Our second day in Iceland we had less of a structure to our day. We knew we wanted to see caves and volcanoes so we hopped in our rental car for the last day we had it and set a course for the nearest caves we could find, which turned out to be quite good. The caves were about a 30 minute drive away from out Airbnb, but first we needed to stock up for the day and that required snacks. Iceland was quickly becoming one of my favorite places and the supermarket was yet another reason why. The supermarket we stopped at was excellently stocked with a variety of health foods, protein, and various juices. It was so fantastic I didn’t even mind the arm and the leg I was charged for it.
Icelandic Caves
From the supermarket we drove through a series of random back roads thanks to our GPS and eventually found our way to a neat group of caves on the side of the road. If our GPS hadn’t told us about the caves, we might have driven past. The caves were submerged into the ground so on a drive past, they didn’t look like anything at all.
Volcanoes
After our cave exploring adventures Nicole and I went in search of volcanoes. We found one on our GPS in the middle of nowhere, and only a 30 minute drive from where we were caving because unless you’re in Reykjavik, you’re in the middle of nowhere. The drive leading up to the volcanoes was completely devoid of any sort of vegetation aside from this thick green moss that seemed to cover every exposed surface in all directions for miles. The view was incredible. It felt like being on an alien planet. Just mountains, volcanoes, and this green moss. We made it to the volcanic craters just before a massive storm started pouring on us so we didn’t stay for too long.
Failed adventures in Thermal Spas
Nicole and I had big thermal spring spa plans for today. We found some neat hot springs in a valley high up between two mountains. They looked fantastic and according to the blog that recommended them, they were only a 45 minute hike away. We parked at the base of the mountain and packed a little bag with snacks and bathing suits and towels and started our hike up the mountain. As we hiked the mountain, we slowly began to realize we were incredibly under prepared for the hike at hand. People were regularly passing us on their way down with jackets, hiking boots, hiking poles, and some people even had horses. We had none of those things, just a plastic bag full of bathing suits and our determination to make it to the hot springs. The hike was beautiful though and the views were breath taking. We could see some hot springs and waterfalls along the hike but the ones we came across were only 1 or two feet deep and literally boiling.
After maybe an hour or so of hiking we could see that there were no hot springs in sight. The blog we found could very well be right about the location, but their time estimate was way off and the storm we just drove away from near the volcanoes was approaching our mythical hot springs. We decided to call the hike off and return to the car since we were going to the Blue Lagoon hot springs tomorrow anyways.
Returning the Rental Car
After our hike we drove back into town to return our rental car. We shared so many memories with that little silver car. We took it to hell and back driving over really bumpy gravel roads and through deep potholes. It held up the whole time and we would miss it, but like the rest of Iceland, the rental car cost a small fortune and we had plans in Reykjavik for the next day.
We dropped our rental car off near the Reyjkavik airport and got a free ride back to our AirBnB thanks to the good people at Hertz Iceland.
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