Iceland Day 3
Wednesday Morning: 28th of February
Getting up early for sunrise at a rock in the water doesn't sound to rewarding to most people, but I'm a photographer and I have to take what I get. And it was the only thing close by in reasonable driving distance (disclaimer: Our standard for a reasonable driving distance changed dramatically during the trip) of about an hour and thirty minutes.
Marco didn't complain, but also he didn't really have a choice so he just caught up on sleep in the car. What we had hoped would be an amazing sunrise ended up as a gray mass of something in the sky transitioning into a gray mass of something called the ocean.
Going into a village (like 5 houses scattered over 5 square kilometers) we had a second near death experience when at 80km/h on a gravel road the cars rear axis tried to pass its front axis on the left side. Now Marco was awake as well. On top of that the location was closed.
The actual trip seemed to be starting of just like our way to the island. The only real upside we could make out was we saw tons of Icelandic Horses and close to no people (which was probably one of the bigger reasons for us to come here).
On our way back we decided to take a different route which brought us to a viewpoint up on a hill. We got out, hiked up and took in a deep breath together with our first real view of Iceland. The vastness and high mountains in the distance were impressive. All we could hear was the wind taking up everything around us. No cars, no people, no animals. Just us, the wind and the view.
Back at the car our destination was a grocery shop and food in the next bigger village called Blönduós. The groceries were nothing special, just regular road-trip snacks and Ramen. The food we got on the other hand was something really special. We asked the cashier lady from the store where we could grab some good lunch. She sent us right across the street to a place called Ömmukaffi which translates to "Grandmas Coffee". The menu offered a variety of fast-foods like pizza or burger. Not really something I remember my Grandma ever cooking, haha. We ordered burgers and sat down - In what I believe used to be a living room, before they tiled the floor for easier cleaning. Yeah, it's easy to say the atmosphere was special. Unfortunately the burger was not. Frozen meat not to well cooked with just some regular vegetables and a fries sauce - for about 14€. However the fries were top-notch.
Somewhere between Varmahild and Akureyri we stopped on route 1 to hike down into a valley we found by accident. Again we were alone and it never really occurred to us that also no one would find us if something would happen, haha. It should stay like that for most of the trip. We got few good shots. It was more interesting to watch than actually take photos.
After passing Akureyri we had about 60 kilometers left to our AIRbnb, the last 20km on gravel road. We arrived in the dark at a really nice family with a somewhat annoying dog (don't get me wrong - I love animals but that dog was something else, seriously). They even tried helping us to find a place for dinner and drinks.
Some decissionmaking was done and we went to drive 60km back to Akureyri, where we got us a sub because its cheap and went for a beer in a hostel bar.
On the way back a snowstorm hit us but I wasn't to worried and neither was Marco, because he was catching up on sleep.
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