Another travel plan gone awry. I woke
up early this morning to get ready for horseback-riding. I got to
the lobby exactly at 8:45 to meet my bus and waited, and waited, and
waited for an hour. I thought maybe the bus had come and left
without me, but there was no way that I had missed the bus. Finally
I headed back up to my hotel room and called the stable and they said
they had stopped by Hotel Reykjavik Centrum and I wasn't there so the
driver left without me. I told her I wasn't staying at Hotel
Reykjavik Centrum, I was staying at Hotel Reykjavik and that they had
the wrong hotel. I heard her sigh and mention that she'd have to
send a taxi for me. It was already 9:50 by then and I didn't want to
force whoever else was horseback-riding to be delayed so I told her I
was okay with doing the afternoon trip. She sounded relieved and
laughed nervously saying she was sorry. I was pretty annoyed since I
rushed through this morning for nothing, and I had thought about
doing whale-watching in the afternoon after my morning
horseback-riding, but that plan was shot.
Since I didn't get to enjoy my hotel's
buffet breakfast, I headed into town to find something to eat. I got
tempted by a billboard outside a cafe called Glaetan that served
English breakfast until 2, so I went in and ordered that and an
orange juice. Everything came out so pretty; even the orange juice
was served in a big cocktail glass with streaks of red juice at the
bottom. The English breakfast was the most mouth-watering breakfast
I'd seen in a while, and very reasonably priced for Iceland: fancy
scrambled eggs, bacon, muffin, toast, sliced ham and cheese,
cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, and finally those weird sweet British
beans that I don't really care for but everything else was so filling
I didn't mind. Then I walked around taking random pictures and
trying to plan out the rest of my restaurants here.
The bus for Ishestar came around 1 p.m.
There were 2 German girls traveling together and one of them paid
particular attention to me since she saw that I was traveling alone.
They were so cute together and I didn't catch their names so I'll
just call them Brunette and Blonde. I was talking to them at the
stables and we were talking about our trip plans and what we've done
so far and just more things in general. Brunette was the more
talkative one but Blonde was better at English so when I was talking
with her she'd occasionally turn to Blonde to confirm what I was
saying. When I said I was from Texas that got the usual reaction of
comments of state executions, Bush and his ranch, and of course,
guns. Brunette asked if my parents were from America, and then she
nodded and said that her parents came from Russia. They were
spending 2 weeks in Iceland and had booked their accommodation last
December and their room overlooked the water so they really liked it.
She asked me if it wasn't difficult to travel alone (taking
pictures, eating out, etc.). I told her it was difficult to find
someone to travel with from the U.S. because most people have 2 weeks
of vacation so if you want to travel with someone you have to match
up your vacations and locations. Their eyes widened and they both
said, “Ohhhhh,” and then Blonde actually needed to use her hands
to count the weeks of vacation they get in Germany, and this turned
out to be 6 weeks. Sigh.
Our riding group got considerably
bigger once the rest of the people showed up; the bus had apparently
taken the wrong route so our trip was delayed since they needed to
get everyone else. Sounds like someone has a consistent problem with
picking people up. We watched a safety video, and just from those 10
minutes of talking about how to approach a horse and how to talk to
the horse, I will say that Icelanders love horses. A lot. We headed
to the gear room to put on helmets. It was raining slightly but
nothing too bad so we didn't put on any of the rain gear. Then we
got led out to our horses. The Icelandic horse has been bred in
Iceland in isolation from other horses for 1,000 years. This means
they are susceptible to diseases that other horses have so no horses
are allowed to be imported into the country, and once an Icelandic
horse leaves the country it is never allowed to return. It's a lot
smaller than other horses that I've been on; it's the first time I've
ever been able to mount and dismount a horse without any help.
Supposedly they are really good for beginners because they are very
tame and well-behaved. My horse was named Motsart (pronounced
“Mozart”) and after I mounted they also handed me a whip, which
was definitely something new.
We rode single-file for 1.5-2 hours and
the horse was so well-trained that I basically didn't have to do
anything except make sure not to fall off. I only had to kick a few
times and thankfully never had to use the whip. Although Motsart did
get spooked by a motorcyclist and jumped, and then during one trot
the horse in front of us was going too slowly that Motsart raced up
to pass it. We alternated between a slow pace and a fast trot, which
was a lot bouncier than what I'm used to; the saddle was not as
cushioned as what I'm used to either so as I'm sitting on my bed now
I'm a bit sore (reason #78 I'm glad I'm not a guy and the reason one
of the American guys asked the guide if she needed to stand up when
galloping). It was a good tour. We had one guide in front setting
the pace, and then a second guide who rode up and down the line to
make sure we were okay and whipping the slower horses if necessary.
We passed through some scenic countryside with the Blafjoll Mountains
in the background and rode through lava fields and hills filled with
Alaskan lupine flowers.
When I got back to town in the late
afternoon I hung out in the hotel room trying to find a place to eat
early dinner and then decided to wing it in town. I stopped by to
watch this Australian street busker named Wally juggling on top of a
ladder, and he was pretty entertaining. He loaded his dialog with
the raciest double entendres I've ever heard in public, but the crowd
of tourists and Icelanders was very entertained. He had 2 guys
assisting him and asked each of them if they preferred to be the guy
in the front or in the back. He told us, “Don't worry, the kids
won't get it... and if they do it's not my fault.”
The burger place that I had wanted to
try was too crowded so I kept on walking further into town and then
settled on, you guessed it, Icelandic Fish and Chips. (Don't worry
I'll have plenty of time to go to the gym once I get back home). The
restaurant is located right across from the harbor and the fish they
offer depends on what they catch. Then you order which fish you
want, the type of potatoes, and which sauce as well. I settled on
cod and crispy potatoes and this basil garlic sauce – which was
amazing. The fish was very fresh and the meal was very good
considering that they are trying to make the meal healthy by not
frying the potatoes and instead baking them, and loading the menu
items with omega-3. It was definitely the healthiest fish-and-chips
I've ever had but still tasted good.
The day was rainy, which limited
sightseeing but at least the clouds give some illusion of nighttime.
I wanted to try more food places in town so after walking around for
a bit more I settled on Cafe Babalu, a delightfully quirky cafe in
the city center, but genuinely quirky. There are a lot of cafes in
town considering the population of Reykjavik is only 200,000 , but
some of them close at 7 so I had to walk around quite a bit to find
one that was open. The décor was all eclectic and none of the mugs
matched. I ordered these banana and chocolate crepes with whipped
cream with a cup of tea and it was yummy. Then I called it a day.
Tomorrow I might go whale-watching if
the weather is good. That's the last expensive activity I plan to do
here. Otherwise I will finally check out the museums and continue to
stuff myself with food before I get go Boston. I really do like this
random food tour I'm doing around town and I think it'll be a nice
way to end my time in Iceland.
