What a wonderful first day in the thus far iceless Iceland! Flight was a breeze. Car rental a breeze. We began our day the way every vacation should start - with food! We drove to a place recommended by our car rental agent a mere 5 traffic circles and a right hand turn from the airport in the neighboring town of Keflavik. We poked our head in to see the offerings - smoked salmon, pastries, eggs, cheese things, cakes, pies and hot drinks. Fresh fruit and danish. Way too much for a single human being to eat. The woman who was responsible for collecting payment looked at Adrian and Alex and did not think they could eat enough to justify paying full price so we only paid for 3. I guess she didn't actually count the number of trips to the buffet table!
Icelanders by the way speak a language that is incredibly difficult to read or pronounce. But every one we have met has spoken perfect English. Absolutely no problem communicating.
From Keflavik we headed west to explore the surrounding area. Quiet towns on the water with a northern New England feel. Light houses, rocky shores and cool temperatures. From there we drove south through an incredible moonscape of lava fields before reaching our night's home base of Hvergerdi where we are doing a farm stay.
The area around here is famous for its geothermal active sights-bubbling mud pools, steaming rivers, vents spewing steam from deep in the earth's crust. Really quite spectacular! We hiked several hours up and down steep hills to a small valley where a steaming river joins a glacier fed river touted to be perfect for swimming - but we passed on the jumping in part. A full day topped off by a restaurant that cooked some of its food by harnessing the heat from the hot spring running beneath it.
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