However, I found some of my photos on this trip are among the best I’ve ever taken. There were quite a few that I really liked, particularly for my use of strobes and weird exposures – so I decided to make “ad campaign” versions of my photos to promote my website.
Check’em out below!

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Café Loki
Lokastigur 24
Reykjavik (Gullbringusyslu) 101, Iceland

Lækjarbrekka
www.laekjarbrekka.is
2 Laugavegur
Reykjavik 101, Iceland

þrír Frakkar
www.3frakkar.com
Baldursgötu 14
Reykjavik 101, Iceland

Cafe Tulinius
Höfn, Iceland

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Iceland Day 1 & 2 from Jude Tibay on Vimeo.

Random video and images from Day 1 and 2 of my Iceland trip.

A very uneventful day, with a slow start sleeping in followed by breakfast at the hostel in Berunes. Then a drive to Djúpivogur along the Ring Road and ending in Höfn. Along the way, I stop by bird cliffs where seagulls nest on the edge of sea cliffs in sight of some sea stacks rising form the water. The fog rolls in as I approach a small a sandar – black sand deposited by glacial streams into the ocean and then washed back onto the beach by the ocean. A portion of the Ring Road crosses an narrow but long expanse of this black sand. I hear there are even more expansive sandars between the road from Höfn to Vík.

More sheep. More mountains. More stopping in the middle of the highway. Shoot-shoot-shoot. Drive some more. Repeat.

Iceland is both familiar yet strangely exotic. The endless sheep-riddled pastures remind me of New Zealand and Patagonia. The cascading “steps” of the volcanic pyramidal mountains remind me of Kaui and Utah. The coastline reminds me of California’s gold coast and southern Maui. All reminiscent but still very unique and apart from all these places.

It’s 15:00 by the time I reach Höfn. I’ve skipped dinner yesterday and lunch today – unless you count the bananas and leftover bag of pretzels that I’ve survived on the last two days. So far I’ve just relied on driving by something interesting… or convenient for something to do or eat. For once on the trip, I refer to my guidebook for something. Without much thought, I find the first place listed to eat in Höfn – Cafe Tulinius. “… serves fancy coffees, Icelandic snacks, and creamy cakes…”, it says. Done. The menu is a “to-the-point” print out on white 8.5″x11″ paper. Although all the items are grouped in logical sections – drinks, entres, desserts – within each section is a seemingly random sequence of icelandic and english-translated food items. Sometimes they’re translated, sometimes not. Sometimes the translations a few lines below rather than immediately after the translated food. I order the lobster soup, skyr (scandinavian yogurt-based dessert) and a swiss mocha…. and yes, with whip cream.

I fill up on diesel for the 300km journey from Höfn to Vík. The machine says “Pay Inside”, yet you don’t need to ask or swipe a credit cart to start pumping. The Icelandic honor system. God love Icelanders. I pick up a road atlas of Iceland as well.

There’s still another 8 hours of daylight, and I intend to go hike onto the glacier. Summer days in Iceland feel like a “2 for 1″, with sunset at midnight and sunrise at 3:00 AM. It doesn’t go according to plan. I drive by the hotel that I decided to spend the night in, and check-in in the event I come back from hiking at midnight.

“Do you have internet?”

“Why yes, here’s the code.”

Sweeeet! I haven’t been online for 36 hours, and realize I may not have cell phone reception or internet access for another two days until I get closer to Reykjavik. I enter dangerous territory: Facebook, Gmail, Picasa, etc. – they’re all loading and I’m uploading hundreds of pictures online and update the blog. Before I know it, it’s 21:00 but it’s still light out.

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Anyone who knows me, also knows that I have a penchant for staying in hostels on my vacations. It’s not that I despise the luxury of a hotel – though I do live the greater portion of my week in a hotel for work. Usually, the remote places I visit only have hostels, private inns, and camping as options. I’ve stayed at all shapes and sizes of hostels – mountain huts, urban bare-bones dorms, lighthouses, beach houses, a converted apartment buildings – but Berunes Hostel is probably the most quaint and relaxing one thus far.

Yes, you have to share a bathroom. Yes, most of the rooms are dorm-style. Yes, the beds and floors creak with almost any movement. And yes, there’s a few strangers walking about. However, the hostel was converted from an old farmhouse with the charm to match. You have unobstructed views of the ocean, sheep grazing in green oceanfront pastures, and prominent alien-looking mountains as a backdrop. You sleep with down comforters and pillows – Scandinavian style – and there is no TV or internet… and yes, that’s a damn good thing.

If you choose to eat breakfast at the hostel, present a spread of the usual – coffee, tea, OJ, toast, cereal, yogurt… but my favorite of all – fresh crepes!

http://www.berunes.is/

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Where’s Berunes?

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The Ring Road from Egilsstaðir to Berunes is not an easy one. Most of this stretch is loose gravel road and at one point descends from a mountain pass at a 12% grade. But it sure is scenic. It was already 18:00 by the time I got back to flat land, and the sun was now at an ideal low angle casting photogenic light on these gigantic mountains. The one above is my favorite because with the barn at the foot of the mountain you gain an appreciation for the scale.

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After the hike to the waterfall Hengifoss, I took a two-hour side trip to Seyðisfjörður, which is a small village nestled in a large glacial valley at the source of a fjord. The road to Seyðisfjörður went over a mountain pass still blanketed in snow several feet thick.

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Where is Seyðisfjörður?

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Shortly after landing at Egilsstaðir – which was immediately preceded by a redeye from JFK during which I got less than 2 hours of sleep – I thought it would be a good idea to drive around a ginormous lake and hike for three hours. I was beat, but the fresh warm air – yes 70F warm! – and sun kept me going on the 4-5 mile roundtrip hike to Hengifoss – an amazingly tall waterfall. The trail was exposed and dotted with grazing lambs, and several small yet impressive waterfalls served as a prelude to Hengifoss, which was so high that you could see it from early on along the trail. The trail would sometimes cut into steep slides of loose gravel. A fall would send you plunging into the cold and fast-moving meltwater that ran from Hengifoss and the glacial snows above. By the time I reached the summit, postponed by plenty of photo opportunities, a patchwork of clouds masked the sun, which cast interesting stripes of shadows and sunlight on the landscape.

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Dozens of places still linger on my bucket list, yet dozens more get added each year. And though I score a country or city with each passing season, the empty spaces on my virtual pushpin map leave me unsatisfied. I am Napolean, and the unconquered empires in the horizon are unsettling and tempting at the same time.

Iceland is one of those places that had sat idly in the bucket for years. Fives years ago, I advertised “Iceland July 2006″ on my travel blog… much like a 4pm dentist appointment so casually penciled in on my calendar. Being drunk with ambition makes it easy to draw up grand itineraries – but itineraries only people with inordinate amounts of time and money can afford.

It was early April 2010, and “mud season” in Colorado had begun. Ski conditions were sub-prime, but it was still too cold and dark to hike a mountain. By then Iceland among other countries had fallen by the wayside. “Nepal November 2010″ was a complete fail (though it was redeemed by “Patagonia October 2010″). Don’t get me wrong – I had food, shelter, a job, friends, and family – and very thankful for them all. But I was still suffering from a “bougie depression”. Blame it on the lack of sun.

My housemate Rachel typed away on her laptop across the table from me. “Where should I go on vacation?” She was planning a well-deserved trip to somewhere in June. I yammered off a few dozen places I’ve been to or have always wanted to go. After 45 minutes of reckoning, she had Travelocity.com and the GAP Adventures website up. It was for a 10-day adventure trip to the Galapagos Islands. She had a nicely fared roundtrip ticket ready to go on her screen with her name on it. “Should I do it?” she asked me. I gave nodded, “What the hell – go for it!”

Within milliseconds, her name, credit card number, and travel information were digitally transmitted to the websites, and an electronic ticket was issued to her name. A nod became a key stroke. A keystroke became an airline ticket. And an airline ticket became Rachel’s destiny awaiting for the day to arrive. What’s done was done, and only an egregious cancellation fee would set destiny off course.

But there I was – the 3rd weekend just lazing about at home, yet no destiny to call my own. My Napolean began to stir. Within a 15 minute window, I looked up average climate for Iceland in June, found a cheap flight, and looked at my work calendar. “Am I really going to do this?” The empty spaces on my pushpin map hauntingly stared back at me. A little island near the arctic circle, still bare – still virgin.

<click!>

Two weeks beforehand, Patty from Iceland Air sent me a friendly email reminder about my flight to Reykjavik. “We wish you a pleasant flight!”

Now I’m sitting in JFK airport and I’ll close my laptop down, walk over to Terminal 7-Gate 2, and take my window seat. Four hours after 8 pm Eastern Time, I’ll open the window shade and it will be 5 am and the midnight sun will have long been arisen. I’ll stare down at a massive lava rock called Iceland, squint through the space between my index finger and my thumb, and envision yet another pushpin on the map.