7:23am
Back is sore as fuck. Take note if planning on going horseback riding.

11:22am
After stopping briefly at a gas station we have arrived at the glacier. It’s really friggen big.

11:25am
This road is really bumpy. Feels like the road to Serengeti.

5:25pm
Just left the Sólheimajökull glacier and ate lunch in the bus. A nice sandwich, an icelandic donut and an apple juice box I’ve been craving forever. 

5:40pm
Stopping at Skogarfoss waterfall before we trek home.

7:56pm
Almost home. Guides are playing Tenacious D. Friggen awesome.

11:02pm
Our last full day was awesome and exhausting. As far as I can remember most of the traveling I’ve done has been self guided because sometimes I find tours to be somewhat limiting, but with Iceland, I / we went did several excursions and they were / have been amazing. Today we went to glacier hiking with Arctic Adventures (the same outfit that we went horseback riding with – Arctic Adventures). The two guides we had today were very fun and easy to listen to. One of them, Brett, was a student from Alberta, Canada over here during his break from school and the other was a native Icelander. The drive to the glacier area was over two hours, but again I slept most of the way which made it seem much faster. We stopped for treats at a gas station and I went across the street to a supermarket, which, this far has even the cheapest place for food.

When we got to the glacier area, I had severe flashbacks of driving to
Serengeti. The off roading and wilderness. After parking, we were given helmets, ice picks, climbing harnesses and crampons (and boots and rain gear if we rented, which most of us did) I would suggest bringing your own rain gear if you can. It’s 1000 kronur each.

The entire day was overcast, as it usually has been the past few days and it rained on and off, but not nearly as bad as the day before. It never got below 55 so I can’t say I was ever uncomfortable.

The base area was a mixture of river and dead glacier (any part that has broken off), dirt, and a lot of ash from volcanic eruptions. After hiking for a couple of minutes, we quickly came to the actual glacier. This was really, really neat. The only other time I’ve actually seen a glacier like this was on top of Kilimanjaro and it was nowhere near as massive and I was not on top of it. The glacier we were climbing was the fourth largest in Europe – the other three also reside in Iceland. The guides kept commenting on how much the glacier had changed since the day before and it was quickly becoming obvious as to how this was possible. The weather was above freezing so there were all sorts of little rivers above and inside the glacier finding there way down to the base. Every so often we would come upon a large crevass and you could hear hidden channels down below. Some of the crevasses were very deep, but the guides wouldn’t let us too close to the edge. We’d take ice chunks and throw them down and some drops would take up to three seconds to hear a noise. We weaved in, out and around holes and drops and walls and breaks in the glacier for about two and a half hours up the far east side of the glacier until we got to a point with a clear shot of the ice cap and then we turned around. On the way down the guides found a nice spot to do some ice climbing. Climbing was a lot of fun, but after sitting a little while and not moving very much it started to get a little cold. All three of us climbed with little problems, however the little Asian lady had big issues. On three of four different occasions during the hike up she had to have guides retighten her crampons because she did a terrible job when at the base. She was the last to attempt ice climbing and well, it was a sight. She didn’t listen how to climb and didn’t dig her toes into the ice and well, her left fucking shoe came off, completely. You could feel everyone, but her father trying to hold back a smirk. After that fiasco was dealt with we were done climbing and continued our way back down to the base and the bus. Eventually we made it there which was good, because if I hadn’t bought cookies at the supermarket when we stopped, well I would have eaten someone. At the bus we had sandwiches, Icelandic donuts and apple juice boxes waiting for us which was amazeballs. Twenty minutes later we were parked at the base of yet another one of Iceland’s amazing waterfalls. This one was not as large as Gullfoss, but it was still very large.

A short stop was followed by a nice nap on the ride home. We got dropped off at the same location as yesterday and Stien and I went and got really friggen good noodles and Brian got sushi. We then spent a little time on the Internet at a cafe and then headed home for our last night in Reykjavik and in Iceland.

After the past two days – horse back rising and glacier climbing – my body is really sore and tired. We have a flight at 4:30pm to go to Amsterdam tomorrow, but we are waking up at 7am to go to the Blue Lagoon which should do wonders. God help me because on Friday we are going to put our bodies through three days of partying and dancing at Tomorrowland.