with the goal of hitting a campground in Hveragerði last night. In between, we had about 420 km (about 260 miles) to cover. Along the way, we enjoyed the following:

Next up was a beautiful canyon that we’d missed the day before, called Fjaðrárgljúfur (don’t even try pronouncing that; it’s only thanks to Wikipedia that I can spell it, even with the Icelandic alphabet).

It was a highlight of the trip so far for me. I’ll even include a link to the Photo Sphere I shot as well (think Google Street View). Here’s a few of my attempts to capture it with my iPhone:

Lastly, here’s the link to the Photo Sphere on Google Maps:

https://goo.gl/ohyfdx

The last stop of the day, before the campground, was another waterfall we’d missed the previous day, called Skógafoss. We arrived there about 11:30 pm, but there was still enough light to get some good shots.

I hope you’re not getting too tired of waterfalls, as we’re not done yet! This one is probably the most popular of them all.

I thought this little video, created from a “Live Photo” via a new Google app called Motion Stills and posted on Instagram, turned out pretty well too:

I must say, we have been so lucky with the weather this entire time, it’s truly astounding. Of course it looks like that may come to an end, just as the trip is coming to an end. Today was pretty rainy, as you’ll from tomorrow’s post, and tomorrow’s forecast is the rainiest yet, and Friday & Saturday look similar. I’m sure we’ll just make the best of it though.

That’s it for now, check back tomorrow!