With the day only half over, we drove the few kilometers down the road to Geysir. Geysir is the town that is full of geothermal hot springs, including geysers. The word "geyser" was derived from the area of Geysir. Pretty neat huh? The main Geysir geyser collapsed on itself so now the main one is called Strokkur. It erupts every 5 minutes or so up to 120 feet into the air at a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius. That's Celsius, not Fahrenheit. 500 degrees C is 932 degrees F. That's pretty hot. Since Strokkur is located on half privately owned property, the owners decided they should cash in on the tourism boom and they charge 600 kroner to enter. It's the ONLY tourist destination in Iceland that costs anything to see. The rest are completely free. Yet another reason why Iceland is amazing.
To be honest, I don't know if it's worth 600 kroner to watch a geyser erupt but as the guide said, we've already travelled all the way to Iceland, what's another 600 kroner. Valid point. We all paid the 600 kroner, watched the geyser erupt 3 or 4 times, then left. It's a pretty good show though.
Then for our last stop of the day, we headed off to the Pengvillir National Park. It's the site of Iceland's first parliament. It is also where 2 tectonic plates meet, creating natural fissures in the ground and massive cliffs above ground that is basically the earth forcing one up and one down. It's quite a sight to behold.
 |
| Those are coins in the water. It's 100% glacial runoff so the visibility is extraordinary. |
 |
| This is the view from on top of those cliffs |
By now, we had been going for a full 9 hours and still had a 2 hour drive back to Reykjavic and had to be back by 7:45pm for another tour pickup. It was going to be a long day but what came next is the main reason I came to Iceland during the winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment