USA: Grand Canyon, another bus and on to Peru

I appear to be a bit behind with the blog again. Clever me. Blame the fact that I spent way too long on buses during my last week in the USA and not enough time exploring. Or sleeping for that matter. That said, I'm now in beautiful Peru and going a bit slower again - no more 3 day buses for me!

Famous last words…

Anyhow, here's what I managed to do with my last few days in the US of A and my first impressions of Peru.

Can you see the bottom?

Saturday turned out to be the last day I really did anything in the States. I made the most of it though by going to the Grand Canyon with my Aussie roommate, Maddy.

After spending Friday feeling like death warmed up, it was awesome to get out in the fresh air. First look into the Canyon…

Yup. It's huge. We decided it wasn't enough just to see it from the top though and promptly embarked on a hike down the Bright Angel Trail. For an idea of how potentially stupid this was, here's a photo I took later in the day.

That zig zag path on the left? That's Bright Angel. It runs from Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim, down to the Colorado River which winds through the bottom of the Canyon. It's pretty steep. We toddled on down anyway, water and trail mix in hand. We figured we'd turn back at the first rest house, helpfully named 1 ½ Mile Resthouse. 3 miles, we figured, would be about right.

Yeah. Probably was. We stopped so many times on the way back up. Normally I'd walk 3 miles in an hour, easily. It took us nearly 3, most of which was on the return. There's some bloody good views though.

After we eventually made it back to the rim, we decided to spend the rest of the day meandering along the Rim Trail. Being on the rim, this trail is pretty much flat so much easier going after Bright Angel!

There's some really good viewpoints too. I even let Maddy take this photo of me getting far too close to the edge.

Harold wasn't so keen on getting that close.

From up there, we also finally got a glimpse of the Colorado, all muddy looking in the bottom of the Canyon. Next time, and there will be a next time, I want to take the mule trip down Bright Angel and across the river. Just got to get on the waiting list…

After a wonderful day of sun and walking at the Canyon, it was back to the hostel. Grabbed a hot chocolate at a cafe down the road with Maddy and Christina, our other roommate and then I had hours to kill.

Like a genius, I'd booked a bus that left at 2:25am. Why do I do this to myself? As if that wasn't bad enough (the guys at the bus station were pretty cool) I was going to be on the bus for nearly 3 days.

Fuck this. Are we there yet?

The bus journey wasn't as bad as expected. I spent the first day with a young lady and her seizure alert dog who fell asleep on me. That was cool. I managed to sleep every night. I met a bunch of nice chatty people.

Oh, and I passed through 8 more states before I finally reached Florida. Even if I only count the ones where I got off the bus for more than 5 minutes, that's another 4 states I've “visited”. Not bad for a month long trip.

Palm trees EVERYWHERE!

After 3 nights and 2 and a half days, I finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I took a taxi to my hostel because no way was I getting on another bus.

Fort Lauderdale filled many of my stereotypical expectations of Florida. Hot. Humid. Palm trees lining the streets. I mooched in Starbucks with an enormous iced tea until my room was available and also to get out of the surprise rain storm. Massive amounts of rain were not on my list of expectations.

The rest of the day was spent dozing and getting things booked for Peru. Clearly I've become more relaxed about these things because all I had booked at that point was the flights to Cusco. With 24 hours to go. Well done, me. By the end of the evening I had hostels booked for the first week and trains between Cusco, Aguas Calientes and Ollantaytambo.

Hablo Espanol!

The following morning I remembered the immigration thing where some airlines won't let you on the plane if you don't have an onward ticket. So I tried to book a flight from Peru to Chile.

I say tried, because my credit card got declined. I resorted to using my debit card in the end because it needed doing. Then I tried to book a second hostel for Cusco. Declined again. At this point I swore. A lot.

My phone took ages to pick up a network after being in airplane mode for so long. I took a walk to Starbucks via the beach in the hope of finding a signal. Nope

And then on the way back to the hostel for my ride to the airport, the heavens opened. Seriously. That bloody Storm. I was sodden and still dripping when I got in the cab, where my Peruvian cabbie was delighted that I was visiting his country. Lovely chap. I was still soaked when I reached the airport, so had to change.

Fortunately, by this time my phone had realised it was in the USA, so I made what I suspect was a very expensive call to the bank to get my card unblocked. Ugh. At least it was a fairly easy process.

And then my flight to Lima, during which I watched Me Before You on repeat because I couldn't sleep and the only other option was a bunch of kids cartoons.

Passed through immigration at Lima Airport just fine, gaining my second passport stamp of this trip in the process. Woo, passport stamps. Then onwards, bypassing all the folks offering me taxis and into Departures for my connection to Cusco.

First attempt at Spanish foiled by the cashier in Starbucks giving me a pitying look and switching to English. I blame tiredness. Stumbled onto the plane at 4:30am, random bits of Spanish floating around my head and wondering how the hell I'm going to survive 3 weeks of this.

Tiredness or altitude sickness?

Fortunately I'd had the sense to arrange a pick up from Cusco's airport with my hostel, so was met and taken straight there. I must have regained some of my brain cells in the hour I slept on the flight, because I even managed a conversation with the driver. Admittedly it was half Spanish, half English, but given that while I've been learning Spanish I've not actually used it with native speakers, I don't think that's too bad.

I spent much of my first day in Peru in bed dozing and wondering whether the slight nausea was due to tiredness, hunger or altitude. I settled on a combination of the three…

By the time I toddled out of the hostel to buy a ticket for Machu Picchu I was feeling much better, although I could feel that my lungs were having to work a little bit harder than normal. On my trip to the ticket office I successfully negotiated touts, souvenir sellers and a random old lady with an alpaca. Hurrah. My Spanish failed me at the ticket office, but the chap at the counter spoke English. Fortunately. A few more hostels and transport things got booked and then I had a glorious early night in preparation for my horribly early train the next morning.

You speak English?

Bright and early and feeling much better, my friendly taxi driver (must be on commission to the hostel) took me to Poroy station to catch my train to Aguas Calientes, gateway town to Machu Picchu. I did my best “hola, buenos dias” to the train crew, although when they came round to take drinks orders (yay, free tea) the lady's response was “you speak English?”. Ah. Oh well. In my defence, I understood the drink options - I'd already heard her give them to the couple across from me.

I was grateful for the cuppa though. Just what I needed.

The ride was beautiful. The train follows the Urubamba River for most of the 4 hour trip, winding through the mountains. It's kind of difficult taking photos through train windows - lots of glare, plus of course everything's moving. These are some of the better shots I got.

Woo, valleys. Also some old terraces. Well, I say old. The commentary said we passed some old agricultural terraces, but I'm not sure about these ones.

And of course, the Urubamba itself. I'll bet the river is mad in the wet season. I arrived in Aguas Calientes having belatedly realised that I had no idea where my hostel was. Sure, I had an address, but without a map that was no help. The lack of map also meant I couldn't easily find the tourist office.

On the plus side, Aguas Calientes isn't a huge place, although it is a bit of a maze. I found a nice place to have an early lunch and filched the Wi-Fi while I was at it. I even managed to order and request the bill in Spanish! Go me! Also, the lemonade there was amazing.

Directions firmly planted in my brain, I located the hostel with ease, where I promptly checked in without a word of English. I'm getting good at this. After a few hours relaxing and trying to stop gasping at this wonderful piece of towel origami, I set out again.

First stop, bus ticket to Machu Picchu for the morning. English for that one. I also had to giggle at this.

That is a train parked in the street. I don't know why I found this funny, but I did. I followed this with a mooch along Avenida Pachacutec, home of my hostel and dozens of restaurants and tat shops. Ostensibly, I was looking for a convenience store to grab some lunch for tomorrow, but I ended up going for tea as well. I couldn't help it. Everything smells so good and it's relatively cheap. My meal and a drink cosy me 12 soles. That's £3-4. It was cheaper than the croissant and Coke I had at the departure gate in Lima.

But anyhow, I think that brings us up to date on my misadventures. Tomorrow I head to Machu Picchu for the day. Next week also includes Ollantaytambo and a return to Cusco. Expect far too many photos next time!

Any altitude sickness suggestions? Just in case?

Canada: Three idiots in an RV part 2

Wow, the schedule I'd somehow been managing to keep for the last 2 and a bit months appears to have gone a bit wonky. No worries. Ever onwards and all that.

So, having driven from Vancouver to Jasper, via Whistler and a number of other places, my second week with Mum and Amy in the RV began with a celebration, because guess what, it was my birthday.

Happy Birthday To Me

Birthday fun began with a trip to the Other Paw Bakery in Jasper, which I'd visited on my brief stop in Jasper on my way across on the train. Birthday cake consisted of a big chunk of Java Cheesecake Brownie and it was delicious. Om nom nom.

Cake hastily nommed, we set off for our next adrenaline fix - rafting down the Athabasca River. I've never been rafting before. I need to go again.

Who knew bobbing down a river, paddling through rapids and getting soaked by (once again) glacial water could be so much fun? Delightful adrenaline rush, discounting the fact that Jhett, our guide, on hearing that it was my birthday decided to find a special birthday wave for me. Cue getting thoroughly soaked again.

Once back on dry land and back into dry clothes, we headed to the Bear's Paw Bakery, forerunner of the Other Paw and home to equally delicious baked goods. Oh, and London Fog, to which I've taken quite a liking. Following that and a stroll around the tat shops of Jasper - and there are many - we popped into the Jasper Brewhouse for a birthday meal and I finally got my hands on a glass of cider for the first time in over 2 months.

Joy.

Then off back to the campground, where Mum and I had afters in the form of bannock - a sort of scone-mix wrapped around a stick and cooked over a fire, while the Wildlife Guardians from Parks Canada told us how to stay safe around wildlife.

What a lovely day.

Ah, un ours

The following day we set out for a long drive down the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise. It should have been fairly uneventful, but just after we pulled out of the campground onto the main road, a grizzly bear ran out in front of us.

I feel I should mention that said bear was nowhere near actually getting hit by the RV. But while I was happily going "WE SAW A BEAR!" and trying to decide which species it was, Amy was clinging to the steering wheel for grim death and apparently felt a bit sick. Understandable, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the bear rather having taken us by surprise, I have no photographic evidence. This is rather annoying.

Onwards down the lumpy bumpy Icefields Parkway. Which we had to pull off not far down because the right hand wing mirror had wiggled itself loose and was now absolutely no use to Amy in the driving seat. Wiggled it back, set off again, and it wiggled loose. Again. Buggeration.

On the plus side, there are some stunning views down the Parkway. I had to giggle at this one, purely because the mountain is apparently callled Mushroom Peak.

Further on, and with a still-non-functional wing mirror, we pulled in at the Icefields Centre to take a break and admire the Athabasca Glacier across the road. We briefly considered taking one of the bus trips to actually go on the glacier, but it was a) expensive, b) crammed and c) there are better places to get up close to a glacier (*cough* New Zealand *cough*). Instead, we settled for a hot drink and a seat out on the observation deck.

On the way out, we found this excellent sign.

Apparently there is a mountain behind the centre called Nigel. We found this overly amusing. Anyways...

Pootling on down the Parkway, we had another stop at the Crossing, where the Sasketchewan River passes under the road and where Mum and Amy tried poutine. Pretty sure the poutine there was not as good as the poutine I had in Quebec - the cheese curds weren't right.

And onwards with the driving, stopping again when we came to the Weeping Wall. I suppose it's a waterfall, but it really does look like the wall is crying.

And still onwards. Long drive, much. We started passing a few more icefields, one of which I couldn't find a name for on the map, so we christened it Bobstevedave, because we couldn't agree. Of course, once we pulled in at the Bow Glacier and looked at the map there, we found that Bobstevedave, or the Bobster as it'd swiftly become known, was actually the Crowfoot Glacier. Ah well.

Shortly after that we arrived into Lake Louise, successfully negotiated the texas gates (cattle grids to us Brits), and parked up. It was still fairly early, so we popped into the village to grab some groceries and explore the visitor centre. All good, until on the way back we passed a ranger near the camp entrance, shouting "Woah, bear" and firing what we think was an air gun. Probably walked back to the RV a bit quicker after that...

Snow in August?

It rained all night. It was still raining in the morning. Not to be deterred, we drove up to the Lake Louise gondola and ski resort, thinking it might clear up. Plus, for an extra $3 on top of the gondola ticket, we got breakfast. And not just a drink and choice of pastry. Proper buffet breakfast. Which meant I was a pig and had waffles and bacon and sausages and eggs and syrup and tater tots. And just to make it marginally less unhealthly, a cup of chamomile tea. Yum.

After breakfast, we took the gondola up the Whitehorn mountain. We had wanted to take the chairlift, but it was still damp and horrible, so we thought better of it.

Good job as well, because when we got to the top of the lift, it was snowing. Yes, snowing. In August. In the northern hemisphere. And not nice fluffy snow either. The sort of sharp icy stuff. It's that bloody Storm again. As I said to Amy, it's like Taranaki all over again, where an icy rainstorm followed us into Mordor...

Yeah... explanation of that here: The Weather Stabbed Me In The Face

We sought refuge in the little interpretive centre, which was interesting, if a bit small.

And then tramped upstairs to grab a hot drink and attempt to admire the view out of the window. Clearly not many people were willing to brave the lift, because as we walked through the door, one of the waiters came over and said something along the lines of "yay, customers!" Made me smile.

As did the hot chocolate. Not so much the view...

And then back down the gondola and across to Lake Louise proper. As in the lake itself, not the village.

Even in the appalling weather, it manages to be pretty. A surreal sort of green colour. We weren't willing to stay outside in the cold and the drizzle very long though, and disappeared into the Chateau Lake Louise hotel in search of warmth. Definitely warm. Also full of fellow tourists. Another hot drink and roam through the shops later and we headed back outside.

At this point, the weather was beginning to improve and after a little while sitting around at the campground in the RV, we decided to brave the outdoors again. Took a nice stroll out to the end of the campground, where you could see the mountaintops just beginning to poke out from beneath the clouds.

Very peaceful.

And then something coughed.

Or maybe snorted.

And we turned almost as one to find a fucking big bear standing on the bank behind us. "It's OK," says Mum, "just stay calm and keep walking." So we do. And I don't dare look behind me to see where the bear has gone, even though I really want to know where it is in case it's creeping up behind me or something. "It's all right," Mum says, "it's gone away." And indeed, it did go running off into the other side of the campground. Away from us.

At this point, all my brain wants to do is laugh hysterically. So it does. A bit. Amy looks like she did the day before when the other bear ran in front of the RV.

I love wildlife and everything, but I'd rather not be that close to a bear again without something between us.

If they can get a bus up here...

After our close encounter with the bear, we started the following day with a slow drive up to Moraine Lake. Supposedly, this lake is even more awesome than Lake Louise. To be fair, Lake Louise wasn't perhaps at its best due to the rain and everything, but Moraine Lake is definitely beautiful. Of the many colourful lakes we saw on this trip, I think Moraine is the only one where my camera actually captured the colour I saw.

Brilliant, bright blue. I've never seen a natural water body that colour.

My admiration of the lake was somewhat marred by all the idiot tourists trampling over the rockfall which dams the lake. There are signs everywhere asking you to stay on the trail, but who cares? I want to take a photo for Facebook/Instagram/insert self-absorbed-social-media-here. What do you mean these lichens take hundreds of years to grow? They're just plants. Sensitive ecosystem? What's that?

Basically, I spent most of my time on that rockfall grumbling under my breath about how I hoped they'd all fall and hurt themselves and it'd serve them damn well right. People have no respect for nature.

/rant

Oh, and I saw a pika. These are basically just cute little balls of fluff. Clever little fluffballs - they gather plants and store them in a sort of pantry for the winter.

After a leisurely morning at the lake, we set off on our drive to that evening's campground. Plenty of time for other stops though, including a drive up to Takakkaw Falls at the end of the Yoho Valley Road. Said road involves a set of switchbacks that are much too tight to get an RV round in one go. Amy had to reverse into the bend in order to get round them. As we found later, there are actually coach trips up this road, so we figured if they can get the buses up there, an RV shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It was worth the farting about, because the falls really live up to their name - Takakkaw translates to something like "it is magnificent" in Cree.

And the view back down the valley towards Kicking Horse Pass is equally spectacular.

After successfully returning down the switchbacks, we carried on a little way down the road to the railway settlement of Field. Field only exists because of the railway - the incline through Kicking Horse Pass is pretty damn steep and was even steeper in the early days, so Field existed only as a place to add extra locomotives to trains climbing the pass.

It's not that much bigger now, although it does have a visitor information centre and a little gas station where we grabbed some lunch (which showed up as JUNKFOOD on the register. I was amused).

From there, a fairly straightforward drive out of Yoho National Park to the town of Golden. Straightforward apart from the very long, winding hill which drops out of the park towards the town There were a group of bighorn sheep (we think) at the side of the road, which managed to freak Amy out only because I shouted GOAT on seeing them. My bad.

Golden's only a tiny place, but the campground was lovely and the sunset behind the mountains... well...

My feet have gone soft

After a delicious second breakfast in a bakery in Golden and having tightened up the still wiggly wing mirror with an allen key we'd had to buy in Golden (because the RV came with no toolkit?!), we set off for a slow drive down the Columbia River Valley.

Perhaps the most relaxing day we've had, given that it was a relatively short drive and once we got to Radium Hot Springs, we had no real plans for the day. Mooched around for a while, grabbing a cup of tea followed by a lovely ice cream, before we drove up to the campground and parked.

A little while to just chill out and then we took the 2.5km track over the hill to the hot springs from which the town takes its name. Admittedly, the water from the springs is now channelled into a swimming pool, but it felt pretty good after the walk in the heat.

The only downside to a relaxing soak in the pool was that my feet, hardened by two months of tramping around cities and parks and museums and stuff, got a bit soft and therefore the walk back to camp was a bit... tender. I think I got off fairly easily - Amy really seemed to be struggling with the squishy feet situation.

The Storm is coming

Another fairly leisurely day, driving up through Kootenay National Park from Radium to Banff.

The road crosses three mountain chains and two rivers, so it was pretty expensive to build back in the early 20th Century. We stopped at the info centre for a drink and then headed back up the road. At which point I noticed the big black cloud further up the valley.

Oh dear.

We'd thought about stopping at the Paint Pots - ochre-stained lakes, very cool - and then maybe taking the trail up to the Stanley Glacier. With the Storm apparently intent on making another appearance, I looked at the map again and suggested stopping at Numa Falls, in an attempt to at least see something before the rain came down.

Glad we did. Numa Falls is pretty, well, pretty.

Even if Amy did worry that I'd fallen in at one point, because I'd gone wandering off to take photos and she couldn't see me.

Back in the RV, we entered the very edge of the rain, passed the Paint Pots turn off just as the rain stopped (much to my annoyance) and instead pulled in at Marble Canyon. On reading the first information board, I had to suppress the little voice in my head that was geeking out massively.

See, back up near Field is the Burgess Shale, a fossil bearing rock which includes evidence from around the time of the Cambrian Explosion - the period in which life sort of went a bit mad and all sorts of things were evolving. A couple of years back, scientists found another outcropping of this rock in the vicinity of Marble Canyon and the info board included a note to say that any fossils found should be left and reported to the Parks service (or something along those lines).

Yes, the science geek in me was squeeing over the super faint possibility of finding a fossil. Oh yeah.

As it is, Marble Canyon is pretty impressive in and of itself. It's very narrow and not all that deep, but it's beautiful. And, there's a waterfall at the top end.

And, there's a great view from the top, as Mum and I discovered while making friends with a chipmunk.

From Marble Canyon we headed straight to Banff, where we spent the afternoon raiding tat shops (again) and I found myself an excellent t-shirt.

I've got the la-la horse

The following morning, we went horse riding. My horse, Red, did mostly what he was supposed to do and left off eating things when I told him (i.e., pulling on the reins).

Mum's horse, Dunny, seemed like he was still half asleep.

And Amy's horse, the wonderfully named Soupy Jones... well, he did what he was told to start with...

So there we are, tramping along, occasionally having to pull our horses away from tasty things or trees that they felt like smacking us into. Enjoying the view and the peace. We make it across the Spray River, through the wood at the edge of the golf course. Soupy begins trying to eat whatever he can get his mouth on, despite Amy doing everything the guides are telling her.

And then we come back to the river. Dunny decides to stop in the middle of the river and have a drink. We've been told that the horses get a bit possessive about their place in the line, so if one stops to drink, everyone behind has to stop too.

Soupy has no intention of stopping. As I'm trying to tell Amy she needs to pull back and make him stop, Soupy is blithely tromping past the oblivious Dunny to take his place in the line.

For a moment, Mum is seriously concerned that Dunny's going to flip. Fortunately he doesn't. All the while, Red's just tramping along with the same look on his face that Mum's younger dog gets when he's having a la-la far away moment. All fine by me. At least my horse was behaving.

Meanwhile, not content with his new spot in the line, Soupy has decided that he really wants his lunch. Which means we all have to keep stopping while Amy tries in vain to drag him away from whatever's taken his fancy. Poor Amy.

Which means that when a deer appears right next to the trail and seems completely unfazed by the gaggle of amateurs riding past, Amy misses it at first while we're all going WOW, because she's trying to drag Soupy away from a bunch of delicious thistles.

Fortunately we all made it back in one piece. Hurrah. I love riding. I'll have to find other places to go.

After our little equine adventure, we popped up to the Cave & Basin National Historic Site. This is where the National Park system really started - workers from the railway stumbled upon the cave, which had actually been used by the local indigenous people for centuries, and started marketing it. The government got in on it, bought the site and the first National Park in Canada grew up around it.

Woo, potted history. The site is quite interesting in itself, like the delightfully smelly cave.

And the cafe does some really yummy cakes.

And then another raid of the tat shops before having tea in the Elk & Oarsman. Yummy elk burger and cider for me. Mmm.

Which brings me almost to the end of my Rockies adventure with Mum and Amy. Just 2 more days remained in Canada. Wow.

I wonder how Alaska will compare?

Iceland: Waterfalls, volcanoes and rain

OH MY GOD THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.

Ahem. Anyway. In magical events this week, my Grand Tour which has been in the planning for the best part of 18 months (if not longer) has finally begun. I've spent the last few days in the beautiful city of Rekjavik. Well, actually, I've only really been in Reykjavik to sleep. Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to so far.

My trip started with the usual farting about with trains and then a lovely afternoon in London with Claire who gifted me this little chap

His name is Harold. He is now my mascot.

From London, I had to head to Gatwick to catch a flight the next day. All went well until I arrived in Reykjavik on Monday morning. See, EasyJet have these new-fangled bag drop machines so you don't even get to talk to someone when you dump your bag. All well and good, but when I arrived in Reykjavik my bag was nowhere to be seen. An hour and a half later, I thought, fuck it, I'm going to go and complain to the baggage people. Which took me past the oversized baggage area (which is just a dumping ground next to the carousels) and lo and behold, there was my bag. Fuming.

Aside from that, my first day in Reykjavik was lovely, if a little marred by sleep deprivation. I took a walk along the bay front.

And then, because I was still feeling a bit grouchy, I treated myself to fish and chips instead of cooking. Lovely little restaurant near the harbour provided me with ling, crispy potatoes and a mango flavoured dip. Different, but pretty good. Sorry, Grimsby!

The Golden Circle

My first real day in Iceland began much too early for my liking. Don't ask me why, but I clearly thought it was a great idea to book a tour that started at 7am when I'd had very little sleep and a very long day the day before.

That said, my trip to the Golden Circle was great fun. There were only 2 other people on the tour - everyone else was presumeably sensible enough to decide against such an early start - so we had the minibus to ourselves. Also, as I noticed at our first stop, setting off so early meant we got most of the sites to ourselves as well.

Said first stop was Fridheimar, a farm which grows tomatoes, mostly. I should maybe point out that I actually did the Golden Circle tour 18 months ago, so the idea of Icelanders growing tomatoes year round is no longer new to me, but it's interesting nonetheless. Also, a box of bees, which they get shipped from Holland every week to keep the tomatoes pollinated. Woo for bees.

From there, we headed to Gullfoss. I was especially looking forward to this because 18 months ago, the waterfall was mostly frozen over. Not so this time.

All of the pretties. There isn't much else to say about Gullfoss, so let's move on to the next stop, which was Geysir, the geyser from which all other geysers get their name. Geysir itself doesn't go off much any more, but its younger neighbour Strokkur does.

I should have quit while I was ahead with geyser photographs. Because just after I took that one, I decided to have another go. And the wind caught the plume just at the wrong moment. And poured it over me. Pretty sure I spent the rest of the day smelling of rotten eggs.

From there, we drove down to Thingvellir National Park, where Iceland's parliament, the Althingi, used to meet for about 700 years. Beautiful place.

Unfortunately, just after I took that photograph, I took this one.

And realised there was something seriously wrong with my camera, which after that shot just took pictures of funny coloured lines and splotches. This meant I spent much of the drive back to Reykjavik frantically trying to connect to the minibus WiFi to work out what was wrong and then had to traipse around the city to find a camera shop.

Which I did. And discovered that, as I feared, the camera was beyond help. So I bought a new one. At Icelandic prices, that's money I'd rather not have spent, but I can't be doing without a camera. Ugh.

My day was significantly improved by the lovely Icelandic chap who'd been in the camera shop at the same time and caught up with me as I was leaving. He gave me some suggestions for cool places to photograph, complete with directions and suggestions of the best times to be there to exploit Iceland's weird summer light. I'll say this - so far, I've found the Icelanders to be very friendly people.

South Shore Adventure

In the second of my early starts (although not as early as the day before) I headed off on another trip, this time to Iceland's beautiful south coast. Yet more hours stuck on a bus were more than made up for by the wonderful sights. Take Solheimajokull for a start.

It's a glacier. Coming off a volcano. Hence the black colour, I presume - from the ash? And then there's the tiny town of Vik and it's amazing black sand beach. I made the nistake of getting a bit too close to the sea and ended up with soggy boots. Fortunately said boots are waterproof so at least my feet were dry.

Vik was the furthest point of the trip from Reykjavik, so from there we headed back the way we came, stopping first at Reynisfjara, also a black sand beach. It also has these wonderful basalt columns - a bit like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

While we were at the beach a lovely Canadian lady collared me after overhearing me mention going to Canada and proceeded to give me some suggestions on where to visit. Apparently I am capable of having conversations with strangers!

Then on to the little village of Skogar and its folk museum. Very interesting and I would have liked to have spent a bit more time there. Lots of information about traditional life in Iceland, including these funky two-thumbed mittens the fishermen used to wear.

They have two thumbs because their hands would get warm rowing and they could just flip them round to the cool side. Or something like that... Or maybe the thumbs wore out quick? It was something to do with rowing at any rate.

They also had a tub of bezoars, so if anyone gets poisoned, Skogar is the place to go.

Then just around the corner is beautiful Skogarfoss. It's a single drop waterfall and I couldn't resist the temptation to get as close as possible without getting soaked.

Which was going great until the wind changed and all the spray came in my direction. Oops. But hey, it was an experience.

I also got a bit drippy at the next stop, which was another waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. This one was especially cool, because you can actually walk behind the waterfall. Unfortunately, behind the waterfall is also spray-central, but at least this time I was wearing my waterproof. Clever me.

And from there, home. Well, back to the hostel.

Wonders of Snaefellsnes

Day three proper in Iceland dawned horribly early again. Fortunately, the tour I took turned out to be another minibus one with a lovely guide up to the Snaefellsnes peninsula. First stop proper was at Ytri Tunga where we attempted to do some seal-spotting. Unfortunately, the rain had set in and there were no seals to be found, although we did get divebombed by a couple of angry arctic terns.

Then the tiny settlement, if you can call it that, of Budir where there's a lava field and a pretty old church. And more rain, if you must know.

With the rain showing no sign of letting up, we hurried off to our next stop at Arnarstapi where we took a walk along the cliff top to admire the basalt formations. And get rained on some more. And shrieked at by more terns. I will admit that at this point my attempts to stay positive were beginning to falter.

Oh, and there's a troll on the hill.

Fortunately for my flagging morale, the next stop was lunch. I've been trying not to buy meals in Iceland because it's so very expensive, but at this point I didn't give a damn any more, so treated myself (ha) to a bowl of mushroom soup which came to 1500 krona. In case you're wondering, that's bloody expensive for a bowl of soup.

However, the soup was delicious and came with lovely fresh bread and really, it was just what I needed. That and a chat with the Irish chap on the tour who later kept me updated with the England-Wales Euro score. Nice chap.

After lunch, the stops became shorter - quick little photo stops along the north coast of the peninsula. The first of these was inside a volcano. Well... a pseudo-volcano.

You have to admit, it does look quite... volcano-ish. And it did form because of all the volcanism. And sod it, I just want to say I've been inside a volcano. So there.

Then we stopped at another lovely black sand beach, complete with surrounding lava field at Djupalonssandur. I had a bit of a moment on the beach when I realised the bits of old wreck lying about on the sand were from a Grimsby trawler. If anyone knows anything about a trawler called Epine, can you let me know?

And then I fell asleep and we stopped at Kirkjufell, which is a funny pointy mountain. My new camera, which had been behaving up until this point, decided it didn't like the light conditions so I've only got a couple of sort-of-decent photos from here.

From there, a quick stop to use the facilities at Grundafjordur and another at a place I couldn't pronounce (and can't even guess at) to see some more basalt columns. As Xavier, our guide, liked to keep pointing out - "this is not in the programme."

And then home. I think I might have fallen asleep again. During the drop offs, Xavier informed me that my hostel appears to own the last Big Mac sold in Iceland before MacDonalds pulled out. I'll have to see if I can find it.

In Cod We Trust

Or so went the saying at the Maritime Museum when I visited earlier today. They have an exhibition on at the moment about the cod wars, which my hometown was rather involved in. So I got to playing the game of "how many references to Grimsby can I find?"

Turns out to be quite a few. Overall, a great little exhibition, if understandably Iceland-biased. I spent the hour after that watching a great documentary about fishing in Iceland in the late 1800s, and then enjoyed the rest of the museum. Some funky little bits.

Basically, I've had a great start to my trip, even with the few little mishaps. Aside from yesterday, the weather's been great too, which I wasn't expecting. And, importantly, I've managed to have conversations with people. They might have been short and mostly someone else instigated them, but I don't care.

Tomorrow I have yet another early start because I've got to catch a bus up to Akureyri on the north coast where I'll be staying for the next few days before heading back to Reykjavik on Tuesday in time to catch my flight to Canada on Thursday.

So far, so good.