This was a very special day of the trip because it was Lucy’s birthday! After a quick breakfast, Lucy opened her bday gifts, which were wrapped in a pillowcase because I’m trying to start a new trend where pillowcases replace gift wrap since it is better for the environment and not at all because I ran out of time to gift wrap anything before leaving to come to Iceland. Having all the gifts in basically a big sack is also vaguely Santa-like, which makes it even more fun. I think?
We then had to go and buy rain pants and rain boots given how insanethat rain was t he day before. So far we have had to buy extra clothes 3 out of 3 days that we have been in Iceland.
We then went to go check out Reynisdrangar, these large blocky basalt sea stacks that are under a mountain on a black sand beach. It’s so weird how these rocks are all rectangular shaped. And, the black sand beach was ranked as one of the most beautiful non-tropical beaches in the world. The waves were super intense on this beach, and would often race super quickly out to shore, often times drenching people who were not paying enough attention.
Afterwards, we went to go horseback riding! Iceland has this unique special breed of horses, they are a bit smaller than the average horse, more fluffy, can withstand crazy cold temps, and have some very special ways of running that no other horses have figured out how to do, no matter how hard they try. They are so special that Iceland has laws that no other horses can enter Iceland, and if an Icelandic horse leaves the country, it can never return. Even if it wanted to come back and visit for a little horsey vacation, it wouldn’t be allowed to, and would probably have to vacation elsewhere (Hawaii?). Anyways, the horses are insanely adorable, and it was super fun to get to ride them on the beautiful black sand beach.
We had a little time to kill, so we went to go check out the Yoda cave, so called because it looks like… well… Yoda, obviously. If something like this was out in the US, it would probably be overrun w/ tourists, but when we drove out there, we had it all to ourselves. It definitely did look like Yoda.
One of the popular activities in this area is this Lava Show. Iceland has a crapton of volcanos (130), and eruptions have had a major impact on the country, often times killing tons of people and/or disrupting airplane travel worldwide. Some people who are descendants of a lava eruption survivor, got together and created this experience where you go into a room, learn a lot about lava, and then they actually pour molten hot lava into the room, and do stuff like throw blocks of ice on it, or smash it with metal bars. I wasn’t so sure if this would be amazing or super cheezy, but luckily it turned out to be the former. Turns out, lava is awesome… who knew?
We finished off the day by going to the fanciest restaurant in town to celebrate Lucy’s birthday. Lucy got a few mocktails with dinner and a fun dessert that looked like a rock garden, but the rocks were chocolate and the dirt was… also chocolate.
