by Wendy
follow me on twitter @wendylooksleaps
It is our first full day in Iceland, and we are going to see a waterfall (“foss” in Icelandic).
I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was a little foggy from jet lag. We landed the night before around 11pm. We were tired, but it’s hard to settle down when you’re so excited to be in a new country and you’ve bought a bottle of bourbon from duty free and are fascinated by the sparse “health hotel” near the airport that apparently used to be former Navy barracks. So we stayed up later than we probably should have.
We get an early start the next morning, enjoy a delicious breakfast at the hotel – Skyr yogurt! Paninis! Fruit! COFFEE! – pick up the rental car and hit the road. We have about 5 hours of driving to the hotel, and along the way is a waterfall. How impressive can this foss be?
After about 90 minutes we see a waterfall in the distance. My first thought is, that can’t be it.
As we get closer it is obvious. That is totally it. It’s name is Seljalandsfoss. Good luck pronouncing that.
This is a wild, powerful, awe-inspiring waterfall. It’s tremendous!
We hike around this area for awhile. You can follow a slippery path through lots of mist to walk behind Seljalandsfoss. I’ve never seen anything like it before. There are smaller waterfalls spilling out from rocky cliffs. There is a little cave you can walk into for other waterfall views. It is overcast but we are mesmerized by the landscape.
As we continue our drive we spot many different types of waterfalls. There are pretty foss everywhere. Some like baby streams, some that plunge into pools of rapids, some that resemble a sprung leak, some that join with other foss around them to flow peacefully together.
Clearly, it is Foss Day. We start joking that there are too many, that we’re sick of them: “If I see one more foss, so help me God!” We are getting spoiled on beautiful scenery. Our car feels quite isolated on the road surrounded by horses, sheep, strange green fields that look like they are bubbling with moss, tiny houses with red or green roofing on the horizon.
We realize we can’t keep pulling over to take photos or we’ll never get to our hotel at a decent time (the magnificent Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon). But we see another foss we can’t pass up.
This one’s name is Skogafoss. We climb about 400 steps to get a better look at this foss. It’s exhausting but gorgeous. Little do I know this is just the beginning of the steps I will climb on this trip!
The views are so picturesque. There are lots of people camping near this foss, and we stop for lunch in the cafe nearby.
As we are leaving, we are rewarded with a rainbow in the foss.
Not impressed by the foss? Well…if that is not your thing, we also made a detour to see an exquisite black sand beach that afternoon.
So cool. During dinner at the hotel that evening, we realize we haven’t even been in Iceland for 24 hours. We are stunned by natural beauty everywhere.
The hotel even has a foss in the backyard. We walk outside after dinner and drinks. It is nearing midnight, it is clear and cool, and there is a smattering of stars overhead in the darkness. We can’t see the foss, but in the quiet you can hear the water rushing in the distance.
I am getting what the foss is about.