If you hate Hummers, Iceland may take a little getting used to.
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Reykjavik is surprisingly saturated with SUVs but if you fancy a day trip to the mountains, the only things that’s going to get you back in one piece is one of their adventure trucks riding on monster-sized tires.
The wheels of our Mountaineers van met my waist, tall enough to tour us around some of the country’s natural wonders and historic spots today.
First stop is Tingvellir where Iceland’s parliament started to sit (“well, more stand because there weren’t any chairs in 930,” jokes our guide) and where the American and European continental plates meet (Note to self: next time, don’t miss out on the opportunity to hop from side to side of the dividing gulch while singing “Now I’m in Europe, now I’m in America”).
Back in our behemoth truck, we head into the country’s barren interior where we’re outfitted in snowsuits and presented with a stable of snowmobiles to ride single file across the Langjökull glacier.
After a lamb soup lunch in a roadside dining hall, we visit Geysir. The original spout doesn’t shoot stinky, sulfur water these days but other nearby hot springs erupt every few minutes.
Our last stop is the Reyka distillery where we watch alcohol mixed with pure Icelandic water slosh around a four storey copper still before being filtered through a stack of lava rocks. And though I’m not obligated to say it (even though the company sponsored the trip and I’m more a gin man myself), Reyka is a pretty good sip, especially when it’s 184 proof straight form the distillery tap.
This is part two in a series on Iceland.
