The Golden Circle (not to be confused with The Golden Triangle) Part 1

Day 1, 8 days remaining

For my first 3 days in Iceland, I booked a total of 3 different tours. All with a company called Arctic Adventures. I chose them because the group size is smaller than most. Max of 8-12. The first one was called "The Golden Grand Slam". There is a region here called the Golden Circle. It is a loop from Reykjavic out to Gulfoss falls, to Geysir, then to the Pengvellir National Park and back to Reykjavic. It's about 4 hours of driving time total.

I was picked up around 9:30am and our guide informed us that we would be doing the route backwards from most companies so to avoid the logjam of people at the very beginning. It meant that we could be doing the lava tube caving first.

A lava tube cave is created when molten lava flows over a cold area. The top hardens while the lava stream continues to flow below. Eventually, it creates a whole cave system.

We drove out into the middle of nowhere. It truly was. We ended up in a 700 year old snow covered lava field. I'll get to the lava fields in Iceland later but they are mind blowing. They go on for as far as the eye can see and the island is covered with them.

There is a lava tube cave out there somewhere. This lava came from the peak that's in the distance right in the middle of the picture. 

There it is. Caving is not for the fat or tall. IE, me. 

This is the remains of a poor lamb who must have wandered in and gotten lost in the dark

It's quite beautiful

At one point, our guide had all of us turn off our headlamps and we were sitting in complete darkness. It's pretty scary to think if you lost your light, you'd end up the same as that poor lamb. There is no way you'd ever be able to navigate without a light. He the made it worse by asking us a single, hypothetical question.

"What would be worse? To turn our lights back on and discover someone was missing from the group? Or turn our lights back on and discover there was someone with us who wasn't in the group before?"

Needless to say, we all took a few extra seconds to turn our lights back on, not wanting to face this situation. 

Caving is not for the tall or fat. Unfortunately, I'm both. Thankfully, they provide a helmet with headlamp because I was knocking my head against the roof every other second. My head would have been a battered pulp by the time I was done without it. Several times, we had to get on our hands and knees and crawl. The surface isn't exactly soft and my knees show the bruises to prove it. One time, we had to get on our bellies and alligator crawl. That's when you get on your belly, but your arms out to your sides like an alligator, push yourself a few inches off the ground, and waddle. It's not easy. Especially over rough surfaces. But it was darn good fun. After an hour in the cave, we went back to the van and departed for our next stop, Gulfoss.