Where the hell is Bjork?

Right now we’re heading to Reykjavík, Iceland on the first leg of the Abby Martinez Retirement Tour. Icelandair because it’s cheap, we were heading up North to Scotland anyway, plus stop overs in Iceland are no extra charge and we’ve never been.  A mere 7.5 hours gets you from Portland, Oregon to the North Western fringes of Europe and the edge of the Arctic Circle.  We want puffins, the Northern Lights and Bjork Guðmundsdóttir and we’re not likely to get any of them (more later).  However, maybe we can settle for hot springs,  volcanoes, geysers, Game of Thrones landscapes and ludicrously expensive drinks.

After a red eye flight with virtually no darkness or sleep, we were a right mess arriving in Keflavík airport but picked up the rental car and headed off towards the Golden Circle, the  most famous and popular of the tourist routes.   Iceland 101 – Rocks, water, wind, no trees, volcanic everything (hot springs, fumaroles, geysers, mudpots, ash).

Getting into the Thingvellir National Park the vistas expand to epic scale so we get out to take a look and are immediately blasted back by the ferocious arctic wind: Will need to reassess our clothing requirements, there’s a reason it’s called Iceland.  We’re headed for the Fontana hot spring  in Laugarvatn but make a stop at Althing where the world’s oldest continually existing parliament was based From the 10-18th centuries.  It’s an epic location – epic, brutal, elemental and frigid are words that frequently come to mind when discussing Iceland.

Also at Althing is Oxararfoss, a beautiful waterfall, as seen in Game of Thrones, that would be even more striking were it not besieged by a multinational horde of marauding tourists armed with smartphones and selfie sticks.  Iceland is overly hot and cool in the travel world right now, so, hopefully, some other spot will take over as the “destination du jour” soon.

The refuge of Fontana hot spring is a pleasant contrast with a lake, sauna and steam rooms in addition to a number of outdoor hot pots.  Dangerously sedated, sleep
deprived and jet lagged, the drive back to town is slightly harrowing but we arrive in one piece and check-in at our suburban Airbnb.  Day 1 in the bag.

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