HELLO READERS! I’m back. Yeah, I know. I’ve been gone awhile. I swear, I wanted to write, I really did. I knew I SHOULD write, that you’d be wondering what I was up to. But I just wasn’t feeling it. Like many things right now, it just felt like too much work. So, what finally got me back in front of the keyboard??? Nothing other then the joy of traveling again and wanting to share the beauty of this amazing world. How about we begin with a quick recap of the last 3 months to get you up to speed and then I’ll tell you about the most unique experience we’ve had in Iceland thus far! Sound good?
APRIL
As you probably know, COVID got really bad in India in late April. We had been back in Mumbai since early November and had been confined to our apartment mostly, with the occasional quick trip to the Consulate or grocery store. It felt very similar to how it was in the early days of the US lockdown. We had curfews from Friday at 8 PM to Monday at 7 AM. You needed an approved pass to be out driving and most things were closed (malls, restaurants, etc). It was really depressing. We were originally scheduled to go on our R&R trip on June 11th, but when COVID got bad Nia and I decided to head to the US early. We flew out on the 29th of April and went to stay at my parents’ cabin in Wisconsin. We did a week quarantine and tested negative on the 7th day.
MAY
We didn’t really have a clear plan. Nia had 6 more weeks of virtual school, so getting her through that was the priority. About 10 days after arriving, Nick’s Mom had some unexpected health issues (she’s doing great now) and we ended up flying to Bend, Oregon for two weeks. Nick flew from India and met us there. After the two weeks, he went back to India and we returned to Minnesota. We based ourselves at the cabin for the next 5 weeks and enjoyed time with family on the weekends.
JUNE
In June we wrapped up third grade (phew). May and June were strange months for me. I’m not depressed, per say, but I’m definitely lacking in motivation, purpose and focus. It felt like all my energy was spent just getting through the day. Setting up a get-together with friends or writing a blog post just felt beyond what I could handle. Strange huh? Very unlike me. And although the US is returning to a place of normalcy, I feel like we are still living with a lot of question marks. We are intending to return to India in late July, but with only 10% of the population vaccinated, it’s hard to predict how COVID will impact our last year there. On a positive note, Nick and I got our first shots in mid-April in Mumbai (thanks USG!) and because we left suddenly, we ended up getting our second one in Oregon. Feels so amazing to have the peace of mind that comes from being vaccinated. Nick flew from Mumbai to Minnesota after 5 weeks apart and then we flew out that same day for Iceland! Minnesota friends – do note that there is a direct flight from MSP that was very reasonably priced. This place should be on your travel list!
ICELAND
Our last international trip was in December of 2019 (doesn’t that feel like forever ago??). We were itching to travel again. In April we read that Iceland was opening to vaccinated travelers and wouldn’t require a multi-day quarantine. We decided to pull the trigger and booked a 14 day trip. We’ve been here for a few days already and I can’t tell you how marvelous it feels to be out exploring again. And not having to wear a mask is the icing on the cake! Thus far the crowds have been very small, so I think we may have gotten here before tourism picked up fully again (Iceland had 2.5 million visitors in 2019).
I’ll be writing a few more posts on Iceland, but given that this post is already pretty long, I thought for today I’d highlight our favorite experience that we’ve had so far – hiking to and soaking in a thermal river! The Reykjadalur Thermal River is about 1 hour outside of Reykjavik, so can be an easy day trip if you just have a few days in the city. The hike was a wee bit more intense than anticipated (an 1100 ft elevation gain and 1 hr of walking each way) but our enthusiasm for the experience kept us going. So yes, definitely lots of huffing and puffing, but most definitely worth it.
Along the way we had some beautiful scenery including steaming geysers, a meandering river and this gorgeous waterfall. We were on the trail by 8:30 AM and only had to share the river with less than 10 others. I’d definitely recommend an early start, as we passed at least 50 people on our way back.
We came over the last hill to find this beautiful view! There were 2 changing partitions (shown in the middle left) and boardwalks with various staircases along both sides. All of these things helped immensely.
People seem pretty comfortable with nudity here (you have to shower naked in a big open shower before going into the thermal baths also) and there’s no way we could have gotten in and out of our suits without someone seeing us as there were people in all directions and no enclosed stalls, so we just rolled with it because, as they say, “When in Iceland…” :)
The river had varying temperatures. The farther up you went, the hotter it got. We stayed in the middle, as we didn’t want to fry little Nia. Our cheeks still turned plenty red though! The bottom was all rocks and we got a lot of silt inside our suits, but the water felt divine.
We stayed about 45 minutes, soaking in various parts of the river before changing back into our hiking clothes and beginning the trek back. It was such a unique experience and I’m so grateful that we pushed through the challenge of the hike to get there. Definitely something I’d recommend putting on your “Must Do” list when you come to Iceland.
