Iceland Road Trip Day 1: Keflavik to Heimaey
Well hello. Long time no see. Probably because I've been very busy with work and also with wrapping up planning on the Iceland 2.0 2016 road trip, which I am currently on. I'm almost live blogging (2 days later)! Technology has come so far!
Iceland day 1 was kind of like 3 days. It started off in Baltimore with a flight on Icelandic airline WOW Air, and some celebratory Icelandic Gull beer and American Pringles. Roughly five hours later we touched down in Keflavik to begin our adventure.
We picked our rental car up from Sixt, added as much additional insurance coverage as possible (this'll come up later) and hit the road in spitting rain before sunrise.
First stop: coffee. Forty-five minutes and we were in Reykjavik proper, grabbed coffees and breakfast from my favorite hip coffee stop Reykjavik Roasters, then headed toward our first real stop - the ferry port that would take us to the Westman Islands.
In between we stopped at the turf houses in Keldur near Hella. Fortunately the roads were all clear and there was no one else around, so despite feeling a little weird about it, we were able to treat ourselves to a private tour of the area. Then it was back into the car and we finished the trip to Landeyjahöfn where we would catch the ferry...or so we thought. Turned out the ferry sails from another port in winter, and it was an hour and a half back in the direction from which we'd just come. D'oh. Back into the car, and back toward the correct port, Þorlákshöfn. After a lot of confusion and doubt, and a phone call to our hostel in Heimaey, we booked ferry tickets and had only to kill several hours before our departure. (I used this time to get a very delicious ice cream and brush my teeth in a public bathroom.)
It was quite the hiccup, since we were arriving in Heimaey almost 6 hours later than originally planned, and for the next day, we'd also have to arrive back to this other port adding 1.5 hours to the ferry and about 1.5 hours to our driving time for the day.
So, misstep #1: completed. After being awake for over 24 (closer to 36) hours and feeling completely gross, still, the day was lovely, and after our ferry ride we did successfully arrive in Heimaey, which is really the important part of this story.
