Iceland || Day 5

Day 5 in Iceland and we made our way up to the north part of the island. We checked out of the guesthouse and drove out to see our first waterfall of the day, Dettifoss. 

You could definitely tell that we were on the north side of the island because there was a lot more snow. 

This waterfall is so massive, but it's difficult to see because of the angle you're at. There had to have been at least 10 photographers all set up with their tripods taking pictures. 

The hike was really short which was good since it was a bit icy in some areas. 

Afterwards we continued driving to the Myvatn Nature Baths. This place is known as a mini Blue Lagoon and a lot of people recommended that we skip the Blue Lagoon and just go here. If money is an issue, I would definitely agree. But we planned it out so that we could go to both. Helpful tip: if you're a student, bring your ID and you'll get a good discount on your ticket. Kenneth didn't bring his, but they have free wifi so he pulled up his school email and they let that count.

We got there right when they opened (which was at noon) and it was so cool to have this huge place, mostly to ourselves. There are several different pools and the temperature varies. Overall, I thought this place was a lot cleaner and nicer than the Blue Lagoon.

^ This pool was extra hot

They had another pool area that was huge and the water was luke warm. It was actually really nice to swim around in it and cool down.

After relaxing we continued our drive to Grjotagja Cave & Hot Spring

This cave is so beautiful! The water is supposedly 122 degrees Fahrenheit so swimming is prohibited. There's a few different entrances to the cave and at one of the entrances, we found a group of 8 Europen men enjoying a dip in their birthday suits haha. It was pretty funny.

We continued to another cave/hot spring called Storagja, but I don't have a picture of it.

I had read online that there was a secret hot spring somewhere in this area. With all of these caves around, I figured there had to be some that weren't well known. So parked our car and started exploring on our own. We were acting like detectives, following foot prints in the dirt and wandering in the middle of no where to try and find something. We lucked out majorly because all of a sudden, we saw some people come up from underground, literally. We walked over to them and they had been underground in a cave/hot spring! We were so excited!! They were on their way out and I don't think we would have found it if it weren't for them. I was talking to one of the girls, she was from California and I asked her how it was and she said "F***ing amazing! One of the coolest things ever, I love this country!" Kenneth and I laughed because we felt the same way about Iceland.

^ Here you can see a rope tied to a rock. We had to use the rope to climb down through the small crack in between the rocks. Imagine our surprise when we go down and found this beautiful oasis. 

It's difficult to show just how beautiful it was down there, but it was our favorite experience from the trip! The water was extra hot, so clear and so blue! It was such an incredible moment.

My favorite thing about Iceland is that there are so many hidden gems throughout the country. You would never be able to find a place like this in the US. Kenneth and I talk all the time about our next trip to Iceland because there's still so much we can see and do and explore!

After enjoying the most epic hot spring, we hit the road again and continued to our next waterfall, Godafoss. 

Godafoss was another beautiful waterfall! I don't feel like you can tell the extent of how big it is in pictures, but it was so gorgeous!

You can view the waterfall from either the west or east side. We saw it from the east side, but I heard that it's worth seeing it from both sides. We were just running out of time so we skipped driving to the other side. 

Our final adventure was spent going to see yet another waterfall, Aldeyjarfoss. To access this waterfall, you have to have a 4 wheel driving car (which we had). If you plan on visiting Iceland, I can't recommend getting a 4 wheel drive enough because a lot of the roads are dirt, gravel or snowed on. Most of the time, this road to the waterfall is closed because of all the snow, but it was open so we decided to go.

And thus began the scariest drive of my life. 

Ask me what one of the most traumatizing experiences in my life is, and I'll say driving to this waterfall haha. The drive was going fine, it was all on gravel/dirt and my GPS tells us that we are .4 miles away, "ohh that's so close" we thought. Longest .4 miles of my life! The road was a mixture of mud, snow and ice plus it was so curvy and hilly. We kept saying maybe we should just turn around because it was so sketchy, but you see .4 miles and think you'll be there so fast, so we kept going. I think it's a miracle we did not get stuck. We finally arrived at the top of a hill and saw the iced over parking lot at the bottom of the hill. We both looked at each other and said "Yup, I'm good up here!" haha. So we parked our car and walked through the icy parking lot, down a snowy and icy hill to find this beautiful waterfall. 

I wish I could say that I enjoyed this waterfall, but we were in the middle of nowhere and there were only 3 other cars at this waterfall, one of which was leaving while we were arriving. I did not want to be the last car to leave in case we got stuck. 

We snapped a few pictures, tried to enjoy the moment and booked it out of there before the last car did. I really want to go back to this waterfall next time we visit because it's so beautiful and I felt so stressed the entire time that it was hard to enjoy. So if you visit Iceland in the summer, definitely check this place out! Visiting in the winter? Proceed with caution lol. 

By some miracle we survived the drive out and we both could not have been more excited to check in to our hotel and relax. 

We checked in to Apotek Guesthouse in the city of Akureyri. After being in the countryside for so long, it was weird to be in a bigger city again. It's such a cute city though and we enjoyed walking around, grabbing dinner and exploring a little.

How cute are the stop lights in this city?! I love the little red light hearts! And I wish the US had a yellow light before the green turned. So brilliant. 

We ended the day getting some ice cream from Brynja. They had so many toppings to choose from. Icelanders love their licorice for some reason. Especially black licorice and I could not get on board haha. But we tried another topping (on the left), I forget what it was, but it was good! I can't complain when it comes to ice cream.

We headed back to our guesthouse and fell asleep quite quickly.

Day 6

xo, Lo