5
Location: Solheimar
Today, I woke up at 6:45 to get ready for our travel day. After I got ready, I soon realized with my friend, Luke, that no one else was awake and everyone else had slept in on accident. So we woke up the facilitators and had 30 minutes to get everyone ready with their luggage in the van to leave the hostel. Once everyone was ready in the van, we headed south for about an hour and a half. I sat next to Luke and Grisha in the back of the bus which was the same way we sat yesterday when we were snorkeling. We stopped at a gas station, and I got a few souvenirs, which were very expensive, as everything is imported here. We then drove to Skogafoss, which is a very big waterfall. Grisha, Luke and I were basically entertainment for some of the other students as we made stupid jokes and laughed at silly things. When we got to the falls, we hiked up to the top so we could get an eagle’s eye view. We then traveled to a black sand beach, Reynisfjara, which has big mountains that come straight out of the ocean. We were able to see some puffins at the beach, and the waves were extremely rough and dangerous.
Then we had a hotdog gas station lunch, which was pretty good. The gas stations here in Iceland are better than in America, so it wasn’t really crappy food. And most people’s favorite part of the day: The glacier, Solheimajokull. Initially, we got fitted for crampons and harnesses, as well as an ice ax. We ascended onto the first little bit of a glacier, which was a really cool experience. We were even able to look inside of a moulin which is pretty much a big hole in the glacier. We grabbed food for the next couple of days at the grocery store and then traveled for about an hour to the guest house, where we would be doing service for the next few days. We had an hour of phone time, which was pretty epic. Then we had dinner. Happy dinner we discussed our day and played ‘squeeze’. We’re playing chess now until we’re kicked out of bed. Talk soon, Kyle