Iceland Survival Journal: Part 3

We embarked on a 2 day tour before sunrise, which isn’t hard considering the ‘sun’ doesn’t rise until 11AM. We headed South. On route, we stopped in an open field covered in wild horses. We walked through the field, amongst these hairy creatures, and were told to go make friendly with them. I was skeptical, mostly because when returning to the USA, you must advise customs of contact with livestock. Upon further consideration, in that I am searched and questioned by TSA without fail every single time, I decided the risk was not a risk in my case. So, I petted wild horses. They were soft. They didn’t try and kill me. That was good.

We continued our journey south, stopping at a giant natural waterfall. It was nice and all, but after my Zimbabwe adventure standing ON Victoria Falls, it was unimpressive. Meh. BUT, I was REALLY excited for the next stop! GAME OF THRONES fan?! YUSSSSS. The filming location for Westeros in the town of Vik, at the black beach- THERE IT WAS! The beach, is black. The waves, are HUGE. And they kill people. Tourists. Whom are stupid and get too close to the ‘sneaker waves’. They’re so fucking cool, and terrifying. Each wave is essentially a mini tsunami. We did get close. Then we ran, as the wave just kept coming at us up the black sand. It was awesome. Right on the beach is a large cave-like structure with lava formations.
Afterwards, we drove up to the top of the mountain overlooking the ocean and black beach. The wind could knock you right off the top. Fun fact: selfie-taking tourists have blown off the top because of not paying attention due to the selfie-taking near the edge of the mountain top. Again, more stupid people.
The sky, the ocean, the rock formations, and the black beach were magnified by the gloriously colorful day sky. Seriously, an unreal scene.

We ended up at a tiny ‘hotel’ in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We ate a piece of chicken for dinner that cost $38. I made a few friends, and we decided to go ‘hunting’ for the Aurora. We ran through the open fields trying to find, dark. Then we ran the other way trying to find pockets of stars and absence of clouds. This went on from 9PM until 2AM. The cameras picked up the Aurora over the mountain. Our eyes, they failed us yet again. Though we did not see the Aurora, we did get in an ample amount of Icelandic cardio.