The story goes like this – I came back to the same hostel after the unexpected trip along the south coast. After we caught some sleep in the hostel, we met up again. We checked out some cafes and pubs. While they were having a chat in a cafe, I went to the information centre and got some inspiration as to where else I could go. I signed up a trekking trip to Laugavegur. The information centre staff told me it was still cold up on the mountain and suggested I should buy some more warm clothes if I hadn’t had any and one spare pair of shoes. She even suggested a cheaper store (everything in Iceland was expensive, not only for backpackers but for everyone). So, I went back to the cafe. While I told them about the hiking trip, some travellers sitting next to our table said to me, ‘yes, you do need some warm clothes and a spare pair of shoes.’ Those travellers just came back from the trip so they shared their experience with me. The reason why I needed another pair of shoes was we needed to cross some creeks and we needed to put the feet into the water. There could be some sharp things on the riverbed so we couldn’t cross the creeks with bare feet. With another pair of shoes, we could change them when they became wet.
The rest of the day for me was to spend some more time with the two travellers on their last day in Iceland and shopping at a department store. I really didn’t intend to buy anything but I followed the travellers’ advice. That’s the wisest thing to do.
Also, flash back to don’t remember when, I talked to a traveller who had a serious cold at the reception. I caught his cold… so, other than shopping for clothes and spare shoes (I should have brought my wet shoes with me), I bought some cough syrup and Panadol cold and flu pills. Fortunately, the pharmacy was just right beside the hostel.
During the time I was in Iceland, the Iceland football (soccer) team went into the semi-final. It was a big thing in Iceland.










My cold started to get worse on my first day of the trekking. I walked close to these hot pools and inhaled deeply to clear my nose. It felt really nice.

As I chatted with other travellers, they told me they had prepared for this trip for quite sometime but for me, it was spontaneous. One of them couldn’t believe it.



























On our final day, I couldn’t handle it anymore so I told the tour guide I had to give up. He was ok with it. One of our group member encouraged me to keep going. He said he had a cold too and he took some pills and was fine. But I think I had a different virus. The syrup and the pills that I got didn’t make me feel better. They also made me very dizzy too. I needed somewhere warmer and the strong wind was making me worse too. The situation that I encountered was like what I experienced when I was in Puerto Natales in Chile (it just happened that there was a Chilean couple in my hiking group). So, like I said above, I took the minivan and went downhill and then back to Reykjavik. Once I checked back into the same hostel, I felt much better. The temperature went from 2C on the mountain to 12C in Reykjavik. 10C difference! Of course, I felt much better. The culprit was the temperature and the strong wind up on the mountain.
That night, I went to shore nearby and watched the sunset at around midnight. But there were too many clouds.

After I knew that the Blue Lagoon was manmade and super expensive, I decided to go somewhere else. I was told the locals usually went to a beach where there was a hot pool.




I signed up for a snorkelling trip and went with the guide the next day.





The dry suit I got had some holes so in the end, my hiking pants were slightly wet. When I told the guide, he didn’t believe me. After I took off the wet suit, I showed him the water on my hiking pants. He then believed me. It was really cold. There was some current in the water too so I couldn’t swim fast.
I met an Icelandic poet who was walking her huskies. 😀 The eyes of one of her dogs were very interesting. One was brown and the other was blue. So beautiful. Hm… I met a girl just a few days ago who had eyes like this too. 🙂 Not only that, one of the dogs tried to talk to me. It was murmuring something but because I didn’t know the local language, I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to say. Before I left for the Euro Cup game, she told me her name and said I could find her on Google. I tried but I may have got the spelling wrong.

It was a big year for Iceland that year. Their soccer/ football team did really well in Euro Cup. Áfram Ísland!!


Áfram Ísland! Probably everyone in Reykjavik (or maybe Iceland) came to this square to watch the game.
The team lost in the end, but they did really well. Even though the team lost, the crowd celebrated it after the game finished. I went back to the hostel to pack my stuff but before that I went to see the sunset again.

So, that gave a perfect ending to my trip.
Where did I go next? Hm…
Stay tuned. 🙂
25 June – 3 July 2016
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