Ever since watching the film The Secret life of Walter Mitty I fell in love with the idea of visiting and exploring Iceland. And now here I am sitting in my hostel bar with my Icelandic beer, surrounded by the kindest Icelandic people and feeling so so content with life.
Being the person that I am I spontaneously booked a tour an hour and a half after I arrived in Iceland. I did not even think to consider that it takes up to an hour drive from the airport to my hostel and the city centre of Reykjavik. So it left me with about 15 minutes to get changed and ready for a two hour horse riding tour. In the last two and a half months I have become a professional at packing and changing in ridiculously short amounts of time. I am so ready for the amazing race.
Anyway I made it on time surprisingly! The drive to the national park was about 15 minutes away from Reykjavik. I was in the tour with a mix of professorial Swedish horse riders, little Italian moms who had never ridden a horse and a weird physiologist Irish guy who was telling me his plan to save the world. You could not have placed a weirder group of people together.
We watched a briefing video and then the guides asked what experience we had with horse riding. I regrettably told the guides I did horse riding in South Africa a few years ago and they gave me the biggest horse they had. Her name was Emma and she was the moodiest and angriest horse (had better hair then me though). She did not like to be touched and we couldn't chain her to the fence otherwise she would kick you. It was like being a husky trainer all over again except with horses.
We got ourselves up on our horses and had to form a single line. My horse was a psycho and was trying to overtake everyone. It was pretty scary at first but once I got used to it I felt like a pro. We rode for around an hour and a half and it was 5 degrees, pouring with rain and absolutely freezing! I literally thought my hands were going to fall of.
The views however, were incredible! How often is it you get to ride a horse through lava fields?! My first day in Iceland was nothing short of amazing- I am so in love with this country.
