Good morning! Our first real night of sleep. We made sure to just adjust ourselves right to this time zone. Thankfully we were so exhausted from our red eye it wasn’t that difficult to go to bed early. We had gone to bed around 10-11pm Iceland time, which is 6-7pm our time. Bry had to be up early enough to go get our rental car. However, Ethan and I slept in. Bryan got up and I was awake but desperately trying to stay in bed and attempt an extra little catnap or two. I waved to him as he left to get the car… I’m pretty sure he figured we’d be packed and ready to go when he got back.
Ethan slept a bit longer and when he finally got up he wanted to watch cartoons… a must in his morning routine. Alas, in mommy fashion, I lifted my covers and made him snuggle up with me instead. I plan to get my snuggles in for as long as he allows! So far age 9 has not removed this privilege from my life. We snuggled for a bit and then Ethan asked if he could watch cartoons. “Not yet,” I said, trying to take advantage of everything minute. Eventually I gave in and so the morning began.
Feed Ethan breakfast, pick out our clothes, pack up our PJs, stuff all of Ethan’s stuffed animals back into the suitcase. Then, make sure Ethan’s had his vitamins, continue to pack his clock, dirty socks and other random jackets or clothing that won’t be worn today. I stuff my pillow into the other suitcase, get his toothbrush ready, and then eat my own breakfast. I get a couple bites into my breakfast bar and then I’m off doing something else. Getting myself dressed maybe, or finally going pee this morning. Who knows! But somehow when Bryan finally gets back it looks as though we’ve done nothing buy lay around, still in our PJs and bags of groceries and random things everywhere! I don’t know how it happens, but no matter what I do it always seems like I’ve done nothing at all. And so this theme continues throughout our trip.
While Ethan and are were snuggling and doing much of nothing, Bryan was waiting in the cold rain waiting for his ride to the car rental office. Maybe it wasn’t raining, maybe it was just cold, but either way, he waited about 30 minutes longer than he had planned, so things were not going as well as he hoped. So, as you can imagine, that extra 3o minutes should have given Ethan and I ample time to get our act together, but somehow it didn’t.
When Bryan got back we quickly got everything together… I use the term “quickly” loosely because if you know me (and my son), there’s really nothing quick about us. In fact, the more you hurry us, the slower we seem to get. Not on purpose of course, it’s just some horrible side effect that is the source of much pain for Bryan. In fact, I believe he was reminding Ethan and I several days later that “I have this pain right here,” as he points to his right butt cheek. “This is Ethan. And the pain right here,” he points to his other cheek, “this is mommy.” The truth hurts. Haha! I know we stress him out with our ridiculousness, but he hides it so well.
We did manage to pull it all together, but we definitely did NOT hit the road early! However, we loaded up into our 2019 Toyota Land Cruiser. I worked my Lego puzzle magic to fit all of our bags into the back and we were on our way. I forgot to mention before… this is not the truck we were supposed to get. We were supposed to have something similar to Bry’s old Land Rover LR4, which is actually the Discovery here. It was having problems so they gave us what they thought was an upgrade. Bryan appreciate the gesture, but the Toyota was a much beefier truck, so a little wider and not as cozy as what he was hoping. But I’m thinking now, we may not have had room for Ethan in the other truck once we fit all our bags, and that would have been sad not to bring him along… I guess?
Today is our first big adventure of the trip as we head to Víðgelmir in Hallmundarhraun lava field for a Lava Cave Tour. By the time we get there it’s about lunch time. I forgot to mention the night before we took a little walk down to “Bonus,” the local grocery. Their logo is a pig, so I’d like to think of it as the Icelandic version of a Piggly Wiggly. That was a whole experience in itself. The refrigerated items were in a completely refrigerated room! And good luck shopping for ham and cheese when everything is in Icelandic. We would find the occasional brands from back home for things like Doritos, Lays potato chips (which we bought), Oreos (also bought), CapriSuns (check), CocaCola (got it), but not so much with cold cuts. Thankfully we were able to do a little process of elimination, compare pictures on packages, and use our good old eye balls to make out what was very likely some sweet ham and some cheddar cheese. We didn’t really want cheddar but every other cheese had Icelandic words and this package said ”Cheddar” so at least we knew what it was. We had bought some bread (the only loaf that had allergen information in English) and we had packed Sunbutter and strawberry jelly in our suitcases from the states. So, Ethan was able to enjoy his usual Sunbutter and jelly sandwich (although he did let us know he was not a fan of the wheat bread, more like the crust wasn’t his favorite) and Bryan managed some big gluten free crackers that made a nice open face sandwich with the ham and cheese. I did manage to find spicy mustard, but I never had a knife or utensils, or napkins, or plates or anything useful in making a sandwich really, so I just washed down a dry ham and cheese sandwich on Ethan’s delightful wheat bread. (I’m with Ethan, not a fan of the crust… the bread was nice and soft, but the crust was kind of hard and dry). We ate lunch, which was mostly successful!
We put our helmets on inside the office and got a quick safety overview and started down the trail. It was a little bit of a walk to get to the cave opening, but we were able to take pictures and soak in the surround lava field surrounding us. A site I don’t even know how to explain, but so unique and for that reason, so cool! We get to the cave entrance and our guide teases us that we have chosen to go underground in a cave on the first non-rainy, beautiful sunny day. Little did we know this would be one of our few sunny days.
Wow! The opening of the cave is so cool! They built wooden stairs going down to several platforms throughout the decent. Our first platform brings us just below ground level, so we’re getting our first taste of really being “underground.” He gives us all kinds of history and information about the cave and how it was formed. He is a wealth of information. I wish I could have filmed the whole thing so I could retain more of the things he shared so much about.
We made our way down another stretch of wooden stairs, down, down, down. Things were getting a little darker, but we still had the large opening that was shining plenty of light onto us. After we reached the lowest platform, we walked the dock-like deck that took us deep into the cave. We learned about lava turds, lava nipples, lava candles and all kinds of words that apparently lava cave study peeps creatively came up with. I wish I could justifiably explain how these lava caves are made. It would be much easier if I had a picture presentation, but here goes the super quick version… we’ll see if it makes any sense.
When a volcano erupts, the hot lava begins to flow like a raging river. As the lava river flows, the lava on the surface starts to cool and creates a crust above the lava river. The crust acts as an insulator so that some of the hot lava can keep it’s high temperature and continue to flow. For whatever reason, it naturally creates a tubular shape and continues to flow. As long as the volcano is erupting this lava tube will continue to flow. Once the volcano stops erupting the lava flow decreases and just like water in a pipe the lava level in the tunnel decreases. The tunnel form keeps it’s shape beneath the crust of the cooled lava and as the lava flow decreases it leaves marks along the walls of the cave, almost like lines from tides. And because the level is going down the top layers are cooling and leaving very specific formations of lava on the walls of the tunnel. Once all the lava is gone, you have residual lava dripping and oozing from places, which creates all kinds of interesting formations (like lava poop, lava candles, lava nipples). Not sure if that made sense, but it’s quite incredible and an experience like no other!
This is getting way too educational… SO, we found out that our guide, Hörður Míó, (AKA - Míó) and his family had purchased Fljótstunga Farm where this lava cave exists and he personally set out to share this cave with the world! It took him and 4 other guys three months to build the deck walkway we were touring on. They worked about 12-14 hour days, 6-7 days a week, “because what else are you going to do in a dark, cold cave? If you stop working you get cold, so it seemed best to just keep working.” They later learned that the space they used as their dining area throughout the project ended up being the coldest room in the cave. So, he thought they could have gone through far less coffee and hot tea had they just changed spaces. Oh well.
When someone asked if he enjoyed the project, he told us that is was a level 3 kind of fun. When none of us knew what that meant, he explained… “Level 1 fun is fun right then, in the moment. As it’s happening you’re having fun! Level 2 fun is the fun right after, like a roller coaster or sky diving… kind of crazy or scary in the moment, but so much fun the second it’s over. Level 3 fun is the kind of fun that takes months or years after the activity.” So, Míó said he just kept reminding his team that they were having all kinds of level 3 fun! Reflecting on it today, he is very happy with the results of the project and if he had to do it all over… he would!
Amongst the extensive education we were getting, we were also hearing interesting stories of Icelandic culture. He told us how Icelandic stories for children are awful and that’s why they’re all a little grumpy. However, it has given him great perspective because “when things are really bad, just remember, they could be even worse!” He laughed! We learned how Santa doesn’t actually come to Iceland, but 12 brothers do and they come to steal all your presents… the stories went on and on. All kinds of interesting stories with trolls and so it continued.
Throughout the cave, Míó would turn on small sections of lights. Some lights were simple pathway lights along the deck and some were put up in crazy hard to reach places or just shining on a wall with incredible character of all the phases of the creation of the lava cave. Well, when we reached the very end of the deck (not the actual end of the cave), he had us all stand in a circle. We all shut off our helmet lamps and he shut the last pathway lights off. You thought you experienced total darkness, and then you went around 1,000 kilometers into a lava cave. THAT is TOTAL DARKNESS! The real kicker is when Míó said, “now close your eyes for a minute and then open them. Do you see a difference?” Holy crap! NO! No signs of lights, no black static as I like to call when it’s pretty much pitch black but your eyes are trying to translate the the darkness. This is total nothingness. It was freaky and cool… and of course what cave tour from a native Icelandic is complete with out awful tales while in total darkness… like no Santa in Iceland, etc. These were the stories he told while we stood in total darkness. And at the end of our darkness he said, “would you rather open your eyes and have one person missing from the group, OR one person added to the group that wasn’t here the whole time?!?” LOL. It was a good time. And Ethan really enjoyed the experience. He was soaking up all the information that he could and was a great explorer when Míó gave us pieces of lava candles and such to inspect.
This was a memorable day and this adventure alone made Iceland worth the trip… and there was so much more to come!
** CAVE PHOTOS WILL GO HERE EVENTUALLY ** :-)
On our drive about we had plans to visit Hraunfossar & Barnafoss Waterfalls. Hraunfossar is a whole series of waterfalls over a distance of about 900 meters out of the same Hallmundarhraun lava field (where the lava cave was). We expected a great waterfall, but when we walked just a short distance from the parking lot, all 3 of us said, “Wow!” It was breath-taking. There were so many falls and they were so grand! It was just incredible. We walked all along the viewing deck, taking pictures in different area. There’s even a bridge to the other side so you can enjoy so many different angles of this amazing collection of falls!
A little further down the trail was Barnafoss. This paled in comparison to Hraunfossar, but once we hiked a little further it revealed more raging rivers and lots of small falls that come down to join Hraunfossar, which by the way translates literally to Lava Waterfalls. It took us a while to catch on that “foss” is waterfall. There’s a horrible story that goes with Barnafoss, but you can ask me about it or google it online. It kind of ruins the experience of the Hraunfossar.
Oh, and Ethan got to do an earth cache here! It’s a special geo cache where you answer questions instead of finding an actual hidden cache. I’m pretty sure we were ready to strangle him because he couldn’t seem to read about the falls enough to answer the questions - AKA - he was too lazy to read to find them. Anyway, the usual arguments and such between us and our 9 yr. old.
From here we called it a day and headed to Borgarnes where we would spend the next 2 nights at B59 Hotel.
It was a nice building in a nice little town. Fairly big compared to most of the tiny towns throughout Iceland… it had a grocery, gas stations, and multiple restaurants. Once we were inside we met a VERY energetic lady at the front desk. It was as if she was excited to be practicing her English. She had a very thick accent and her English was a little broken, but very good over all. The smile across her face was so big it was almost a little scary. You couldn’t help but smile back at her though. She was very excited to tell us all about our options for dinner and the restaurants. We were a little overwhelmed by her energy, but thankful that she was so friendly.
We made our way to our room with ALL of our bags. By this point, we’ve got our suitcases and backpacks, but we’ve also grown in grocery bags, and a cooler and who knows what else. So we pile it all on a cart and make our way to the VERY end of the hallway. Somehow our room is always the farthest point away! We walk in and the room is very big for a European hotel! Lots of extra space and what seems to be some big windows. Well, once we settle in, we realize that 2 whole walls are nothing but windows overlooking the water! And to top it all off, we have a patio door that takes us out on a wrap-around deck that gives us an amazing view over the entire town! All we need now are the northern lights to appear!
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