DAY 1 (JUL 31, 2019) - ARRIVE IN REYKJAVIK, DRIVE TO BORGARNES

GROBROK CRATER

GLANNI FALLS

Grobrok crater

It's quite windy up there

These crowberries are everywhere

They are indeed edible, but a bit sour, and the seed doesn't taste great.

Glanni falls - Pretty view, but we didn't see any salmons

We were exhausted upon arriving at Reykjavik, especially with the time change. We rented a car and drove about two hours straight to our hotel at Borgarnes. Finally got to the hotel by around noon, only to find out that check-in time starts at 3pm. We decided to make the best of the wait and went to explore the Grobrok Crater and Glanni Falls, which were about half an hour away. The Grobrok Crater was a massive hole (there’s also another one adjacent to it) a short hike away. The wind was very strong up there. A fun fact: Icelandic people think of “nice weather” as “less windy”, not necessarily sunny. It gets windy often here. We learned from others around here that crowberries are everywhere and you can just pick them and eat them. Truth be told, they’re edible but not very sweet, and you just swallow the tiny seeds.

Glanni Falls is just a short drive away, and a quick walk away from the parking lot. The hotel front desk guy told us we can see salmons swimming upstream if we’re lucky, but we didn’t have such luck that day. The scenery was nice nonetheless. This was our first of many waterfall adventures in Iceland.

We drove back to our hotel in Borgarnes after Glanni Falls and stopped by a grocery store for some food shopping. Food in Iceland is expensive! Luckily, our apartment in Hotel Borgarnes has a nice kitchen where we can prepare our own food and save some money.