Who has two thumbs, no fear, and dominated the ATV ride in Iceland?! This
girl! This was definitely my favorite activity on our Iceland trip - I have a
little need for speed but still like to be in control, so quadding is
definitely my idea of a good time. I can go very fast, but can also be sure
that I will be able to stop when I want to, unlike horseback riding for
example. :)
We drove about twenty minutes outside of the city for our ride, and were
right at the base of a bunch of mountains. The scenery while we were riding was
unbelievable - we had snowy mountains where cars aren't able to travel, grassy
mountains, lava fields, extremely rocky terrain, and normal roads where we
could really kick it up a notch. It was raining or snowing for our entire ride,
but somehow it didn't even matter, in fact I think that made it even more fun!
We drove through water, snow, lava, dirt, and lots and lots of mud - theres
just something so satisfying abut kicking up a huge spray of mud and water! The
highlight of the trip for me was when we came to an area with fresh snow, and
the guide tried to drive through and got stuck and had to reverse out, and then
the other guy on the tour tried and had to reverse out, but when I tried I
totally made it all the way through and forged the path for everyone else! As
the only girl on the trip I felt pretty satisfied with myself (hehe). This was
definitely the best ATV ride we've ever been on!
We also stopped at the Volcano House in the city center, which had two
short films about two of the most recent and devastating volcano eruptions in
Iceland. The first was the eruption of Heimaey in the Westman Islands in 1973,
and it was really amazing to see how quickly the city was able to rebuild,
especially since volunteers were the driving force behind almost all of the
clean up and reconstruction efforts. They also mentioned that the U.S. troops
stationed at the then-operational Air Force base near Reykjavik helped out with
the recovery efforts; it's heartwarming to me to see good relations between the
U.S. military and other countries. :) The second eruption that was covered in
the video was the one we were more familiar with, the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull,
which is in southern Iceland. We remembered this volcano because its ash cloud
was responsible for shutting down airports across Europe and stranding millions
of travelers. However, the employee at the Volcano House told us that another
volcano called Grimsvotn erupted in 2011, and it produced more erupted material
than the eruption in 2010. However, since the wind carried its ash in a
different direction, and the ash fell out of the atmosphere more quickly than
in the 2010 eruption, it didn't have as much of a global impact and
didn't even make mainstream media (that I know about at least). I just thought
it was fascinating that such a huge natural disaster occurred, but most of the
world probably wasn't even aware that it had happened.
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| Me at the Volcano House with some lava rocks |
On a lighter note, we capped off our volcano experience with a visit to
the hot dog stand that Bill Clinton himself visited when he was in Reykjavik.
We were assured that they were the best hot dogs in town, and the didn't
disappoint. Lastly, we couldn't finish our day without a second visit to the ice cream/crepe store next to our apartment. I got a Nutella and Snickers crepe...ohmygoodness it was so delicious!
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| Yum! |
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| Oh hey, Bill. |
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| I like food...can you tell?! ;) |
