We tendered into Djupivogur on the northwest coast of Iceland, then took a ride to the northeast section. There we saw a glacier. Glacier melt fed a pond which entered into a glacier river. Early in the trip, we took a ride in an area with large pristine icebergs. The small pieces of ice floating in the pond were not big enough for me to call them icebergs. And it wasn’t particularly pretty. The glacier was dirty. The pond was the color of coffee with cream. The river slowly improved to a greyish white. None of this detracted from the powerful view, but I was surprised by the contrast of what we saw a few weeks ago and what we saw today. The site is remote but popular. Note the kayaks available for those who want to check out the pond.

Glacier and pond

After a suitable amount of walking around and picture snapping, we went to an Icelandic horse farm. Icelandic horses are small but strong. They are the only horse that can do a tölt gait. This is a unique gait that gives the rider a remarkably smooth ride. Even more impressive is the skeið, or flying pace — much faster than skeið with the same smooth ride. Here’s a pic of an 11 year-old girl riding her horse with a skeið gait while holding both arms out like airplane wings. Flying indeed! This young lady took our breath away.

Flying pace indeed

Equally pleasing were the hot chocolate and kleinur. Check it out here: Kleinur. I’ll bet you can’t eat one. (I had three.) Besides remote, isolated areas and strange sights, Iceland also has cities. We’ll visit Reykjavík tomorrow.

We were there