Iceland: The "Magic Box"

As a kid, I loved reading and hearing stories that involved magic  – one that always fascinated me was how the magicians pulled out stuff one after the other from a rather seemingly small box, I always wondered how could so much be packed  into that tiny box! But then that was just fiction, or was it? As we continued our road trip through Iceland, it kept fascinating me with beautiful surprises one after the other - waterfalls, geysers, glaciers, mountains, valleys, volcanoes, fjords, beaches, lake, canyons and what not - and I couldn’t help comparing it with that little old trick, for the magic seemed to be unfolding before me, this time only for real!

Magical Iceland!

As we continued further on our journey, we stopped by a geothermal area with boiling mud pits, exploding geysers and the lively Strokkur which spouts up to 30m into the air every few minutes. 

Waiting for The Strokkur to erupt

Exploding Strokkur!

Over the next two days, we witnessed umpteen waterfalls and stopped by a few of them – each one distinctly different from the other but all breathtakingly beautiful. One of these, Seljalandfoss is unique in that you can walk behind the waterfall, with all that mists spraying on your face as you make your way through – it was amazing. Another one walkable from Seljalandfoss is Gljúfrabúi waterfall - hidden behind a cliff, it is simply marvellous. It can be seen in all its splendour by wading through the stream into a narrow opening in the cliff. Given that one needs to put in some effort to reach here, it is not as frequented by tourists adding to the charm of it! 

Stunning Seljalandfoss

As we make our way behind the waterfall

Gljúfrabúi - the hidden gem

The other two we visited were Gulfoss and Skogafoss – both looked splendid with bright rainbow shimmering over them.

View of "Gulfoss" from the viewpoint

Shimmering rainbow over Gulfoss

Sights like this take all your tiredness away - Lovely Skogafoss!

A short hike to view the stunning Skogafoss from the top

We visited two different glaciers – Solheimajokull and Vatnajokull. Solheimajokull, we saw from a distance admiring its rugged beauty. There is an evident blackish tinge on the glacier - well, the glacier is not "dirty" but this is owing to ash from the "infamous" Eyjafjallajokull eruption in 2010. The massive glacier, with its surroundings and varied formations looked simply stunning. 

The massive Solheimajokull - Happily Stunned!

We went for a glacier hike on one of the tongues of the Vatnajokull glacier. We were blessed to have, as our guide put it, the best weather one can have for doing a glacier hike – It was bright and sunny with clear blue skies over us. The duration of the entire hike (end to end) for us was about 6 hours – with close to 4 hours on ice. Well, it was a truly exhilarating experience for us – learning to walk with crampons, learning to use the ice axe, passing through the various crevasses, drinking right from the small streams of water flowing through, walking around on the blue ice and realizing how small we were compared to the enormity of the ice structures around us – we loved it all! 

First view of the glacier tongue we were going to hike

"I will conquer you!"

Our trek group

Returning back after the exhilarating experience

Descending back

In the course of our journey, we visited a lot of other interesting places – the gorgeous Fjadrargljufur canyon, the famous plane wreck on the black sand beach of Solheimasandur, the beautiful Dyrhoaley that provided us some awesome views, the Reyinsfjara black sand beach famous for the basalt rock formations – I will let pictures do the talking here.

Walked about 5kms  one way to spot this Plane wreck:)

The famous Dyrhoaley Rock arch 

Amazing view from Dyrhoaley - Left me mesmerized!

View of the Reyinsfjara black sand beach from Dyrhoaley

The famous basalt columns at Reyinfjara beach

Nature's marvel - Gorgeous Fjadrargljufur canyon  

Another gem that we explored in south Iceland – in fact, one of the most stunning places I have ever seen - is the Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon and the adjacent Diamond beach. With chunks of iceberg floating on the crystal clear water and white glacial blanket cover in the background - all this against the clear blue skies – it looked simply breathtaking. I was literally dumbstruck by the awesomeness that surrounded me. As if this were not enough, beach adjacent to the glacier lagoon had chunks of ice that had washed on to the black sand beach – with the sun rays falling on this, these chunks of ice looked literally like shining “diamonds”!

 

The glacial lagoon - my favourite:)

Amidst the surreal landscape

The "diamond" beach

 Ah my "solitaire" !!:)

For the first part of the Iceland road-trip visit Iceland-ultimate-road-trip