Iceland Day 8: Diamonds On A Beach & Free Lemonade

Haha what can I say. Only me can come up with the idea of getting up at 4.30am to leave and drive 3.5 hours for a sunrise we didn't even know was going to be good. Our destination was Diamond Beach and the glacier-lake Jökulsarlon. Oh and remember, we wanted to visit the coffee shop from two days ago.

That's actually what we started with. The 3 hours going there, Marco was asleep, which I didn't blame him for. I assume this must have been his most horrible vacation experiences so far, at least from a sleeping and recreational point of view.

He awoke from the dead shortly before the cafe. I did after my first coffee, haha. They greeted us so nicely there, I was overwhelmed. It felt like we were locals and we've known each other since forever.

After breakfast we headed on to Jökulsarlon. The weather was not even close to what we expected, in a bad way. Of course it was windy, but on top of that it was hella cloudy. No good for a sunrise. From our break it was about another half an hour drive.

It was already kinda busy when we arrived, the wind was blasting around us bringing the ice cold air down from the mountains and glaciers. We were instantly freezing. Seeing seals and huge-ass icebergs with that background made easily up for that. The sky had no color, but the water and ice were crystal blue.

When we were not able to feel our fingers no more we headed to diamond beach. I was really looking forward to that and it seemed like the sky was about to clear up as well. After seeing so many pictures of this place my expectations were quite high... And they were met to a certain extent.

Seeing gigantic chunks of ice just sitting on this black sand, not even close to the water, as if someone randomly placed them there, was extraordinary. But obviously there were quite a few people and not as much ice as I previously expected (which was probably due to the season. Two months earlier would've been better for that). As the clouds were breaking up and letting some sun rays through there was a beautiful golden glow over all the ice.

Of course on our way back we would stop at the cafe. Again we had some nice conversations, sat down and ate muffins when the lady from the counter brought us a paper bag. Remember how two days before we were there? That day we tried original Icelandic Lemonade. She remembered we liked it a lot and decided to give us six cans just like that with a very cute note written on the paper bag. Isn't that incredible? The note was written in English and Icelandic.

We left with our next stop already on the map. You guessed right. Another waterfall. This time Svartifoss. Honestly I'm wondering if by this point you are not finally tired of reading about waterfalls. If you made it to this point thanks for enjoying all the waterfalls with us! Back to the story. To Svartifoss is a little hike of about 30mins. The hike itself is already worth it from the views you have while walking up. At the highest point of the trail you get a first glance at the waterfall. I feel like I say this every time, haha, but Svartifoss was dazzling.

Coming from the high mountains in the background the water falls down high, dark lava columns. The most impressive thing I thought were the icicles on the shady side of Svartifoss. Some of them must have been as high as two meters.

Unfortunately some of the people believed they are better than others and had to break the rules, climbed fences and went were they didn't belong. You can find some more of this topic HERE on a post I wrote about this earlier.

After taking in the amazing views we rushed back down to the car. We wanted to grab a burger, visit Fjaðrárgljúfur and spend sunset at Black Sand Beach in Vik. This was about 2 hours away so we had to hurry ( I feel like this is no news to you either. Times where we were not rushing were rare. Just like days without wind).

Fjaðrárgljúfur is basically a big valley that looks like a crack in the surface of earth. I assume it was washed out by all the water flowing through over centuries. Standing on the cliffs was just as impressive as was flying my drone above the water surface. In the distance we saw a sandstorm (yeah a legit sandstorm on ICEland, -3°C) that we would also pass later on.

The burger was mediocre at best but the sunset was lit! At the beach it was what Icelanders probably would consider packed. I guess watching sunsets at beaches is just something human beings enjoy to do, even when it's -2°C.

Compared to the sunrise the colors of the sunset were incredible. Even the wind was taking it slow for once. All in all just a great round up of the day. If the trip would've ended after this day, I don't think either of us would've been mad.

But hey... there's still some waterfalls to tell stories about!