Saturday 

July 9, 2016

Leaving the town of Vik in the rear view mirror this morning. Behind us sit several hulking masses jabbing at the sky from the Atlantic Ocean. We will return tomorrow to explore in depth these fascinating formations. Just minutes after getting on the road, the sky opened up and released the first allotment of daily rain. After an hour or so we approached an enormous glacier that abutted our destination: Jökulsárlón, a glacial lake containing massive chunks of ice "calved" from the glacier. Seeing these floating icebergs up close was truly incredible. We booked an amphibious boat tour of the icebergs despite the continued cold, dreary drizzle. Once in the water though we forgot about the rain (I think it may have stopped). We were spellbound, trying to take in all we were seeing. Our view was framed by Iceland's largest glacier reaching to the lake and releasing large chunks of itself as the earth slowly warms. The glacier itself is retreating by about the length of a football field every year. It's clearly visible. The amount of water released by just this one glacier as it melts away is staggering. As the boat floated around, one of the crew brought up a chunk of crystal clear ice from the lake for us all to hold. Breaking off pieces, we had the opportunity to taste 1000 year old ice! It was refreshing, without a hint of outside influence. Crisp and clean is how I would describe it. As the tour ended, we stayed to admire the floating beauties. Eventually we climbed back into our Honda CRV rental and headed out, aiming for Klausturhoff Guesthouse in Kirkjubaejatklaustur.

   For the most part the driving has been fairly easy although the best roads are just one lane in each direction going full highway speed. It's no problem until you encounter an 18 wheeler barreling towards you. Then there is the matter of the bridges. There are many bridges over the numerous streams formed by melting snow caps and retreating glaciers. The best part is that many of these bridges are single lane. It's like a high speed game of chicken. If you are not confident behind the wheel it could be very stressful. For the driver, passengers and the other cars. We've had only one really close encounter and it was at slow speed. Since I am writing still you know doubt figured out how that encounter ended. 

  Arriving after a full day at our guesthouse we were looking forward to washing up and having some nice Icelandic food. Amazing fish, incredibly fresh. Every day. Yum! Their other specialty is lamb. The countryside is overrun by wild sheep, who appear much smarter than our doe-eyed deer back home. I won't belabor the "hotel" except to say it was fine if you like cinder block walls, cement floors, and no bathroom in the room. Let's just say it is unlikely we'll be retiring to Klausturhoff Guesthouse in Kirkjubaejatklaustur anytime soon.