The South Coast

July 17, 2022

Today's going to be great, I can feel it! Sure, it is cold and raining again, but I feel confident that the excitement from the adventure will overcome any uncomfortableness the weather might bring!

After grabbing my bag, I head downstairs to grab my boots from the communal shoe storage.

Mom's already waiting for me. She has her morning face on, so she's not looking quite as positive as I'm feeling. Her happy face takes a little longer to appear.

We go into mom's food stash to find something to eat, and also search my backpack for leftovers. We have to leave early, so we don't have time to walk the kilometer to and from the grocery store.

We finish rummaging around for food, and head out to wait for the van.

It's taking a while, so I start chatting with some other people who are also waiting for the bus, and I find out a few of them are going on the same day trip! I get the downlow on everyone that's going with us. The first is a boy in his twenties from UK. He's straight out of college and looking for an adventure. Before arriving in Iceland, he was in the Denmark and after Iceland, he's going to Norway and Sweden. "You know, just learning about the world and seeing what's out there," he said. He's adorable! He reminds me of myself when I was his age. Ugh...I suddenly feel old. The next are a mother/daughter travel pair from Barcelona. The daughter Elena is beautiful and friendly, and I immediately like her. Time starts ticking away and I realize the bus is pretty late. There's another bus in the parking lot that I am sure is NOT our bus, but my mother keeps asking me to check. I tell her that it's definitely not our bus, but not unpredictably, she looks nervous. Elena gets up and says, "I will ask." Awww, I forget that she's traveling with her mother. She gets it! She gets ME. She knows that my mother will be back in five minutes asking me again.

Elena has a conversation with the bus driver and then walks back to me and smiles, "no" is all she says. My UK friend lets me know that he just got an email from the bus and they're running late. All that's left is to sit and wait in the cold. But that's okay because it is going to be an awesome day. It's only 9:10 and I've already made three new friends!

The bus driver pulls in at 9:40. We've been waiting 70 minutes. He hops out, super friendly and in great spirits. I mean, who could be mad at him.

We leave the city and head south to the coast. Everything is so beautiful. There's evidence of past volcanic activity everywhere! It creates some very interesting views: vast lava fields covered in moss; huge cracks in the earth; upheavals of raised red pumice formations; plumes of billowing steam; and of course, the steady view of volcanos with their tops covered in fog, or glaciers and dripping waterfalls down their sides. Iceland's landscape is always changing - active geysers come and go, glaciers melt at rapid paces, crevices expand or just appear, volcanos explode, altering the shape of the landscape and the water that flows over it. It's always changing, so in a way it's always young and new.

Our driver tells us we're close to our first stop, Eyjafjallajökull volcano. It's melting glaciers cover the wall of the volcano with the gorgeous Seljalandsfoss waterfall, which you can walk behind if you don't mind getting wet. When we get up close enough to the waterfall, not surprisingly, mom says "I'm not going behind that!" What's a little wetness! I head closer and realize that it's going to be a LOT more than a little wetness. I'm drenched. So, here's a tip for anyone thinking about going to Iceland - bring waterproof everything! You will get soaked! That's really the best and most important travel advise I can bestow upon you before heading to the Land of Fire and Ice. The "Ice" part is no joke, though I suppose neither is the "Fire." While taking pictures, I have to try to protect my phone from the constant mist filling the cave with water, but it is SO worth the discomfort. It's a fantastic experience to be right beside and behind these powerful falls. I could stay here and watch this forever. It's kind of like watching fire, but I have to get back to the bus, so I climb up the tiny red path back. Even the red oxidized dirt between the vivid green grass is beautiful. Yup, even the mud is beautiful in Iceland.

More South Coast pictures.

We get on the bus for just a minute to move closer to another glacial waterfall on the volcano. This one is tucked in a large atrium created by the volcano and is called Gljúfrabúi. To enter the atrium, you have to either walk through about six inches of water or wait your turn to walk along a single row of steppingstones that are being used by traffic going in both directions. It makes for a tight fit and a lot of groping of strangers. People aren't even asking; the outside row of people are just grabbing a hold of the people along the wall and the people along the wall. Well, I applied two coats of waterproofing to my waterproof boots so no time like the present to test them! I'm pleasantly surprise that I am six inches deep in water and they are not getting remotely wet.

My UK friend is already in the cavern, and we are both soaked, again. Or still. But really, it's totally worth it.

We head back to the bus and then move on to our next destination, Skógafoss waterfall. Surprise, surprise...it's stunning. Skógafoss was used in Game of Thrones. Apparently, I must be working through a Game of Thrones site location bucket list, because I keep finding my way to them.

I'm very grateful when the next stop is lunch in Reynisfjara. I'm pretty hungry, given our lack of real meals. I have some turnip soup, and then we head over to wait by the bus. The driver makes conversation with me about his recent climb up to Base Camp 3 at Everest. Unfortunately, he got COVID at the Base Camp and had to come back down. I can only imagine how incredible disappointing that must have been, but he tells me he is going back in a few months to try again. You have to admire his persistence! He has to make it to the top of Everest as part of his plan to climb the tallest mountain on each continent. Less than 300 people have reached the top of all seven summits so I wish him luck!

At this point, I'm running out of adjectives to describe the beauty of Iceland landscapes. I mean, wow. The beach is phenomenal. Tall, jagged green hills roll down to the edge of the black sand beach. The edge of green hill has a large cave with tall gray geometrical pillars of basalt surrounding its opening. The pillars look almost man-made, but they are a geological phenomenon formed by lava flowing into the ocean and cooling rapidly. I climb up the side to get an up-close look at the incredible formations.

NOTE: If you do go here, be SAFE. The waves are treacherous. Do not go near the water. In fact, three tourists were killed in the last month on this beach. They were getting pictures by the water and got pulled under.

We drive to Vik, a small fishing village on the southern tip of the coast and then head towards the Sólheimajökull glacier.

This glacier is probably the most impactful event of the day. To see the rate at which the glaciers are melting is quite alarming. It is estimated that in 150-200 years all the glaciers in Iceland will be gone. If this is the case in Iceland, I imagine it might also be the case elsewhere throughout the world. This is a huge amount of water flowing out into the ocean. This is something that impacts everyone. If the water levels were to raise just one meter, it would be catastrophic. Entire countries would cease to exist. If we think we have a problem with overpopulation now, wait until millions of people get displaced with less land to work with. I'm not going to lecture, but here's just a few facts. You can do with them what you will.

No opinions, just facts:

• Sólheimajökull glacier is about 10 to 13 kilometers long, 1 to 2 kilometers wide. Covers around 44 square kilometers and is on average 200 meter thick.

• Average melting of this glacier is believed to be around 60 meters each year, losing about 10 to 20 meters of thickness every year.

• A lake started to form around Sólheimajökull in 2007 and is now 70 meters deep by the glacier edge.

• The world's sea level has risen by 8 centimeters in the last 23 years and is rising faster now than it was 50 years ago.

• If sea levels were to rise by just 1 meter, half of Bangladesh would be submerged displacing 100 million people (and that's just one example).

• If emission targets are not met, sea level could rise by more than 1 meter by 2100.

Video of melting Sólheimajökull:

That's a lot to take in.

We have a long drive back to the hostel. I plan on finding something to eat and having a few beers in the hostel tonight.

On the way back, I just take in the scenery. So many beautiful mountains dotted with glacial waterfalls, horses and sheep grazing along the mountainsides, lone buildings and views of the water. It really did turn out to be a great day, and one more shared adventure to add to the story of my life and my adventures with my mama.

My very friendly guide sneaking into the picture.