The tip of the iceberg

The Vatnajökull glacier is in the southeast corner of Iceland, and it covers nearly 8% of the country.  Today, we headed out on a path where, most of the time, we had some portion of the glacier in view when we were moving down the road.  The mission for the day was to head to the glacial lagoon for an amphibious boat tour.  There were a few hikes along the way to the lagoon, as well as a quick visit to something called “diamond beach,” which is a black sand beach covered in bits of glacier chunks.  They’re icy and shiny and look a bit like diamonds.  Guess we didn’t miss the black sand beach after all- we just managed to hit a different one than we had originally thought.  

Cas and I have a silly thing we do when we visit beaches where we take a very touristy toes-in-the-sand photo.  When it’s really cold and the beach is to a glacial lagoon, that photo looks a bit different.  

We hiked a bit today, in fact.  I think we were both happy to see that the nature was unspoiled in our path.  The Icelanders had made little gravel walkways to the things you want to see, but the walkways were clean.  There were no garbage cans or recycling bins, but there was also no trash.  If people had garbage, they carried it back out with them.  It was kind of remarkable.  If this attraction was in the US, the whole path would be littered with the Cheeto bags and Granola bar wrappers that didn’t fit in the overflowing trash cans, because those would be full of Gatorade bottles and Monster cans.  I love America, but sometimes, we’re so predictable.  

Next came the amphibious boat tour of the glacial lagoon.  That was a blast.  It was a drivable-on-land boat.  It was pretty similar to a Duck Boat, if you have ever been in a city that had those, but these were not branded that way.  When you go on these boats, you walk in and are handed a bright orange life vest.  I did land the best joke of the day when I donned my vest.  I looked at Cas and said, “Be honest, does this make me look fat?”  That got a rise out of total strangers.  It’s even funnier if you know me and Cas.  I would never in a million years ask that question in earnest- it’s a husband-trapping question for which there is only one right answer. Also, I totally looked as slender and svelte as anyone else on that boat.  

In our sail around the glacial lagoon, we saw a harbor seal, some sea birds, a few ducks and a whole lot of floating glacial chunks.  Big and small icebergs.  We each had an opportunity to hold a chunk of the ice that one of the guides fished out of the water.  800 year old ice, we’re told.  This part of this particular glacier was around that age.  Pretty cool, if you ask me.  Literally and figuratively.  

I did find myself wanting more vocabulary today.  I needed more words.  I have already worn out awesome, beautiful, spectacular, majestic, magnificent and wow.  Maybe that will be my mission during our travels to the next destination tomorrow.  More words for HolyCowLookAtThisAmazingThing.  

I think this was my most unusual thing today.  I have seen waterfalls before, and I have done a lot of the activities we’ve done here, but floating past little chunk-lets of glacier in a lagoon populated with seabirds and seals was a first- I didn’t even really have a thing to compare that to.  

More stuff from the need-more-info files- the glaciers we saw today were sometimes blue.  They’re sometimes blue because that’s the light color they reflect, and when smaller chunks of these larger, blue-seeming things are removed, they look clear.  The more you know, right?  And the ones that look striped- unsurprisingly, that’s volcanic ash in there.  Turns out, there are volcanoes in this country.  Yeah, that would have been everyone’s guess if the guide hadn’t mentioned it.  But still, how cool was floating around amid blue glacier chunks and stripey ones?  

We’re at our hotel for the evening.  We stopped for ice cream on the way back, and Cas joined me in trying a dandelion flavor.  It’s interesting.  A little honey-ish.  Someone else said it tasted like caramel.  More like honeycomb if you ask me.  

We arrived at the hotel in time for happy hour, had a nice dinner and retired to a sunny night in the room for a little blogging.  It’s nearing 10 pm and bright as day out.  Of course.  

Tomorrow, we head to the East Fjords.  Should be a great time.  I need a synonym for great. 

Anyhow, here are our photos: tinyurl.com/DunlapIceland Good (sunny) night.