Iceland. Sólheimasandur
Iceland Day 2.
Perk of Iceland, helps you get used to the time zone switch, before venturing into Europe.
Don’t let it get to your head though. You still will want to sleep in. I couldn’t find myself out of bed no later than 8:30 am. My travel companion was suffering what I dubbed as “travel fatigue.” Meaning he was having morning sickness and dry heaves.
He wasn’t the most agile in those mornings.
Which lead me to wander out to the lobby. Missed breakfast again, and didn’t have any kroner to purchase the hostel provided meal. There was some commotion in the lobby as an Australian had just arrived not knowing how far the airport really is from Reykjavik. He had his bags and could not check in until later that day.
His name is Luke.
Luke would turn out to be one of the coolest Australian on the trip. Additionally the other cool Australian dude would aptly be named Luke as well.
Luke would be on his way to his uncle’s shop in Brixton, but first he had a quick pit stop in Iceland.
It was at this time that my buddy Tyler was mobile now. I made the introductions and it was decided that Luke should accompany us to the crashed DC3 at Sólheimasandur. The journey would be about 2 hours there and two hours back driving along the southern coast heading eastward.
112.
That is the number for road side distress, otherwise known as emergency services. It might be because the locals are tired of rescuing careless tourist drivers, but in Iceland they have stern warnings against speeding. High way 1 crested a hill and visible to oncoming traffic to the left were four large poles fifteen feet tall. On top of those poles was the depiction of two vehicles impacted in a head on collision.
All of us in the car commented on it and nodded our heads. Our eyes stretched out over a long expanse of prairie land in front of us. The road dropped into a hair pin turn before the valley. Instantly everyone in the car wondered about long boarding down the hill.
At the bottom of the hill was when the road became straight and easier to focus on the surroundings. There was a couple new housing developments under way, maybe one or two more homes to be added. What is interesting is they utilize a lot of cranes for residential construction. After the touch of suburbia ended it was stretches of grasslands with plenty of sheep and horses. We popped on radio Iceland fm and cruised along the road way. The Icelandic dj spoke his native language, but played mostly English speaking pop songs.
We passed Skogafoss, but we pressed on making sure to see the iconic waterfall on the way back. A couple kilometers more and we were at the parking lot to the trail head of the plane crash.
The wind was blowing hard over the barren rocky flat lands. It was a crisp bite of flowing fresh air. Extra layers were quickly added to fend off the cold. Except in the case of the Australian, he threw on what ever he had in his bag, which made it tolerable.
The walk.
Was longer than expected. I am not sure if it was necessary for the car park to be so far away from the actual crash sight. but I do think it was over 3 kilometers, on relatively flat rocky earth. The Atlantic ocean shimmered in the far distance, the land leading to it was uneventful. With the Icelandic highlands behind us, the route had a way of making you feel small. We laughed and made small talk the entire way to the crash site. Thankfully the wind was to our backs and in essence pushed us there. About forty minutes later we saw the jagged nose of the tore up air plane. It was already swarming with tourist and people seeking the perfect photo op. Two atvs puttered up to the crash sight piloted by people in orange jump suits. More tourists and someone and just started flying their drone.
We quickly did a 360 around the torn up fuselage. The wings were ripped off right after the motor mounts. Thousands of tiny holes darted along the ripped up aluminum. We speculated that some could be in fact bullet holes. We wondered if the local farmers took pot shots at the wreckage before it became a instagram target.
We went everywhere we could on that plane. We were prepositions I swear. We went in, over, under, on top, along, and across the marooned vehicle. We killed about twenty minutes there then we realized that we had to walk all the way back. This time we would be feeling a head wind. Beanies and hoods were pulled on tighter. One foot after the other we traversed our way back to the car park. We miss placed nicknamed landmarks, but finally we made it. We were all very hungry at this point. The only thing we could find was the Skogafoss campsite restaurant. Which was delicious and well worth the money.
I got the hot wings, Luke got the burger. Tyler just got a soda. After we ate we quickly ran up to Skogafoss and walked up the 273 steps to the top. It was pouring water so loudly. The rushing water paired with the mountain breezes meant that in certain areas you would get soaked. Fuck it dawg life is a risk. FIDLAR. I ran down the stairs to the bottom and ran towards the base of the water fall. Longer expeditions to the base required a poncho or at least an umbrella. So I rushed down there and took a quick selfie.
After that the sun was getting low and we wanted to limit our driving on iceland roads at night so we took off back to Reykjavik.
To try kfc and tacobell.
Thank you fast food giants
