Today was our last full day in Iceland, and we could feel the end was nigh as we headed back to Reykjavik, where we would spend our last night back in the same hotel where we spent our first night. I enjoyed today, of course, but the tiredness was catching up to me and the sad began to kick in. But enough of that, let’s explore the day while we have it!

This morning we departed Kirkjubæjarklaustur and headed across the Laki lava field to the village of Vik. We stopped to take a stroll on the black lava beach there, and snap some pretty pictures.

Super jelly of the people taking a horseback ride along the shore here, as we only had time to sit on the rocks and take a few pictures before we had to get back on the bus to leave for our next stop.

We headed West to the high but narrow Seljalandsfoss Waterfall, splashing over the top of a mountain.

 

Ms. W. took the trail that led behind the falling water and caught some cool pictures, but she got more than a little wet doing so, yikes!

 

Not wanting to get wet or traverse up the icy trail, I took a different path, wandering away to see some of the other waterfalls spilling over the edge of this mountain cliff. It was a lovely walk, with wonderful views.

 

After these two stops we headed back to Reykjavik to spend the afternoon. We had a couple of hours to get checked into our hotel, grab lunch, and maybe see a few more sites. I did manage to make it over to the most famous hot dog stand in the city, along with several other people on our tour, and got to eat  one of them. A hot dog, not the people!

I’ll say it was an okay hotdog, better than hákarl anyway…

We then walked around the city a little bit, I got pooped and headed back to the hotel to take my shoes off and relax a bit, while Ms. W went on to grab a cool picture of the Sun Voyager (the Viking ship sculpture). Click ’em!

Our favorite skateboard boys…

After the short rest, we loaded back onto the bus and headed over to the Blue Lagoon for a relaxing soak. I felt so rushed through this part of the trip that I can’t say the Lagoon was my favorite part. In fact, it was probably my least favorite. Plus I got wet and then walked in the cold air, which made me wake up the next day with a sore throat and feeling like caca, but anyway…I got through it. While in the water, we put the wrong white mud on our face – which is all you really need to know about that experience (lol) save to say it was the second most awful thing that happened to me in Iceland, and I ate rotten shark!
Eventually, with some help from our tour bus peeps we found the correct mud stuff, got that crap smeared on our faces, then walked around feeling stupid because we had crap on our faces. The water did not smell pleasant, it was real crowded, and I had to share the same water where I’m sure many of the couples around us were more than likely having  coitus in, right then, oh my! So, yeah. At least I can say I’ve been, right? 😉

After the lagoon, and while still basically wet, we headed over to the Northern Light Inn Hotel for a traditional Icelandic dinner. Which is apparently a buffet style meal of fish – the fish was freaking delish!!, plain potatoes – yep, just peeled and boiled – that’s it, and a pile of plain lettuce – it was always like that, ugh! Although at least this time they provided lemon for the fish, so I doused my lettuce in it, and with some salt and pepper on the lettuce and potatoes, I managed to eat a salvagable meal…

Afterwards I was exhausted. I think the Blue Lagoon water relaxes you, plus you know, we’ve been running around for the past seven days, so there’s that. But we headed out to finish our tour with one last nocturnal visit into the countryside in search of one more Northern Lights show.

Alas! there would be no Northern Lights tonight, but I got to sing Whitney Houston on the bus –  in a rather spectacular and failed attempt to turn our night bus into a party bus, haha! And then we hugged our tour guide Eric good-bye, gave Siggy a high-five, and headed into our hotel for the last time. :::sniffle:::

There’s a little more to tell, our 8th day, the day we headed home from a dream exploration vacation, but for that – you’ll have to come back tomorrow! 🙂

-xo