ICELAND: Reykjanes Peninsula

April 18, 2016

After looking up the weather last night we decided it looked best to explore the Reykjanes Peninsula today, a place we hadn’t originally planned to visit. It’s near Reykjavik and didn’t have rain or snow forecasted, so that’s all we needed to know. We looked up multiple different things to see before we left Olis last night and left today planning to just drive around and stop when we see the little “tourist attraction” symbol.
That first brought us to Krysuvik, a natural hot spring area with multiple bubbling and steaming puddles coming from underground. Taylor doesn’t think it’s this bad, but to me the sulfur smells like straight rotten eggs. It’s like someone has passed nasty gas directly in your face each time you get hit with the steam. Disgusting.

The next things we came to were the Krysuvikurbjarg cliffs, but the road was covered with icy water halfway there so we walked the rest of the way. The wind wasn’t as bad as it has been though, so it was an easy, nice morning walk. The cliffs were beautiful. Taylor likes to get close to the edge.

We saw another geothermal area next, Gunnuhver, this one with one main steamy area that had steam so thick blowing over the walkway area that I couldn’t see Taylor walking three feet in front of me. This didn’t make him nervous. I was afraid I was going to walk off the edge into a hot spring and die.

The oldest lighthouse in Iceland, Reykjanesviti, was near the same place, so we hiked up a hill near it to see a great view of the coast. Again, Taylor got close to the edge and I stayed away, imagining different parts of the rock hill breaking off and us dying. I see a theme here.

We passed the Bridge Between Two Continents at Sandvik, that goes over the crack between the European and North American tectonic plates, but we didn’t get out of the car because it was just a bridge over some sand with tourists on it like ants on a picnic peanut butter and jelly. PASS.

So instead, we drove to a sunny spot and took a nap! That was fun. I would tell you more about it but I think you all know that a nap is always a good idea and a wonderful thing to do.

We were about to head to another small mountain to hike it, but when we saw it from afar, we realized why it wasn’t very popular. It looked like a big dirt mound without much around it. So we headed into town, and after much debate, decided to get a hotel for the night. We’ve come to the conclusion that 5-6 nights camping should be our max… especially without showers or real food. It gets tough.

So here we are in 22 Hill Hotel in Reykjavik! Free wifi and breakfast, a comfy bed and a hot shower. It feels like Christmas morning! We ate dinner at a local pub called Vitabar and it was SO good. A burger, fries and beer hit the spot. We even saw a donut truck on our way back to the hotel! Stopped and got six mini fried donuts and it put us in the perfect mood to go back to the hotel and relax.

Tomorrow we’ll go snorkeling and will check into our final hotel, but for tonight, we smell good again and will sleep like little babes. Thank goodness.

Love,

Michelle & Taylor