We woke up to a beautiful, sunny, wind-free day. After eating breakfast at the guest house, we hit the road in our little Opel on the long journey back to southern Iceland. Our goal: to get back in time to relax in the Blue Lagoon. We didn’t get far before stopping to take more pictures of more fjords and more waterfalls and more desolate houses. There are just too many.

After our 5th or 6th stop we made a vow that we would not stop for any more unless it was truly the most unbelievable waterfall or fjord we had ever seen. We needed to make time. For those of you who have driven in a car with Larry, you can understand what the ride was like. Put him behind the wheel under time pressure and he turns into a Daytona speed racer. Actually, he does that even under normal circumstances. And if there is a deadline, it’s even more intense. I find the best medicine for those white knuckle moments is to just close my eyes and trust that he’ll get us there safely. It works well.

We rounded several fjords and took more pictures from the moving car. When the photogenic spots were on the driver’s side of the car, Larry and I mastered the art of me taking the wheel and steering while he hung out his window to take pictures. Luckily there were never any other cars on the road. It felt like we had Iceland to ourselves.

We were on Road 60 and going to the 608 before meeting up with the 61 which would take us all the way into Reykjavik. Upon looking at the westfjords.is site the night before, one option seemed like the shortest route in addition to having the benefit of being the route with the least amount of travel time on gravel roads. According to the site, travel time from Isafjordur was 5 – 6 hours. That should give us plenty of time to get to the Blue Lagoon and relax before our early flight the next morning.

We drove over top of some mountains and marveled at the incredible blue water in places where there was newly melting snow and ice.

As soon as we noted that “we’ve been on this road for a while, we should be hitting the 608”, we noticed a turn off for the 643. I consulted the map and noticed that we were way past the turnoff for 608. We had missed it somehow. Perhaps while we were taking pictures out the window? Neither one of us remembered seeing a sign and given the lack of roads and turnoffs in the area, it’s not too easy to miss a sign. We pulled over and consulted the map again and discovered there was another road, the 605, which would get us down to the 60, and was still a shorter route than going all the way around the rest of the fjords to get back to Reykjavik.

We almost missed the sign to 605 also. A small dirt road leading up into some farmland. Very cute little newborn lambs dotting the landscape.

All of the sudden the road ended. In a farm. With no other way out. We turned back around, confused, and noticed an offshoot of the road marked “Impassable”. Hmmm. We stopped 50 yards down the road where the farmer was taking a lunch break and asked him. He said, “You don’t have a map?” as if he wouldn’t be surprised to come across two dumb Americans traveling the back roads of Iceland without any discernible form of navigation. “Yes we have a map”, we stated, “and it said that this road goes through”. “Oh, …no, it’s closed.” he replied.

Great. So, we decided to go back and find the 608. Which wasn’t close, but still closer than going all the way down 61 around the fjords.

We began to backtrack. We drove, and we drove, and we drove. “Wow, it’s farther back than we thought”. There was a road off to the left that was clearly closed. It looked like it hadn’t been open for the season yet. There were construction vehicles parked at the entrance. It had no sign, but had three naked sign posts where the road marker perhaps used to be. With a sick feeling we realized this may be the road we were looking for. Only nothing we consulted offered the information that it may only be open seasonally, or may be closed for construction. We drove several more kilometers just to make sure, and then realize that we’ve been Funny Farm-ed.

For those who have not seen the movie, there is a sequence at the beginning where Chevy Chase and his wife are moving from Manhattan to their dream country farm in Vermont. The moving truck gets lost because some bored local teens with nothing better to do chop down the sign pointing the correct direction. The hapless movers spend all day trying to find their way to the town, end up on an old wooden bridge that “isn’t a bridge, it’s termites holding hands”, which subsequently collapses when they try to cross it, and then are forced to sleep in the truck with no food, no water, and mosquitoes on the attack.

Now we’ve driven probably 150km or more out of our way. And we have to go the long way because now we have no choice. At this point Larry really stepped on it. We’re not going to make the Blue Lagoon! I won’t admit to how fast he was driving, but let’s just say that each time we hit paved road, we were flying. Unfortunately we spent a good amount of time on dirt roads. Thankfully on the dirt roads Larry exercised a little more caution so as to preserve ourselves and our poor little car from obliteration. That little rental car really kept up with us though. It was a trooper. The entire car, all the way to the seals of the doors was covered in a fine, silk-like dark brown dust by the time we got done with it.

As we got closer to Reykjavik it became less easy to push the sound barrier. Especially since we figured out there were signs warning us of photo-radar boxes in the area. Oops. I wonder if we were speeding all the other times we passed those signs and didn’t realize what they meant? We await notification from the rental car company of our pending tickets. We then occupied ourselves with speeding and passing where we could, followed by keeping hawk-like eyes on the side of the road watching for the gray painted posts topped with a gray metal box that had a lens poking out the front. As we got closer to Reykjavik, our hopes began to fade. The Blue Lagoon closed at 8, and it was well after 7. And the Blue Lagoon was 40 km’s the other side of Reykjavik. Nevertheless, not being one to walk away from a challenge, Larry continued to fine tune his creative driving skills.

We pulled up to the parking lot at about 7 minutes after 8. I jumped out and ran in to beg them to let us in. I had read that guests can stay in the pool until 45 minutes after closing so had hopes that we could get in, if only for 1/2 hour. The manager informed me that they stopped accepting guests at 8. I pleaded with our sob story of driving all the way from the West Fjords to get there, and were there any exceptions? He agreed to let us in, but we had to be out by 8:45. I promised we would, paid for our entrance and towel rental, and ran to get Larry, who was now running up the path with our bathing suits in his hand (which he had dug out of the suitcases in the trunk). We rushed to change, and then spent the next blissful 40 minutes in the Blue Lagoon.

The water is quite surreal looking, a gorgeous opaque light blue due to the algae, silica and minerals it contains. Here’s a great stock photo from Wikimedia to give you an idea of the surreal setting:

The water temperature is an average 37-39 degrees C, which felt wonderful because by the time we got there, the wind had kicked up, it was overcast, and it was a very cold walk between the building and the lagoon. The bottom of the lagoon is natural lava sand and there are boxes all over the place where you can take out a spoon full of the silica mud mask to spread on your face and skin. It makes for a slightly amusing sight when you look around the pool and everyone has white paste spread across their faces.

The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal wonder in the middle of an otherwise moonscape lava field. Its origins are extremely unique, as is the water. Here are a few facts from the Blue Lagoon spa website:

The high-temperature geothermal areas in Iceland are found inside the spreading zone of the two tectonic plates which Iceland straddles, the American and the Eurasian plate, closely associated with the country’s active volcanic systems. Cold ingressed fluid, a mixture of sea water and ground water, comes into contact with cooling magmatic intrusions at great depth, is rapidly heated and ascends towards the surface. The temperature of the geothermal fluid exceeds 200°C at a depth of less than 1 km.

Blue Lagoon GeocyclePrecipitation in the Reykjanes peninsula seeps down through the porous lava pile, collects at a certain depth as ground water with flows slowly towards the sea. On the coast, the ground water meets the salty sea.

Hitaveita Suðurnesja drills for the geothermal fluid found in the region. The wells area as deep as 2000 meters and the fluid attains 243°C.

This geothermal fluid is then used to heat freshwater for central heating purposes and to produce electricity. This unusual and ecologically sound power plant, the one of its kind in the world, provides, in a sustainable way about 17.000 people with hot water for central heating. Some 45.000 people get their electricity from the power plant.

The geothermal seawater is piped directly to the Blue Lagoon where people enjoy relaxing in the warm aquamarine lagoon and benefitting from its unique active ingredients: minerals, silica and blue green algae. The lagoon holds six million liters of geothermal seawater, all of which is renewed in 40 hours.

Scientific study of the water has found that 60% of the organisms in the water are novel species. The Blue Lagoon spa now cultivates the “blue lagoon” algae for use in their skincare lines which are sold online and in high end retail stores (I think Saks carries it).

The good thing about getting there so late, and when the weather was taking a turn for the worse, was that we had the pool practically to ourselves, as you can tell from the picture of me in the pool up above. I headed straight for the silica box and then spent the rest of the time looking for the warmest spots in the water. After a while Larry discovered that the salt and minerals in the water provide for natural flotation, so one can literally just lay back and float endlessly. It was blissfully peaceful, but all too short. We both agreed that we easily could have spent several hours there. Next time.

After reluctantly leaving the pool and heading back into the freezing wind, we headed to nearby Keflavik, where the airport is located, so we could find dinner, a hotel, and repack before flying out first thing in the morning. We found a funny little American-themed diner where we dined on cheeseburgers, fries and Cokes drunk from super-sized cans. They served a side of “cocktail sauce” which tasted strangely similar to the famous Utah fry sauce. They had giant statues of M&M’s and served thick milk shakes and soft serve ice cream to an endless parade of locals. They had a drive in window. They had a case full of every American candy bar that is likely available to them. It was great fun to sit back and watch the Icelandic interpretation of Johnny Rocket’s.

After finding a hotel to bed down, we spent the rest of the night online and repacking, with perhaps an hour’s sleep before having to get up and head to the airport. We’re both leaving Iceland reluctantly, but with a great list of things to do next time we visit.

(All photos with the exception of the Blue Lagoon stock image (c) Larry L. Hanson or Lisa Hanson, 2009)