#reynisfjara

Reynisfjara, Iceland

Thanks for following along on my journey through Iceland! I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pictures I haven’t posted yet :) 

Day 3

After a restless night attempting to sleep at the Hostel in Skogar, I woke up at 5:00 AM, hoping to enjoy the sunrise at nearby Reynisfjara Beach, arguably the most famous of Iceland’s black-sand beaches. The black sand and stones are a remaining pieces of the basalt lava that makes up Iceland.

It was unfortunately pretty overcast and quite chilly, but it was certainly still well worth the early rise. This beach is unlike any beach I’d ever been to, with a wide diversity in the black sand composition alone. You have smaller granules and also larger smoothed stones. What makes this beach unique are the large caves and a basalt column formation right by the water. The basalt column is a result of a process called columnar jointing, a process in which hot lava cools, contracts as it cools, and leaves behind a geometric column, like the hexagonal ones you see above in the pictures. Basalt, an igneous volcanic rock, meaning it was formed from the cooling of lava that erupted at the earth’s surface. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Something that looked almost fake was a result of a completely natural process.

In the first picture, you can see a couple of rock columns out in the water. Legend has it that these back in the day, trolls would try to drag ships into the land, crashing them. One day, two trolls were doing just that, but being careless, they didn’t realize the sun was coming up because once the light streamed across the horizon, the trolls were frozen in place. 

I should also mention that the waves here are powerful and very dangerous. Many people have been pulled to sea, and tourists often put themselves foolishly in harm’s way. I heard from someone that from Reynisjfara southward to Antarctica, there’s no land mass, which means the waves here are unnaturally wild. Not sure if there’s any scientific merit behind this, but we’ll go with that..! Go at low tide if at all possible, and make sure you’re not trying to go into the caves when the waves are nearing as you certainly don’t want to get stuck in them. 

Waking up early certainly has its benefits. Usually the crowds here are ridiculous, since it’s Iceland’s most popular beach. I was able to climb around the basalt columns and walked the beach until I was ready to head out around 8:00AM. 

After a few hours, I headed a little east to the town of Vik because I needed groceries. They unfortunately didn’t open until 9, so I took a nap in the car at the top of a hill overlooking the town. At 9, I pulled up to the Kronan store. Kronan is one of maybe three low-end grocery stores where things are pretty affordable. The others are Bonus and Netto). I bought a bags of chips, tortillas, cheese, butter, beans, and cheese croissants, which would all come together for meal-making at the hostels I stay at. After driving back to the hostel, I cooked up a few quesadillas, at them, and took a two-hour nap.

I went out to the Skógafoss waterfall to snap a few pictures and enjoy this mighty waterfall. Then, I had to really brainstorm about what I wanted to do next. My next stop was Vestrahorn and the town of Höfn, which I was planning on heading to the next morning. I was going to be in that area of Iceland for Friday and part of Saturday, and wanted to capture pictures of the Vestrahorn mountains at sunrise, but the weather didn’t look so great for Saturday morning when I was hoping to be there. The weather did look good for Friday morning though, but I wasn’t planning on getting to that area until later on Friday afternoon. Then, in checking the northern lights forecast, my best shot of seeing the aurora was going to be that night. I made a really crazy decision to abandon my second night at the hostel in Skogarfoss and drive to Vestrahorn, where I could just sleep in the car once I made the 4 hour journey. So, I packed up my stuff, checked out at the front desk (they were really confused why I was not staying the second night that I bought…), and started my drive at about 7:00 PM.

I needed gas for the car, since I had a quarter of a tank left, and so I tried stopping at a gas station in Vik. But, apparently all cards (credit/debit) require a chip on them AND a pin number. The thing is, my credit cards don’t have any pin number assigned to them. So I was getting really frustrated because I was in need of gas but couldn’t get any with my credit cards. I tried putting in the zip code, thinking that would work, but NOPE. I decided to drive another hour to another town, where they had two gas stations. I tried using my credit cards again, but they weren’t working. Finally, I used my debit card and pin number and it worked, thank the LAWD. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be in Vestrahorn by morning at all. Gas stations that have attendants normally let you buy a prepaid card using a credit card. or you can pump your gas and go inside to pay. But, most of these stations close so early, that once you’re past 8, you’re screwed. 

Finally, after about 4.5 hours, I made it to Höfn. I drove around the town briefly before realizing that obviously, everything was closed. I drove out of town and headed to Vestrahorn, about 15 minutes away. I pulled into a small parking lot off the side of the road near Vestrahorn and took a nap. I don’t sleep well in weird places, including cars, so I tried to pass the time in any way I could. I watched Parks and Rec on Netflix for a couple of hours and stared at the sky. Sadly, I didn’t factor in the near full moon that was out in the sky, so between the off-and-on cloudy skies and the bright ass moon, there was no visible aurora that night. This story continues!