Since Marlon and I started our Iceland trip with a hot soak, it seemed only appropriate to end it with another one. For our last hurrah in Iceland, we splurged on a trip to the famous Blue Lagoon. Being just 20 minutes from the airport made it the perfect thing to do before catching our flight home.

What most travelers say about the Blue Lagoon is that it’s a) touristy, but also that it’s b) something you must do anyway. I would agree. For €40 per head just to soak in the geothermal pools, it’s not cheap. (Treatments at its award-winning medical spa go up to €160 per head. Ouch.)

However, the genius of the Blue Lagoon is that floating around in 37-39℃ water relaxes you and wipes your memory clean in record time; pretty soon you forget about what you paid for and you can hardly work up enough willpower to get stressed about… how much was it again?

If you go in on the basic package like we did—a soak, a locker and a towel—there’s still plenty to keep you occupied. For starters, finding a corner of the pool with just the right temperature and not so many people will take some doing. We spent quite a bit of time swimming away from people with very loud voices (hulaan n’yo kung saang bansa sila galing) to maximize the whole relaxation experience. There’s also a waterfall, steam bath and sauna if you want to change things up a bit.

Since your body is submerged in therapeutic waters, your face should enjoy a bit of therapy too. This is the reason for the boxes of silica mud distributed around the pool. Just scoop some up and slather it on your face for some natural deep cleansing and exfoliation.

After about 10-15 minutes, the mud hardens and cracks. Then you know it’s time to wash it off.

After showering and dressing, we had lunch at the Blue Lagoon’s Lava Restaurant, which serves a la carte meals and a light seafood and sushi buffet.

Then it was a quick visit to the view deck for some pictures. I was surprised to find a Blue Lagoon employee stationed at the view deck, whose sole duty seemed to be to make pleasant conversation with guests and take their pictures. How thoughtful!

All in all, we spent about three hours at the Blue Lagoon—just enough time to turn us into legless blobs very relaxed travelers who practically drifted into the plane. Definitely a great way to end a fantastic trip!

Driving in Iceland is an experience in itself. Although Marlon and I kept pretty much to the Ring road (which encircles the entire island), the drive was no less stunning as the destinations themselves. Iceland’s weather and scenery changed so frequently, it seemed we would find ourselves in a different country (even a different planet) in a matter of miles and minutes.

Take, for example, our first fifteen minutes out of Reykjavik: a bleak, driving rain…

… which, in another fifteen minutes (before I had time to get thoroughly dismayed), gave way to green pastures dappled with sun, dotted with yellow flowers, and populated by some of Iceland’s most famed inhabitants.

Icelandic horses are fascinating creatures: brought to Iceland by the first settlers in the 9th-10th centuries, they’ve seen little inter-breeding and are the only breed of horse on the island. No other horse is allowed to enter the country and once a horse leaves, it can never come back (sniff). They look small, graceful and gentle but are reputed to be long-lived and sturdy (to withstand these ever-changing conditions, they must be!).

We saw many, many Icelandic horses on the road. I especially loved it when they would stop to look at us when we got out of the car to take their photos, and when they would walk right alongside the car while being led back to their farms after a day of riding or grazing.

The other equally abundant form of wildlife on the road in Iceland?

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Waterfalls are everywhere in Iceland. I lost count of how many we saw while driving on the Ring road, which encircles the entire island. Every now and then we would see mist rising out of a crevice in a hill, or a fine spray of lacy droplets cascading from a source concealed by low, gray clouds. If Marlon and I had stopped for all of them (as we were tempted to do!) we might have never gotten back to Reykjavik after just four days.

We did get down and out of the car for the big ones, though. Seljalandsfoss was one of them.

The unique thing about this foss (Icelandic for waterfall) is the footpath that takes you behind the water.

Warning: you will be soaked…

… but you will also leave happy, and with some great pictures (if you’ve planned ahead to protect your camera). Really, to stay dry is to miss the point!

Just a few minutes away is Skogafoss, one of the largest falls in Iceland.

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Iceland’s most-visited sights are known collectively as the Golden Circle, a loop of three popular natural landmarks within 45 minutes to an hour’s drive out of Reykjavik. The Golden Circle was our first drive out of the capital, on our first day, and it was a great teaser of what to expect for the rest of our four days on the road.

Our first stop, however, technically wasn’t on the Golden Circle, but on the way and worth a quick look. Kerið is a crater that was formed by the inward collapse of an underground magma chamber (magma! Flashback to third-grade science!). More notably, Kerið is the venue of a yearly concert by Bjork, where she performs on rafts set afloat on the lake. Awesomeness.

Our next stop was the Þingvellir National Park, the site where the first Icelandic Parliament, or Alþingi, was founded in 930.

Þingvellir is big—we didn’t cover all of it, but pretty much decided to park the car at a random spot and walk from there. Most of what we saw was a massive wall of rock that stretched far longer than what we could see.

Part of this wall included the Lögberg, or Law Rock, the main gathering place of early Icelandic parliament, chosen because all the chieftains could reach it by some overland route or another. This natural formation of rock also looks seriously impressive, like a place of power should. From Lögberg, the view of the surrounding landscape made it all too easy to picture these powerful chieftains of old coming from all over Iceland, riding across the landscape to converge at the rock… like the Riders of Rohan galloping across the plains in Lord of the Rings. Goosebumps.

Another spot that lent itself to powerful imagery was a waterfall and pool called Drekkingarhylur, where the Law Council carried out ritual executions by drowning… particularly of women. Eighteen women were known to have been executed here from 1618 to 1749.

Of course, if you want plain and simple natural beauty without the history, there’s lots of that too—from long scenic walks…

… to the first of many waterfalls dotting the Icelandic countryside.

Þingvellir is also famous for being the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet… and are drifting apart ever so slowly. Parts of the ridge are sectioned off, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where continents are being torn apart. However, the many cracks and fissures in the earth are clear evidence of Mother Nature doing some heavy pushing and pulling.

From Þingvellir, it was on to Geysir, the first geyser ever recorded in printed material (and the source of the word “geyser”).

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