Iceland – Land of LIES (Day 3)

We slept in, so we didn’t get an early start. I was bound and determined to fix my attitude, and D.Rough was there to remind me I was going to fix my attitude (to her credit, she had been extremely patient with me and my whining for two days and she knows sometimes I just need positivity yelled back into my brain). I was going to have a fantastic attitude from here on out!

Wait. It’s an absolute blizzard outside the house. Crazy insane winds and maybe even a little freezing grain bouncing off the windows. I checked the weather map since we had plans to do fun things today. Weather map looked awful. I checked the driving conditions map. Crap. There were roads closed all throughout Iceland, including the one right outside our house. Guess my attitude wasn’t going to improve, was it?

Instead of drinking all morning like *I* wanted to do, we had a family meeting (which is easy since there are two of us). It was suggested to the group that we … uh… “scale back our expectations” and maybe instead of trying to see five or six things per day, we’d maybe only try to see one or two things each day. That actually sounded like a great idea and it honestly did wonders for my attitude. I was ready to embrace that plan wholeheartedly.

We had a nice relaxed breakfast and watched the weather blow by. Like I said, the weather changes every fifteen minutes, so we watched the blizzard blow over, then the fog, then the drizzle, and finally the sun. A brief respite while I ate some skyr out on the deck in the wind!

The road conditions map (which is update every ten minutes for a reason) started to show signs of what the Icelandic people call “passable” roads – which is a damn lie, but whatever. Our house was right off the Golden Circle – which is the road in Iceland where all the cool waterfalls, geysirs, and geothermal pools are on. We knew we wanted to go to the “Secret Lagoon” in Fluðir, which really isn’t secret any more. When there was a break in the weather, and looked like there might be good weather later that afternoon, we hit the road at a super safe speed. (…and then pounded a bunch of shots of aquavit in the parking lot after we got off the icy roads…)

The Secret Lagoon is pretty awesome – correction – it’s REALLY awesome. It’s one big Olympic sized open rock-lined pool about stomach-deep.

Also, this place has pool noodles.

The water in most of the pool is pretty much like a hot tub temperature. Maybe around a 100F. However, over by this old run down shed, the water temperature will melt your skin off (which is why you don’t see people sitting against that wall). You see people wading across the pool and then stop abruptly and turn around to the cooler water. It’s pretty funny.  

 And you can see how often the weather conditions change while you're here.

There’s a walkway around the pool that has streams of boiling (literally) water and all kinds of geothermal hot vents and pools and holes in the ground with bubbling steam vents. They definitely want you to stay on the path, but you can totally walk around the large pool in your swimsuit (if you’re crazy like us).

The weather changed 5 times while we were in the pool. Rain, snow, sun, more snow, sleet, etc. But you just dunk down in the water.

As a bonus, the snack bar sells beer, wine, and soda for you to drink in the pool, so you can really chill out there. During the summer it looks like there is a small fish-and-chips shack outside the pool for you to snack on, which is closed in the winter. We would highly recommend this location to anyone going to Iceland.

We left and went out to the car to eat a sandwich for a late lunch. Of course, as soon as we got in the car, the snow started dumping on us. Sigh. Apparently, there’s a really awesome Ethiopian restaurant nearby in Fluðir, as well, but we had already packed the sandwiches, so we ate those.

It was only a short drive on an icy road to get to our next destination – the Ice Cream Barn (Efstidalur II) – it’s a working farm, restaurant, and bed & breakfast right on Iceland’s Golden Circle. You can literally eat your ice cream and watch them feed and tend to the cows. It’s a really fantastic idea. D.Rough got weirded out when I said “udder-to-cone”, so I probably wouldn’t do that in public again. Caution, there are multiple tour busses that drop people off here, so you’ll need to time it or get lucky like we did!

I was in a bad mood from all the ice-riddled driving, but oddly enough, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the ice cream barn, the sun came out. HA! Here’s a photo of me being angry and eating ice cream.

But then, these farm dogs came up and wanted some attention, so I cheered right up. D.Rough thinks there needs to be more therapy dogs in Iceland for people like me. It’s true.

The ice cream barn has a B&B attached to it. While I was standing next the reception desk, I noticed a warning sign. Tomorrow, travel was not recommended in all of Iceland. Dangerous travel conditions. Hurricane-like wind gusts. Perfect! We were realizing quickly that our earlier decided-on plan to scale back our sightseeing each day to either something closer to home each day or simply fewer sight-seeing trips, was definitely the right move.

We headed for home and decided to take a road that, in hindsight, was closed most of our trip. It’s a road through the high point on the island (we won’t call it a mountain since it isn’t technically a mountain road), but it has an absolutely beautiful view. Just white snow as far as you can see. Thankfully, there were a few small parking lots where people pull in and snap photos. I’m glad we ended up taking that route home. But even though the road was considered “passable” according to the driving conditions map, I can see why it’s one of the first roads to close. Periodically all of that white-as-far-as-you-can-see snow gets blown over the road and you lose steering control pretty quickly. But I’m still glad we were able to drive that road ONCE on our trip.

We got home and decided it was sauna time. Our house was equipped with a sauna and we were FOR SURE going to utilize it, since the hot tub was out of commission. The owner of the house told us the previous sauna might have had a small (or not so small) fire in it and was recently rebuilt. So we had a brand new sauna!

I forgot to tell you!!! Tonight is the night that we made reservations at the world famous Blue Lagoon for nice geothermal soak. And an added bonus: our friend Loose Change from Minnesota is in Iceland and we booked our soak at the Blue Lagoon together! Loose Change and her friend are staying in Reykjavik for their activities, so we were happy to join them on this adventure! Only two potential downsides… the drive is supposed to be an hour-and-a-half AND our reservation was for after dark, so our drive home was going to be in unknown conditions. Who cares! We’ll worry about that when we get there.

We decided to drive to Grindavik on the southern coastal route – actually the route we had hoped to take on day one when we encountered un-driveable conditions and had to turn around.  The lady we rented the house from told us the southern route is the shorter route IF the conditions are safe. We thought we’d leave early enough that if we had a smooth drive, we could eat dinner in Grindavik and if we had a terrible drive, we could drive slowly and still make it to the Blue Lagoon in time for our reservation. Options! That’s what you need to have when traveling in Iceland in February!

We are so glad we took this southern coastal route, even though I was a tiny bit hesitant. It’s gorgeous. You can see the ocean with its angry waves crashing against the cliffs. Sure the wind was blowing us all over, but the road was clear in most spots. We only drove through one tiny complete white-out blizzard (literally about 3 minutes of just hoping we were staying between the yellow posts on the side of the road). We were going to go to a well-rated restaurant right on the harbor in Grindavik, but once we got cell phone reception again, D.Rough looked at their menu. It wasn’t what she was hoping for, so we found a nearby restaurant that worked out REALLY well for us. Papa’s was another well-rated restaurant that had pizza and fish and chips. This place needed a little more staff, since we ended up waiting almost an hour just to get served. But, thankfully, the fresh-caught-that-day cod was fantastic. No complaints at all on the fish. The fries were great, also, but the coleslaw was a little lacking in flavor.

While we were inside, I was getting more and more nervous watching the changing weather out the windows. It was already dark and at multiple points, the snow was heavy enough, I couldn’t see the streetlight outside. Plus, I knew we still had to drive on the road that we ended up turning around on the first day to actually get to the Blue Lagoon. Thankfully, when we left the restaurant, it was only snowing a tolerable amount, and not a blizzard.

If you didn’t know, The Blue Lagoon is the top tourist destination in Iceland. Everyone goes there. It’s a massive man-sculpted set of geothermal pools. It is pretty expensive to do, but there are a lot of perks, so I’m glad we did it. You definitely need to pre-book your ticket for here, which we did. They check you in and give you a wristband that gets all the food and drink charges on it and also operates your locker room. The locker rooms require you to do a swimsuit-less shower and yes, there is a guy walking around making sure you’re not cheating (he’s not creepy – it’s just his job). I heard from the three ladies that there wasn’t a female attendant in the women’s locker room, so maybe their honor system is more adhered to. I was told to leave the hair conditioner in your hair when you shower for the best results with your hair after lagooning. It seemed to work pretty well, honestly. From the locker room, you can choose to walk outside onto the deck and then walk in the pool, or you can walk into the pool and then go through an underwater door to get outside.

We hung out in the pool for a while. We checked out various caves, and steam rooms, and waterfalls. It was pretty cold outside, and only a little bit windy (meaning 20-30 mph winds). The lagoon experience comes with a free silica exfoliating mask, which we all took advantage of. And Loose Change and Lisa upgraded for the algae masks, which were much lighter and smooth. We, of course, found the bar and rang up some drinks on our wristbands while we soaked.

This was the clearest night of the whole trip, as far as the sky was concerned, so we were all watching for the northern lights/aurora borealis. This was going to be IT – we could feel it. As we were all talking about how clear it was and how this was going to be the best night ever if we saw the northern lights, the wind suddenly picked up and it started hailing on us. Not golf ball sized hail, but small ice pellets, being blown at 30+ mph. Everyone ran for cover under the bridges or caves or steam rooms, but we kept wading around in the pool. This video is the best one we have from the trip. You can hear the pellets hitting the camera and then you hear Loose Change say something about us being from hearty Minnesota stock, and then you can hear D.Rough say, “ahhhh, but it hurts a little”.

We must have watched that video 25 times that night. It was so funny. You really can stay in these pools for a long time relaxing. You should really do this “touristy” thing when you’re there.

We said our goodbyes and headed home, remembering we still had to either drive the southern coastal road in the dark or drive through that mountain pass of doom to get home. We opted for the more-travelled mountain pass, even though it was getting close to midnight. I’ll be honest with you - it was terrible. TERRIBLE. The worst I’ve ever had to drive in in my entire life. First it was sleeting really hard. I had to pull over to use the restroom, but I parked the car facing the wrong direction and couldn’t get the door open because of the wind. Yes, I’m serious. When we got back on the road, the snow picked up all of a sudden right before we got to the mountain pass. The driving was bad, to say the least. Then, of course, this insane heavy fog dropped down and I couldn’t see 20 feet in front of the car. Turning on the hi-beams made it even worse, so we kept driving about 30 kph and hoped no one ran into the back of us and hoped no one was stopped in front of us. We drove like that for what seemed like forever, but was probably only about 20-30 minutes. The whole time it was snowing super hard and there was about 8 inches of snow on the ground. The ruts from previous cars were pulling me in directions I didn’t want to go and for much of the drive, I was literally steering the car based on the GPS map on my phone – I couldn’t see anything in front of me at all. Just brutal.

We eventually made it home in one piece, but I needed to drink. Hard. Thankfully, D.Rough snuck some tiki mugs into her luggage. She’s the best.

We definitely capitalized on those and snacked our way to sleep. We didn’t have time to stop and get food after our lagoon experience, so we just ate what snacks we had and some left over pasta from the previous night. If the next day was going to be bad (remember, there was a warning at the B&B saying driving would be impossible), as far as driving, we might as well party late and sleep in. Which we did.

Day 2  |  Day 4