Long have I thought of how to start writing about something that left me in awe of its natural beauty in such a short amount of time. How to put into words something that was so visually stunning and that never stopped being that way. Days and days of amazing landscapes with small nooks of beauty and life hidden just around the next corner.
Driving the Ring Road (and others) around Iceland was the symbiosis of forces and actions that I absolutely enjoy and love. The van-life, our own little home on wheels allowed us to just keep chugging along and always looking forward to the next turn and what it would offer us, be it scenery or attractions. The act of not really having to think about how everything was going to happen, just get in and drive the road was a sensation of pure freedom. At the time it made me feel like a time traveler, and what it must of felt like to drive through any part of the world back when there were no highways and we weren’t all in a rush to get anywhere. The feeling of just driving and stopping whenever you felt like it, because a new waterfall appeared or because a small new café presented itself was something very new; a new type of tourism for me. It was extremely liberating.
Months have passed by since this trip and I can still see the different landscapes that kept appearing before our dashboard. Most of the ones that I remember are of being close to the ocean, when it felt like you were driving right on top of the water, and on the other side of the van was the steepest mountain, full of green towards the bottom and turning into a brownish-blackish rock at the top. Being able to just cruise through these roads, being put into that situation where nature feels so big and powerful allowed us to be in a repeated state of astonishment. Many of these situations happened to be when you are driving through fjords and that means that when you are on one side of the fjord, you can see the across the water at the other side, the mountains and the road that you will be driving in five minutes or in an hour, the difference just being how large and long said fjord was, or how many stops you had to make along the way to just take it all in.
What made this really feel like a vacation was the there was literally no time to think about life back home. Communicating with the rest of the world, friends and family was always in a small moment during the day, when you could sit down on the road and not be awestruck by something new again. I relish in thinking about living in that way, where the only thing you are feeling and thinking about is the next mission, the next landmark or spectacular view that you are going to see. The only moments where there is a small sense of having to adapt to the rest of the world are when searching for a campsite for the night, which are obligatory. This ‘mission to mission’ way of just going through our days was both the stress part and also the way it allowed us to be living everyday little by little. I absolutely loved this part, and hope to do another trip in this fashion again sometime in the future.
I saw so many waterfalls that after four days it was hard to be impressed by any of them (except the sudden really big ones). I saw mountains and mountains that had the tops cut off, flat as if they had been perfectly chopped by an angry giant. I saw snow and black sand in the same day, no scratch that, in the same hour. I saw whales at almost arm’s length. I saw a whale from the road, whacking its tail against the water. I saw small village after small village, lost against amazing backdrops and so far away from other civilization that it felt hard to imagine getting caught there in the winter. I enjoyed the simplicity of the Icelandic hotdog, and the clean fresh taste of the locally brewed beer. I classify Iceland as one of the best and most amazing places I have ever been.
All that is left now is to visit the same wonderland in the winter and see it all dressed in white, which has to be as spectacular and attractive.
PS. Feel free to comment down below and contact me if you want any info on the trip, the route, the difficulties with renting van and the like. Will be glad to help with any queries you may have.