Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the northern lights last night - we stayed up until almost 1:00am but the clouds just kept getting in the way. This meant a later start today - but not so late that we missed breakfast! We still got to enjoy the wonderful buffet, filling up for our last full day in Iceland.
From Geysir, we went to Friðheimar - a farm that produces almost 20% of Iceland's tomatoes. It wasn't supposed to be open, but we inadvertently tagged onto the end of a private tour. We saw people admiring the horses outside and the doors of the gift shop were open, so we went inside to join the crowd and sample the various jams and products they were selling. Lucky for us, they didn't realize we weren't part of the group until they had already started introducing us to the samples.
After saying goodbye to the horses, we continued on our journey to Sólheimar Ecovillage. I didn't realize the incredible history and significance of the village until we got there - it is a completely self-sufficient community, built to be sustainable and an enriching environment that encourages people with disabilities and people without disabilities to collaborate and grow together. We ended up meeting some of the community at the cafeteria during lunch - everyone was super friendly and welcoming, without any ulterior motive other than curiosity. It was an inspiring place, and totally worth the visit.
One last stop on the Golden Circle: Kerid Crater. It was a giant crater, about 6500 years old, and not overpopulated with tourists. I was reminded of Crater Lake in Oregon as we walked around the edge of the crater, then as we walked down to the lake. Just to put numbers to the size of it - the crater was about 270m long, 170m wide, and 55m deep. The depth of the lake was around 10m, and you could tell it was cold because there was a thin layer of ice forming along the top.
It was a fairly quick drive back to Reykjavik, leaving us enough time to get in a load of laundry, visit the Omnom Chocolate Factory, and check into our hotel before dinner. For our last meal downtown, we went to Sægreifinn, right by the harbour. It was a simple restaurant, serving up grilled fish on skewers. We had sea trout, scallops, shrimp, and blue ling - it was delicious! The best pick was the scallops, for sure.
Of course, we had to try to see the northern lights. Tonight was a perfect clear night, so we headed back to Þingvellir and camped out at that first parking lot (P3) and waited. Miraculously within the first 30 minutes, I saw a faint grey light appearing above the mountains, almost like a brush stroke. A few minutes later, a tour bus pulled into the same parking lot and we were no longer alone. The people on the tour were understandably excited, including the tour guide, and they weren't exactly thrilled that we were there first. Oh well, we couldn't stay long anyway since we had an early flight to catch.
We stayed for a bit to see if the lights might change, but no luck. So that was the end of our Iceland adventure! Tomorrow we'll fly to Sweden - thank you, Iceland, for an amazing time!
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