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No northern lights last night so instead I spent the evening in the hot tub with 2 Belgian guys and some ladies from my group. The Scandinavian husband hunt continues!
In the morning we had a wonderful Nordic breakfast at the guesthouse. Breakfast included a special lava bread. It's a bit like Gingerbread and is cooked in the natural geothermal heat of the area. After breakfast we set out to go to the black sand beach and got some wonderful pictures. We had tried to go the night before but it was far too dark to actually see anything. We got there as the sun was rising and it was beautiful.
After the beach we headed east and stopped to see the lava fields, play in the snow (maybe only I did that) and refill our water bottles from the mouth of a melting glacier. There is truly nothing as pure as the taste of fresh glacier water.
The weather in the east is notoriously bad and the wind is very dangerous, despite his best efforts the wind (30 meters per second!) pushed our car all over the road Teitur did his very best to keep us all safe, which he did but we still wound up stranded in a ditch with the whole mini bus tipped at a 60 degree angle on its side and the door blocked shut by the snow. Teitur just crawled out the window and called for help, apparently this is a common occurence in that area!
While Teiture waited for a snow at to free out bus we were picked up in super jeeps for an incredibly bumpy hour long ride across the tundra to the ice caves. When we arrived we strapped on helmets and even stronger crampons and fought through the coldest wind imagineable before dropping one at a time into a hole in the snow. Inside that hole is a labyrinth of ice caves and tunnels, some so narrow you have to crawl, some big enough for a dinner party. Just meters of thick ice creating these magical rooms. The glacial waters run under the surface of the ice in the fall just enough to create a warm spot that melts into caves. New ones form each year.
After the caves we made our way to our next guesthouse. Tonight is a dinner of local arctic lobster fresh from the sea and then our newly rescued bus will take us out in search of the aurora borealis, the forecast is great so we are all hoping to see nature's light show.
- comments
Mom OMG. Who are you! Crawling through caves that tight, dropping down a snow hole (whatever that is). Sounds like your having an adventure that's for sure. Stay safe and a Belgium husband sounds good.
Dad Sounds like you are making the best of things and the guide has things under control. The caves sound amazing. Good luck on your hunt.