We drove outside of Reykjavik for about an hour to get to the hiking trail we were going to - Glymur falls. Glymur Falls is the second highest falls of Iceland. The hike is about 3 1/5 hours long. You have a choice of two trails to get to the top -one on the north side, which we found out is an easier climb, and one on the south side, which is very difficult.
We took the south side to go up. You definitely need good hiking shoes/boots as you will be hiking along some pretty rough and rocky terrain.
The trail starts out like a trail you would find in Ottawa - nicely groomed, rocks and roots, you know...similar to Jack Pine trail. It doesn't stay like that for very long though. You quickly find out that if you don't have good shoes, perhaps you should turn around... I saw people in flip flops and I wanted to ask them if they were crazy... They obviously had not done their research properly and thought they were going for a little stroll to a waterfall!
Anyways...
On the hike, you arrive at a cave, you cross a river on a log (I was really scared here... not physically difficult, but mentally for sure!), you go up very steep hills where you have to hold on to a rope, you go down narrow, steep slippery, rocky hills, and finally arrive at the top where all that mental pain was worth it! The beauty of it... WOW!
I was scared shitless for most of the way up... those little narrow paths on the edge of the cliff... phew! Heights are not my thing... You wonder why do you put yourself through that then? Well, sometimes you just have to challenge yourself. I know I'm always in great company and that my family will always be there behind me, helping me along. Couldn't ask for better partners.So...
We finally get to the top, after some tears, lots of fear and hard work, to see this beautiful waterfall...but forget the waterfall - it's the 1000th waterfall we see... the view! Breathtaking! I wish pictures could capture such beauty... unfortunately, it doesn't quite do that! It's burned in my mind though.
Time to come down. We decided to go a bit further and down, and cross the river to get to the trail on the north side. The water is (pardon my language) f***ing FREEZING! You think your toes will fall off!!! I had to stop in the middle of the river, where there was a rock, to warm up my feet a few seconds! Oh my goodness! You would not want to lose your balance and fall in that water. You would be in trouble that's for sure.Once on the other side, as Sophie would call it, we had a celebration snack -peanuts, granola bar, chocolate, water. We refuelled for the way down. Lucky for us, the north side was much easier than the way we had just came. That's exactly what I was hoping for! To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I would have been able to come back down the way we came up! At least when you go up, you don't have to look down if you don't want to. When you are going down, what other choice do you have?!
We made it down safely and were quite happy with our newest accomplishment. I'm still not ready for Mount Everest though...Not anytime soon! haha
We returned to our guesthouse and then walked downtown for a hotdog and ice cream. Well, a hotdog is a hotdog if you ask me. The soft serve ice cream here is really good. It's smoother than in Canada.
So far, we have walked 13 km. Tonight, we are going horseback riding. The horse will be doing the walking. I will keep you posted on how that went!
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