South Coat tour of Iceland

 After another early rise, and pickup in a tour van, we embarked on a journey to the southern coast of Iceland. Definitely less active than yesterday, with much longer stretches driving the flat land countryside. They should've called this the "Vikings" and "Game of Thrones" tour since much of what we saw was featured on one or both of those shows, along with many other productions. 

Our first stop was at the Skogafoss waterfall. People recognized the beautiful falls from TV immediately, but having never seen an episode of either show, I just marveled at its obvious beauty. I've seen much bigger and more jaw dropping falls before, but this one just appears out of nowhere, with campsites right up to a couple hundred yards away. Must be a peaceful night at the base of the falls.

Our next stop was an overlook of then a trip to Reynisfjara, or Black Beach. It's named that for its black sand beaches. Really beautiful, however this is the warmest time of year and we were in winter coats. Not sure when anyone can enjoy it for swimming. It has a lot of danger warnings too, and the rip current and surprise waves have swept many people out to their demise in the sea. I put my hand in the water and it didn't seem shockingly colder than the Atlantic does at home in the fall.

On our way we continued following a light, lamb soup lunch, to a little town named Vik. High above the town is a lookout with a church. The town is actually in the path of a glacier volcano if it erupts, which it will eventually. So the town practices drills where they all race as fast as they can from the lowlands to the safety of the church and lookout area. 

We piled back into our tour van had headed right over to the glacier named Solheimajokull. It, like most glaciers in the world especially at this time, is shrinking. I was able to do some real hiking there, hopping off the walking trail in favor of heading down into the ravine and walking along the water. I put my hand in that water to check the temp and it was considerably chilly. We only had a short time there before heading to our final destination.

The last stop was the most fun of the day. It was another small waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. We were able to walk right up and hike around it, literally seeing the backside of the waterfall. It's all at your own risk, which didn't seem that dangerous until I thought about it afterwards and realized there are no hospitals within an hour and a half of this location. It was a stunning view to see the waterfall that close and feel its power.

When we returned to Reykjavik I was sitting in the hotel room when I felt an earthquake for the second time today. The people here don't react. They just say that it's normal right now to have little quakes because a nearby volcano is about the blow. They say it like it's not a big deal.