Vík, Iceland

We are picked up at 8 am by Stefan in his big Mercedes bus. Today will most likely be a 12 hour day. We drive at least 3 hours to the south of Iceland, it’s beautiful, desolate a little mountainous and it had just snowed the night before. It is of course dark until 10.00am as the sun rises late here and the days at this time are just 7 hours long. We stopped where there have been many earthquakes which is near a town where Bobby Fisher, one of the greatest chess player, ended up spending the last 3 years of his life. Our next stop, by that time the sun had risen, is the glacier park which is where the 2010 volcano erupted. The glacier walk was my idea! at first nobody wanted to do it, then I convinced the majority and the rest followed. How many times does one really have the opportunity to walk on one? So Stefan tagged that little adventure to the rest of our already long day but by doing so, we just added a couple of hours instead of wasting a whole day driving since it takes 6 hours to drive back and forth. We meet our young Icelandic guide Sofia. She outfits us with spikes over our boots, an ice pick and a helmet in case we fall down a crevasse! We walked to the beginning of the glacier and on the way we eat snow and drink water directly from the glacier stream cascading on the lava and rock walls. On this trip we have a 13 year old teen Luis Emiliano- he will join this adventure but unfortunately the 2 youngest children 4 year old Lorenza and 5 year old Leon are too light for this experiment so they stayed at the beginning of the glacier and played in the snow. These kids are amazing; their parents take them out of school often to travel the world- they are like little adults and delightful! We finally get to the beginning of the glacier and The crevasses are giant and the ice is acqua blue and has been there for thousand of years. We continue walking up and up the glacier passing ice crevasses, inside tunnels, witnessing sinkholes. The topography of a glacier is fascinating and dangerous. I believe everyone really enjoyed it! We then continued to the town of Kir, a small town of 500 people where we will have an typical Icelandic lunch in a cafeteria type atmosphere overlooking the sea and these strange rock formation jetting out. I had the lamb soup which was outstanding. Everyone seemed satisfied! Then we bought Icelandic candies like licorice. We continued to a black beach with very unusual rock formations, caves and the bluff was made out of natural black stone as though someone carved it perfectly, but nature designed in its own. The ocean was angry with huge waves, and the water was a light blue filled with sediment. There was an island with a lighthouse on it and you can rent it and stay on that island for as long as you wish- it could be an interesting experience if you want to get away from the world! The weather was cold, windy with a light rainfall. I just loved that beach! We proceeded to see 2 waterfalls, the first one was shorter and quite wide. The second one was tall, not as wide but there was a path to walk underneath and behind; it was an experience not to be missed, of course we all got somewhat soaked. On the highest point of the walk a Thai couple was getting married, Oh and then the moon rose right above the fall. It was a spectacular site. This concluded our daily tour and we dosed off here and there in the way back while Stefan entertained us with Icelandic Sagas. He’s a great storyteller! Some of us stayed at the hotel bar had a drink and an appetizer and we were pleased with our day.