As many of you know, I have had a goal of seeing the aurora borealis (northern lights) for a few years now. I've been half-heartedly chasing them when conditions are supposedly right while in Washington, but even with a decent sunstorm and other favorable conditions, the lights are only visible by the camera and on the horizon in Washington most of the time. This spring, Bruce and I came back to Washington early, and there were still enough dark skies and solar activity for us to go aurora chasing a couple of times together. After yet another miss, Bruce mentioned that it would be cheaper to just go to Iceland to see them. Obviously, I took that as an invitation and booked a trip soon thereafter. I took Chrissy with me, and we set off to see Iceland. I booked us into a multi-day tour with aurora chasing scheduled for every night of the tour, conditions allowing. Our plan was to land in Iceland and catch the bus to the Blue Lagoon on our way to Reykjavik, and the bus for both legs, entry into the lagoon, in-water massages, and lunch at the Lava Restaurant were booked far in advance, as the Blue Lagoon is a busy place. I was a little apprehesive because I've heard horror stories of the lagoon being so packed with people that you can barely move in it, but I like doing the iconic things, and I couldn't just skip the iconic Blue Lagoon, even if I've never seen the movie. I mentioned not having seen the movie, and Chrissy seemed like she had never even heard of it! I feel so old!
Anyway, as luck would have it, a volcano near Grindavik (a town close to where the Blue Lagoon is located) erupted in December. The damage to the town has been significant, with the town being evacuated and the Blue Lagoon being temporarily closed. As the eruption subsided, the powers that be have continually monitored the situation, deciding on almost a day-to-day basis whether to reopen. Our flight left Seattle on January 5, and our reservations were for January 6. The Blue Lagoon website said they were re-evaluating on January 5. As we left for the airport, they were still re-evaluating. A few minutes before time to board the plane, I once again refreshed the website, and they announced they were opening on January 6 with abbreviated hours and that those with reservations should modify as necessary on the website. Our reservations were too near for the website to allow me to modify them. I sent an email and got a response to modify on the website. I sent another email explaining that I could not and boarded the plane, hoping everything would be okay.
When we landed, I checked with the Airport Direct busline that was supposed to take us to the Blue Lagoon and then on into Reykjavik, and they said they would honor my ticket, but the first bus out would not leave until 12:30. The lagoon opened at 11:30. Our reservations were for 9:00. I had gotten another email from the Blue Lagoon telling me to modify my reservation online. We had significant time to kill in the airport, so I started trying to find different ways to get a person instead of an auto-responder and managed to reach someone through Facebook Messenger. She fixed our reservations for me and I took a nap on a bench while Chrissy walked around the airport, enjoying the brisk air. When I got up, I went out and looked around. The Keflavik airport is nice, and the sculpture outside is very pretty in the dark! It was very icy, though, so I didn't venture very far. My crampons were still in the suitcase.
When we got to the Blue Lagoon, we checked our luggage into storage, taking our bathing suits out for the lagoon. From here, all pictures were taken by Chrissy, as I didn't want to expose the Lumix or the new underwater housing to the minerals in the water and Chrissy said her phone was waterproof. I offered to let her have a clear waterproof bag for her phone if she wanted, but she didn't. The walk from the parking lot to the lagoon, via a paved and lit path in the lava field, is beautiful.
We got checked in, took our showers, changed, and headed out to the lagoon. We didn't have the place to ourselves, but it certainly wasn't crowded. Except by the bar, there was plenty of space to spread out and be away from other groups of people. There was even plenty of room to swim! Because they say the minerals in the water will ruin your hair and my hair won't clip up well and stay that way, I put a swim cap on, which had a bump in it that looked like a smurf's point! The outside temperature was right around freezing, but it was quite comfortable in the water!
When it came time for the massage, we made our way to the back of the lagoon, where we were each told to slather lots of a special conditioner on our hair. He said I could put the cap back on if I wanted, but I left it off. We were each laid on our backs on a floating mat that looked like a yoga mat, not a pool float, and covered with a blanket before being told to take our tops down so the masseuses would have smooth access to our backs. From that point on, it was ecstasy! It wasn't a full body massage, but he did a relaxing massage of my back, neck, head, both arms and hands, and feet and lower legs. Periodically, he would grab the blanket, and push my body back down into the water to make sure I stayed warm. This was an amazing experience, and if you have the opportunity to have an in-water massage in thermal mineral-filled waters, I would strongly suggest not skipping it! There are no pictures in this area, though, so you'll just have to use your imagination to visualize.
After the massages, we spent a little more time in the lagoon before heading back in, where we showered again and changed back into our street clothes before going to the Lava Restaurant overlooking a section of the lagoon and lava rocks for dinner. We each shared the cod and lamb, which were both scrumptous!
Before leaving, I went to the counter to make sure about our bus to Reykjavik. I wasn't sure about the bus stop we needed for our hotel, and I knew the time on our tickets wasn't right. The guy at the counter issued me new tickets for the correct time and told me he wasn't sure which stop we needed, as he didn't know where our hotel was. He said we would take the large bus to a central place in town and would change there to a smaller minibus. He said to confirm with the driver of the minibus which stop to use. Being Twelvth Night and the last night of Christmas, there were fireworks everywhere as we got closer to Reykjavik! It was a nice show driving through!
When we changed busses, I tried to ask the driver of the bus we got on, but he looked at me like I had three heads and didn't answer. I pulled up Google Maps and watched as we got closer to the hotel. When we got stopped at a stop that sounded familiar and was close, I indicated we should get off. Chrissy was adamant that we were supposed to get off at another stop, so we stayed on. As the bus kept driving, we started getting farther away from our destination. At the next stop (which was the one on our tickets), I took my phone to the driver, showing where our hotel was. Since I was standing in the aisle beside him, he had to pay attention to me. He took my phone and looked at it a while, finally telling me that we had missed our stop and would have to find another way to get there because he was going to the other side of town and then ending his shift. So, we got out and learned that we were now a 15-minute walk from our hotel. Not bad. I've been further with more bags to schlep! Since we were only going to Iceland for a week, I had a lot less medication to carry! This time, though, we were schlepping our bags through snow and ice, which made it a little more difficult! It wasn't too bad, though. We found the swans, which were lovely, and with fireworks lighting our way, we walked to our hotel.
I didn't fall until we got to the parking lot of the hotel, and even then, it was a slow-motion fall, not really going all the way down. We put our bathing suits out to dry after tracking snow and water all over our room. With a plan for meeting our tour bus in the morning, I took another shower (that's three for the day) and went to sleep. The conditioner at the lagoon did a great job keeping my hair from drying out! Now that I'm home and started laundry, the minerals left white patches on my black bathing suit. I hope they come out in the wash - kinda. If they don't, it'll be another unusual souvenir!
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