Iceland: Day 1
Here is the first in a series of blog post about my recent trip to Iceland with my friend Ebenezer.
We left for Iceland the night of August 24th from JFk, and arrived at Keflavik International Airport the next morning at about 8am. Our agenda was to drive the entire Ring Road (Iceland's main highway which encircles the entire country at 1332km long) in 8 days.
Car rental: I had rented a standard SUV with Sixt but upon arrival, we were upgraded to a Ssangyong Rexton, a full-size SUV with 4x4, GPS and it ran on diesel, which was a blessing because many of the roads we drove on would not have been passable in a car without 4x4 and we saved a ton of money with diesel over gas. In Iceland, if a road is marked as an "F-Road" it is illegal to drive on it without a 4x4 vehicle, but even some gravel roads would have been tough to drive on without it. At the time of booking, an SUV cost about twice as much as an economy car, but I would recommend saving your money on accommodations and investing that money on a rental car that will take you where you want to go with no troubles. This relieved a lot of anxieties I had about going to certain locations, and ultimately made the trip much more comfortable considering how much time we spent in the car. We were able to store our luggage in the boot, spread out our camera gear in the back row and have the front row clear for us to sit comfortably.
Wifi: We rented a wifi hotspot so that we would have access to wifi all day and not just when we arrived at our lodging for the night. I went with a company called Trawire, which offered a self pick-up and drop-off service so that we were not chained to any specific time frame. We simply picked it up and dropped it off at the same location (I'll admit it wasn't the most easy to find location and dropping it off was a small headache but that story will come). Also, if you find yourself renting wifi from Trawire and have some time after you pick up your device, across the street is a Filipino restaurant simply called Filipino with very lovely owners and great food. Throughout the entire country, there were only a few locations in which we could not get any service and understandable enough when you are literally in the middle of a cloud on top of a mountain with only sheep around. With our iPhones, we were able to use them as though we had an LTE service without paying for an expensive international plan with our usual provider. Google maps worked flawlessly, and we were able to post photos along the way on our Instagrams with no problems (check us out @katisidro + @ebenxzer). I could not recommend this service enough.
***Enough logistical information for now. I will provide more information like this in the blog posts that follow. Some of this information will include camera gear, clothing, and other things we packed. I may also edit these posts in the end so that all of this type of information is included in one master post and the posts about daily itineraries can be just that. Sit tight though, it may take me a week or so to get through all of this! I had a general idea of how I was going to structure this series, but I figured I should just start getting the content together and adjust as I go. Anyways***
Day 1 Itinerary:
- Seljalandsfoss
- Seljavallalaug Pool
- Skogafoss
- Sólheimasandur Plane Crash
The second we collected our rental car, wifi, and grabbed some food at Bonús, we hit the road. We had a few other locations on our list to hit the first day, but we ended up having to split it and start off day 2 early to cover the places we couldn't get to.
Our first stop was Seljalandfoss, which is a waterfall that you are able to walk behind. There were a lot of tourists because it is close enough to Reykjavik for a day tour. The main waterfall was beautiful, and it was amazing being able to stand behind it. It was, however, crawling with people, but along the same cliff there were 2 others that are just as impressive. You were not able to walk behind them, but I was able to climb up to one (not too close though because it was a steep climb and it got so muddy that my foot sunk into the ground).
Our second stop was Iceland's oldest pool, Seljavallalaug, where we took a quick dip after about a 20 minute hike into a valley with some heavy duty wind blowing dust and rocks into our faces. It was a rough hike, but well worth it. The pool is geothermally heated to the perfect temperature while the outside air was a brisk 4 degrees celsius. It isn't enough to just hike over for the perfect shot of the pool, you definitely have to take a dip.
After that, we went to Skogafoss (waterfalls are the primary motif of this adventure). This waterfall was INSANE. We were able to walk right up to the base although we did get soaked so most of my photos look out of focus but really my camera was just dripping. After exploring the base, we climbed up to the very top. It was a pretty intense climb, probably the most vertical of all the climbs we did. But getting to the top felt good, and the photos that came out of it are priceless.
Our last stop of the day was the Sólheimasandur Plane Crash. In November of 1973, a US Navy Douglas Super DC-3 airplane was forced to land on this black sand beach because of severe icing. All of the crew survived, but the plane remained and has now become an iconic spot for photographers visiting Iceland. We drove about 4km out into this beach with no road, only markers to guide us. It was a slow ride and when we got to the plane, the sun was beginning to set and it was PERFECT. I couldn't have asked for a better backdrop! Icelandic sunsets are amazing paired with the Martian like landscape of this black sand beach and this eerie abandoned airplane. I am so happy with how these photos turned out.
I fell asleep immediately upon entering the car and only woke up when we arrived at our lodging for the night: Welcome Hotel Vik. It is not the swankiest of hotels, and I honestly did not expect much based on the photos of it online but it was pretty nice. It had a self check-in process which allowed us to show up super late with no problems, and we had free breakfast in the morning!
