Blue Lagoon and Meeting the Group

Blue Lagoon hot water pool.

The lifeguards here wear parkas!

A silica and mud facial treatment.

Leif Eriksson, who was born in Iceland.

A couple of streets scenes.

Monday, August 14^th.

This morning I had the included breakfast and then asked about the bus pickup for the Blue Lagoon. Turns out because of the congestion in the city with tourist buses the mayor as of July 1^st has decreed that all the buses have to stay off the narrow roads and stick to the outer area. Good thing I asked as I would have been standing in the wrong spot.

Anyway, I caught the bus and headed off basically back towards the airport and through the bleak lava fields. Blue Lagoon is a huge water pool where the water is heated by the geothermal activity to a temperature about 100 degrees and which place replenishes itself in 40 hours. I enjoyed the warm water and took advantage of the silica and mud facial treatment, the algae facial wash, the steam room and a beer at the swim up bar. I spent three hours there just chilling. It was cool in the morning but by about noon when the sun came out it was very pleasant.

Then I caught the bus back to Reykjavik and decided to investigate the National Icelandic Museum. I wandered around there for a couple of hours learning about the early Nordic settlers, the Vikings and the later history as well.

I went for a walk around the city again for a while before heading back to my room to find I have a room mate. His name is Albert and he's from Sydney, Australia. We talked for a bit before heading off for the beginning of the tour meeting with our guide Johann. The whole group are retired seniors, except for one! So much for a tour full of young people and me being the oldest. There are seven Americans, three Aussies, one Jordanian and me and another Canadian guy from Ottawa.

After the meeting some of us went out for dinner at a pretty fancy place. I had the a three course saewolf fish dinner which was quite good and an Icelandic beer.

Then back to the room for the night. Tomorrow we are underway.