I wake up when my alarm goes off at 7:30 AM. It’s volcano day!

I hit the showers and I love them here at Kex. These are individual rooms with a shower, toilet, and sink. So no need to share space with anyone or feel guilty about taking up so much space on the counter.  

Then, to save on time and money, I cook my breakfast at the hostel. The kitchen is a little dark, but plenty of tables and chairs. I clean up my dishes, tuck away my food, and by the time I’m heading out, the rest of the hostel is waking up. 

I notice that this place still has plenty of capacity. The room I’m in has six beds but only three of us in there, which makes me think that there aren’t as many people traveling as there normally would, yet.

Outside, the sun is shining which is a wonderful surprise. When I checked the weather earlier it had said rain all day. My reservation for Blue Lagoon isn’t until three PM, so I have time, but I also don’t know how long I’ll be at the volcano.

Volcano in Iceland

The forty minute drive to the Fagradalsfjall volcano is stunning. Hints of coastline, lots of green. You can’t see the volcano from the road because there’s a ridge of hills in the way. As I get closer to the volcano, a big, dark raincloud hovers and there’s  also a cloud of smoke with tinges of red and orange form the volcano and my heart speeds up a bit.

I have that first spontaneous smile. You know, not a smile for someone else who’s telling a joke, or you’re being polite. It’s that smile you have when you’re happy all the way down into your soul. 

When I approach the parking for the volcano, I see a man standing by a sign and then see that the sign says something about paid parking. Makes sense to me as I pay parking for some of the local hiking spots in Albuquerque, so I pull into the muddy lot, walk over to the sign, and cajole my phone into getting to the website and then through the payment process.

That dark cloud moves away as I work through the payment system, yay!

I wonder whether I should put on my wind proof pants. I bought these things at Goodwill for a mule ride in the Grand Canyon. They are five times too big for my legs but they worked great to keep me warm in Utah and the wind out here is brutal today. It’s around 40° Fahrenheit. So, warmth wins over fashion. Besides, no one here knows me, I’ll never see anyone here again, and there won’t be any photographic evidence of these ridiculous pants. (Note that later on, I learn that this is not be the case.)

I have my pack with water, snacks, camera, and camera tripod. I’m hoping to get some photos to print for my apartment. And off I go across the street. 

There are shipping containers being used as work spaces and a woman standing nearby waves at me. In a slight Icelandic accent she greets me, “Hello. The lava flow has cut off trail A, so it is closed today. You’ll need to take trail B.”

I had read about trail A and B. B is the steepest and hardest trail. Oh goodie. But I’m going up no matter what, so I start off. There are a group of Italian men and one American behind me, laughing and speaking English, they consider turning back but decide that they too won’t give up.

Glancing up I see trail A ahead of me and I can see tiny bit of lava up top. That is so  cool!

I quicken my step to trail B and look up. No problem, it’s going to be like taking stairs, lots of stairs. Except for a longish stretch that’s so steep they’ve put a rope out that’s connected to the hill with metal stakes driven into the rock of the hillside. That’s going the be the hard part.

I pass others taking a break by the trail. It helps that I’m from high altitude Albuquerque. On this hike, I’m currently close to sea level. I do still have to stop and catch my breath though. As I approach the super steep area, there’s a young girl, probably around nine years old, crying and asking to go back down. Her mother is doing her best to convince her to keep climbing. 

I get it. We’re really close to the top here and if I were her mother, I’d hate to miss it. But I also feel for the kid. I climb up alongside the group and I offer her one of my hiking poles to see if it will help her and I shorten it to her height. She stops crying long enough to figure out how to hold on to the rope and use the stick, but she gives up after her first attempt and hands it back to me. 

Then to show her there’s another way, I tuck away my poles and start climbing the rocks instead of using the rope, because there are plenty of safe hand holds. She follows me for a short while until it gets a bit more steep and there’s no choice but to grab the rope. 

That’s when she starts crying again.

Her mother says, “Thank you for helping. I’m so sorry for getting in your way.” 

I shake my head, “You are definitely not in my way.” And I mean it. It makes me wonder about women’s tendencies to apologize for taking up space that they have every right to command.

I keep going, and get to the top! And then realize that there’s still more to go. Ugh. The images I’ve seen of the volcano spitting up lava into the air encourages me to keep going, I can’t wait to see it.

I get over the top and there it is, the center of the volcano. And there’s nothing going on. There’s a puff of smoke but everything else is dead looking. A field of black crusty old lava.

I’m so bummed, but I find a tall rock to block the wind, take a seat, and take a break. I shoot some photos, and then I realize that I need to keep going. I need to walk over to where trail A is. There is lava underneath this black crust flowing on the other side of the ridge and I want to see it.

I look over the rough surface of the walk ahead of me. There are lots of rocks covered in a layer of soft foamy moss and plants. But I’m determined. I take a few  more bites of m&ms, a drink of water, then get going.

This valley of recent lava rock seems huge, but finally I’m around the corner and not disappointed. 

Ahead of me is a stream of red lava flowing over and inside the black rock. Along the edges of the rocks, the grass and moss is burning and smoking. I am awed.

In one place I can see an opening in the black crusty cover and underneath lava is flowing bright yellow and super hot at an amazing speed. It makes a crinkly sound like butter in a hot pan. I keep following the flow to see more. 

People are taking trail A now and just walking around the lava flow, thank goodness! That means I don’t have to go down trail B. A cloud passes over and I look behind me, the lava is glowing and I take some time to take photos. What a site!

I smile, watch people go up to the edge of the black rock then move on. As I move down the line I stop to watch some of that black rock crack open and pour out lava at the edge, glad that no one was standing there.

I keep walking, and find my way to a different trail, maybe there’s a C? But from here I can see a wall of this valley where the black lava has only partially poured down and it looks like a giant black hand against the brown of the valley floor. 

I look at the time. It’s after 1 PM and it will take me awhile to get back to my car and I’m starving! Maybe I can find something on the way to Blue Lagoon. I turn around and get back to trail A, taking more photos on the way. 

Then over the hill and down to the lot with the containers, I notice a food stand and I’ve never been so happy to see food! Not only that, it’s THE hot dog stand from Reykjavik! I order one and tell the guy he’s a lifesaver. He smiles and hands me that piece of heaven.

I scarf down that hot dog on my way to my car. 

I’m so tired, from the moment I landed yesterday I kept moving so I’d stay awake and get into the time better, and after my long hike, I’m a little zombie like, at least that’s my excuse for what happens next. I load everything in the back of the car, peel off the giant wind pants, then pull the hatchback down and it smashes right down on my face.

I am stunned, having hit my nose, but I try to pretend everything is fine, you know, just in case anyone is in their car and watching some idiot tourist hit themselves in the face. So I calmly walk to the driver’s door and sit inside, then close my eyes as they water and wonder what kind of an idiot I am.

I feel my nose, it doesn’t feel broken. But the flesh of my upper lip is already getting swollen and I’ll have a busted inner lip. I look at myself in the mirror, should I skip the Blue Lagoon? But the lagoon promises rest and relaxation and hopefully a tasty dinner, so I suck it up, take some Advil with my soda I had just bought, and hit the road, checking the rearview mirror every few minutes to see how bad my face is swelling.

The Blue Lagoon in Iceland

In the time it takes me to reach the Blue Lagoon, my face feels better, although my upper lip is definitely swollen. 

I walk into the Blue Lagoon with high hopes. I sign in on time for my 3pm reservation. On my way to the locker room a Blue Lagoon worker suddenly appears and asks me to go upstairs to the other women’s locker room.

I tuck my things away, grab my suit, and head for the showers. 

FYI: It’s considered rude if you don’t take a shower ahead of stepping into the pools, and that’s without your suit.

The showers are warm, yay! But the walk from the showers to the pool takes forever with that cold breeze. I step down into the blue water and I’m so happy. I wander through the pool toward the mask bar – you get certain facial masks included with your ticket depending on which ticket you buy. 

When I arrive, the woman at the mask bar pulls out a white bowl. “What color is your bracelet?”

I pull my arm out of the water so she can see the color of my bracelet which indicates that I bought the second level package. She pushes the white bowl away like it’s crap and pulls out a beautiful grey bowl.

“Oh!” She says, highly impressed with my choice. “In that case you get to try three of our masks. Here’s the first one.” She hands me a glob of black. “This is our black lava facial. Come back when you’re ready for the second one.”

I slather it on, then look around for how I’m supposed to remove it. There are two choices. There’s really cold, salty water streaming in from the ocean through little pipes, or there’s the warm salty water. I wash my face off with the salty warm water and my eyes are painfully reminding me that I’m a delicate flower. No, really, my eyes are pretty sensitive. This sucks.

After that, I decided no more masks. I’ll skip that part.

I head over to the bar for my free drink and get the lemonade. Apparently no one orders lemonade because the bartender had to look up if they sell lemonade. Hey, what can I say, I’m trying to stay hydrated. 

I sip on the lemonade. There are men wandering the catwalks in black jackets and dark sunglasses. I’m sure they’re lifeguards but they look more like bodyguards. I finish my drink and wander from pool to pool. I take deep breaths and lay back, letting myself float.

It’s glorious. It’s warm and amazing, but it also feels pretentious. I keep moving until I find a space that’s practically empty and take my time floating. There’s two Americans and one guy says he’s going to walk around to get cooled off, he steps out of the pool, takes three steps, then turns back around. “Hell no.” 

Yep, I could have told him that it’s cold outside of this warm wonderful water.

But it’s almost time for my dinner reservation, so I make my way to the exit. I almost run into a worker who’s hiding/hovering around a corner, I get my shower and head to the restaurant. I love traveling on my stomach and I will spend extra money on meals if I think they’ll be great.

Unfortunately, my meal of fish is really not that impressive and not worth the amount they’re charging. The desert though, that’s pretty awesome. Meanwhile, we diners are watching out the darkened window al all the people at the bar outside since there’s nothing else to watch. Glad I didn’t stay at the bar long.

Back to Kex in Reykjavik

Now it’s 7:30 PM and it’s time to head back. I drive the forty minutes, climb those four stories slowly with my tired legs and meet up with my roomie. That’s when it hits me. I need to recharge all of my electronics and I never bought a converter for Iceland. Yikes!

Talking with Nicole I find out she’s leaving the next day and she’s willing to sell me her converter. She initially wants to just give it to me, but then she looks at her checking account and says that she will sell it. That totally works for me and I’m happy to buy it. Whew!

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to be on my way to the middle of Iceland at Landmannalaugar but they haven’t responded to my emails. I check the roads. It appears that snow is still blocking my way, so tomorrow I will change things up. I’m a little disappointed that I won’t be able to hiking in the highlands, but I’m sure there’s other things I can do.

I post some photos on Facebook, then start to get ready for bed.

“Are you going to bed early?” Nicole asks me.

“It’s 10:50 PM!” I say.

Nicole nods.

I’m not sure if that’s late for her too and she’s confused by the amount of sunshine outside (aka it won’t get dark here during summer), or if she’s just humoring me. But I’m done for the day. 

Do you want more information about travel to Iceland? You can sign up here to get The Single Woman’s Guide to Iceland – Post Covid Almost.

Or maybe you just need an adventurous novel for that long flight. You can nab the highly rated thriller/adventure, Toy of the Gods today!

Or check out day one of my Iceland trip or view the videos of all the lava.