The Cards Travel Throughout Iceland
My name is Peter Card. I am currently teaching and living in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I am truly amazed at where life has taken me. I hope by sharing my experiences it encourages you to pursue your dreams as well. God Bless!
The next part of our summer adventure took us from Ireland directly to Iceland. Four years ago I never would have considered Iceland as a possible vacation spot, but it has become a major attraction in the last decade. Many visit during the winter time to view the Northern Lights, a spectacular natural display where the night sky comes alive with a fantastic array of colors. Despite my desire to witness this phenomenon, I am still a Georgia boy and not ready to brave that kind of cold weather. Instead, Cheryl and I chose to visit during the summer time. It was fantastic weather. Due to a packing blunder, I ended up wearing shorts most of the week with a big coat and was very comfortable.
Our first stop in Iceland was Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland, which is where we stayed during our time there. The city has grown dramatically as it has been built up to be a tourist city. There’s lots of shops and restaurants in the downtown area within walking distance. We stayed in an apartment that we rented through Airbnb, which is a common practice among locals to make extra money. During summer, the sun goes down as late as 2 a.m. and is back up at 5 a.m. so many stay out very late.
The first day trip in Iceland is known as the Golden Circle. The first stop was Thingvellir National Park. This park is the site of a continental rift (think back to Geography class). There is a trail that was once only a single person walking trail that is now easily big enough to put a single lane road through. This means that even today the earth’s plates are still moving. The earth is not stationary. It is still in motion. Gullfoss Waterfall is part of this area as the water flows from one of the icecaps through the area. The fall is not very high, but the force of the water was astounding. This area was significant to early Icelanders because it is the site where the first laws and government were established by the leaders.
The second stop this day also took us to a warm springs geyser much like Old Faithful in the United States. Iceland is crawling with geothermal energy and there are warm springs throughout the country. We saw the two most famous geysers, Geysir, one of which has not spouted for several years but has the reputation of the grander displays and a second one, Strokkur, that spouts about every seven minutes like clockwork. We stayed to watch about three eruptions as the water went about 50 feet in the air and provided us with a warm midday shower.
The second day trip took us to view up close an actual glacier. For some reason when I thought about glaciers, I pictured icebergs. This was not the case. This was a large sheet of ice that completely covered the area. In this case, the glacier was shrinking, and the glacier is so heavy moving across the land that it virtually leaves nothing in its path. It looks like if you took a heavy rock and dragged it through your garden. The weight of the ice crushes everything in its path. It was also strange because the ice was gray because of a volcanic eruption a few years ago that spilled ash across the ice. On this same outing, we also went to one of the stranger sights we have seen in our travels. We went to a beach where the sand and rock were all black. It is basalt, which is a lava rock that cools quickly. In addition to creating this fantastic black sand beach, tremendous columns of basalt are formed that we climbed up as well as crawled under. This beach and the columns can be seen in the series “Game of Thrones”.
The final day trip took us to the Blue Lagoon. As I said earlier, there are many natural hot springs in Iceland, but the blue lagoon is not one of them. Unlike many of the others it is actually a man-made lagoon. It is the runoff from a geothermal plant that is within sight distance of the lagoon. Now that sounds bad but remember that geothermal energy has zero pollution so as the heat from the earth comes up to power the plant, the runoff warm water flows to the lagoon. It is an awesome resort site with big crowds waiting to take their turn in the warm bath. It’s like an enormous natural heated pool in the middle of a beautiful but strange landscape. I spent time wandering around the grounds as well as they are interesting as well. There is a moss that grows just in Iceland on top of the rocky countryside. It is much thicker than the moss we would see here in Georgia, almost foamy. It almost appears like something from another country. Scenes from various movies and TV shows have also been filmed here as well.
Our final stop this day took us to another waterfall, but this one was unique because we got a chance to walk behind the waterfall. It was quite wet, messy, and dangerous, but we were able to make it through to the other side just as the best rainbow appeared.
Iceland is by far one of the best adventures we have had during our travels. I highly recommend it. It can be done as a layover trip en route to Europe or there are discount tickets available through WOW Air from northern US cities for less than $300.
If you would like to hear or see more of my adventures, you may look for Peter Card in the UAE on YouTube or the Peter Card Facebook page. Feel free to leave a question or comment at either of these places or email me at cardsimon@hotmail.com.
