Iceland Tales: Part 1

Tent city!

When you spend two weeks traveling in a single country, you tend to have some fun stories to share. Iceland was everything I imagined it to be and so much more. From the generosity of the people who live there, to the breathtaking scenery that greeted us at every turn. This is the first in a series of stories from my journey, at least until I have some more fun travels to talk about.

The first night we arrived in Iceland, we stayed within the Reykjavík city limits at the Reykjavík Campground. This was an awesome place to stay, truly a hub for travelers from all around the world. It had room for 200 plus tents, cooking, dishwashing, and shower facilities (a rare commodity for how we chose to travel), and community gathering spaces. Thanks to our jetlag we tried to experience some of the night life the city had to offer, but ended up just grabbing a beer at a pub and going to bed around 11 pm, when it was still very light out.

Photo of Hallgrímskirkja taken around 10:45 pm.

In the morning having packed our car, in a way that I could never quite figure out, we set out on the Ring Road. Myself and another traveler heard a metallic clunk in the trunk and shrugged it off, attributing it to the settling of gear in the back. In the first hour we stopped to get coffee, hopeful that the cup size of gas station coffee would be larger than we had read, we were wrong. Our roughly 8 ounce coffees ended up costing us about five dollars each. We vowed to find a better solution to the coffee issue and moved on.

The Ring Road is interesting, when you set out you are astonished by every hill and new bend in the road, and by the time you make it back, you've seen so many beautiful places that you are almost hard to comprehend what you are experiencing. Leaving Reykjavík behind, you travel through moss covered hills, see a few of the geothermal plants that provide a lot of power for the island, and come across the first natural phenomenon of the trip. Off to the left, the mountainsides are dotted with too many steam vents to count, white tendrils of smoke curl up from the ground, standing out in stark contrast to the vibrant moss that covers the landscape. The capital was actually named for these hills, Reykjavík roughly translates to "smoke hills".

Steam vents dot the hillsides outside of Reykavik.

Coming down from this area, we passed through several small towns, stopped in grocery stores to arm ourselves with instant coffee, ramen, Doritos, and chocolate (healthy eating, I know). And then continued on to see the first of the magnificent waterfalls in Iceland. The thing about Icelandic waterfalls is that they are unending. Going back to the beauty overload comment, we saw well over 1,000 waterfalls as we drove across the island, many of which were of substantial size too. We found that stopping at some of the smaller, less popular public falls offered a better nature viewing experience, although we still stopped at all of the big falls (except Dettifoss, but that's another story...)

The upper falls of Skógafoss. Right where we were when it started raining (Breathtaking and absolutely worth the cold).

So after stopping and exploring several beautiful waterfalls, and also pinching ourselves to make sure we were actually seeing what we were seeing, we found ourselves half an hour away from our car, up a beautiful river valley with one heck of a storm rolling in. By the time it started raining, we had all realized that we had left our rain coats in the car (a mistake we only made once) and got thoroughly drenched on our way down. We had planned to check out the Reynisfarya beach by Vik, but decided to save that for the morning when we were less freezing, so we headed up to the Pakgil campground.

This mountain is called Skálarfjall, it lies at about three quarters of the way to the Þakgil canyon campground.

This might be the most under-rated campsite I've ever stayed at (and I'm a natural resource student, so I camp a lot). The drive there has you weave between massive black rock formations, and being on the edge of the desert, the landscape is a mix of black sand and vibrant green moss. To complete the picture, we drove through this area in the fog and rain, casting a mysterious, fantastical mood across the landscape. This road goes into the heart of the Katla Geopark, the Þakgil campground sits at the base of several hiking trails, and made us feel like we were in middle earth (or westeros, take your pick). Coming over a rise, we were greeted by a view so unreal that we had to pull our car over to sit and stare for a few minutes. The road ahead winds down into a braided river valley, mixes of black sand green mosses cover this initial hill. To the right at the bottom of the hill rivers lead out to the sea, braiding through the black sand like the smoke tendrils we saw earlier in the day. In the background an immense peak rises straight from the valley floor. This peak rises to over 800 meters from the valley, and at that time of the day, the top half of the mountain was shrouded in clouds. Later we discovered that this was the area used to film a lot of the Game of Thrones scenes that occur beyond the wall.

The campground from above while hiking the next following morning.

After we got over our initial shock and kept driving, we headed down into the valley and the road took us into a series of canyons. Finally, we arrived at the campground. The campground itself is nestled in a clearing in the middle of a old canyon. The walls of the canyon are covered in vibrant mosses, and every direction offers exciting sights to be seen. One of my favor

Flooding in the campground around 11pm.

ite parts about this campground is that there is an old cave that used to be used by sheep farmers that now acts as a cooking area for campers. Grills sit under rocky overhangs, and the cave itself is filled with large tables. Candles holder fixed to the walls cast dancing shadows about the space, and laughter and multiple languages fill the air.

We sat in the cave eating and talking for a while. Enjoying a slightly warmer area and trying to dry out. When we left, we split the tasks for cleaning the cooking where and setting up camp, myself and our other female traveler took on washing the dishes in freezing water, while the boys went to work setting up the tent. It came to our attention that even we had been cleaning for about 10 minutes, no progress had been made on the tent. As it turned out, that metallic clanking we heard as we left the city in the morning had been of significance. That had been our tent stakes falling off the roof of the car where they had been set as we packed up. So with ranging winds, a not entirely waterproof tent, and missing tent stakes, we decided to sleep in the car. As we settled in, we unearthed some of the Icelandic spirits we had bought in the airport, turned on some music, and talked well into the evening. Even with the aid of drinks, sleeping the car was not a comfortable experience.

The canyon immediately behind the campground.

 The landscapes of Iceland are stunning.
 Coming from Colorado, where we have
 some of the tallest mountains in the lower 
 48 I thought that I would be more
 prepared to take in the beauty of the land.
 I can safely say at this point though that I
 am still trying to comprehend the
 magnitude of what I was able to
 experience in my time there. I hope you
 have enjoyed reading this little story about
 my time in Iceland. Stay tuned for more
 tales. From flat tires, to ferries to the
 Arctic Circle, our journey was nothing
 short of spectacular. One thing is for
 certain though, I've caught the travel bug.
 And even as I sit here recounting events
 that unfolded earlier this year, I'm saving
 my pennies and beginning to plan my next
 destination. I don't know where I'll end
 up, but I can't wait to find out!