Iceland: Day 2

I decided to take the South Coast and Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon tour on my 2nd day in Iceland, which happened to be a Sunday. This tour is offered by Iceland Excursions only on Thursdays and Sundays, with additional trips on Tuesdays and Saturdays from June to August.

I was picked up at my hotel at 730am and in fact there was a bit of a scare as well – I ended up getting on the wrong bus. There are two touring companies in Reykjavik – Reykjavik Excursions and Iceland Excursions – and bus that came to my hotel had no sign on it so I wasn’t sure which touring company it was for. I ask the driver if it was for Iceland Excursions and he said yes so I got in. Much to my surprise (and slight panic), the bus takes me to the Reykjavik Excursions terminal. Crap! Good thing that the Reykjavik Excursions counter very readily helped me out by calling Iceland Excursions and asked them to pick me up at their terminal.

The tour starts at around 815-830. Our tour guide was a middle-aged woman who not only shared with us a lot of historical and geological information about Iceland (population: 300,000; land area: 103,000 sqm) but also told us several Icelandic fairy tales throughout the entire trip. Iceland has lots of stories about elves and trolls, and I learned from our guide that in Icelandic folklore, when a troll is exposed to sunlight, it is turned to stone.

The stories made sense as we got to see some of the sights on this tour. When we made our first stop to the beautiful Skógarfoss (or Skógafoss) waterfall, she pointed out a very interesting rock formation right next to it that is supposed to be a petrified troll. See if you can make it out. Hint: it’s on the right side.

The day started out with the same murky weather from the day before, and so the roads were covered in thick fog. I guess the drivers are all used to driving with this kind of visibility coz ours didn't seem fazed by the fog one bit.

Finally, we get to the highlight of the tour – the Glacier Lagoon. It’s sometimes referred to as the Bond Lagoon because it was used in the opening sequence of the James Bond flick ‘A View to a Kill’. (Note: The Siberia sequences in Lara Croft Tomb Raider were actually filmed in the Glacier Lagoon as well). When I finally caught a glimpse of it, I was awestruck. It was amazing to see all the huge blocks of ice floating in the water! Having them shrouded in fog provided an even eerier, more surreal feel to it. (I made sure to include a few people in the photo so you can have an idea of just how massive these blocks of ice are.)

The tour includes a ride on an amphibian that takes you from the land right into the Glacier Lagoon.

We stop in the middle of the lagoon and one of the guys from the tour company brings up a small block of ice from the water and hands it to our guide. She then gives us a bit of a talk about the Glacier Lagoon and then we proceed to have our photo taken with the block of ice. Afterwards, she proceeded to break up that block of ice and handed the much smaller pieces to the folks on the boat for us to taste. It was very fresh and pure!

It was around this time that the skies start to clear up. It was great because I got to see the Glacier Lagoon in two different lights: under brilliant sunshine and covered in mysterious fog.

On our way back, we make a few more stops. The first one is at Hjörleifshöfði, a large cape that stands right in the middle of what seemed to me to be barren wasteland. The numerous volcanic activities in this area have essentially left the soil incapable of allowing vegetation to grow.

We then visit the Reynisfjara beach. There are a couple of large rock formations in the sea close to the shore (which are believed to be trolls that were still trying to pull a ship back to shore when the sun rose, and as such were left petrified). But what makes Reynisfjara a really interesting stop are the really cool and amazing basaltic columns on the mountains next to the beach. I don’t know how these columns are formed but they look really beautiful, stacked up the way they are, their clean lines and structured form contrasting with the rest of the jagged, craggy mountains.

Our final stop is the Seljalandsfoss waterfall. There’s a path behind the falls that people can go through, and walking completely around the back of the falls is supposed to cleanse your soul (or something like that). Naturally I walked through. Was I cleansed after that? Not sure, but it was an amazing experience getting to be that close to the falls.

We finally got back to Reykjavik at close to 1030pm. This tour is supposed to last 14 hours and in our case it did. But I have heard from other tour guides that when they do this tour, it normally lasts more than 14 hours, especially when people want to enjoy each stop a bit more. I was knackered when I got back to my hotel, and it was only the 2nd day of my 12 day vacation, but it was such a fantastic experience that it left me eagerly wanting to see more. I was now ready for day three!