Okay, I lied, I did two more small tours on the last day in Iceland. I couldn’t help myself, when you’re in Iceland you just have to do things! For me this last day was a long one. First I had dragged two of my roommates off to a bar crawl and didn’t get back until 3:30am. I slept well though, so that was good. No hangover either, despite the fact that I drank a bit more beer than I’m used to. All though, in retrospect, about six beers in five hours isn’t really that much.
Good thing too, because the first thing I did in the afternoon was a whale watching tour. I can’t think of anything more horrible right now than being on a boat when you’re hung over. Even I, who don’t really get motion sickness, felt a little queasy here and there as the boat stopped in place to move with the waves. We were lucky in that we saw some whales, though we didn’t really get close to them. There were also dolphins and they did come close to the boat. A couple even did barrel rolls right in front of the boat!
That was great to see, and I did get some pictures, but it’s really hard to get good ones since the animals can stay under for minutes on end, appear anywhere, and only stay up for a couple seconds. Given the distance between us and the whales that made taking pictures (clear pictures) very hard, since the farthest I could zoom was 200mm. For the most part I don’t think you need more than 200mm zoom, but for wild life photography more is better. Though given how fast the animals appeared and disappeared a high zoom is not really that much of an asset. So after a while I gave up on pictures and just enjoyed watching them.
In all it was a tour worth doing, but it’s a pity we didn’t get close to the whales.
The last thing I did was go to the Blue Lagoon, which is expensive and a bit of a tourist trap (a bit? A lot). It’s nice though and very relaxing. I went in the evening and it’s a bit more quiet than during the day, especially after the second-to-last bus to Reykjavik leaves. After a long bus drive it was close to 9pm by the time I was in the lagoon. Spent most of my time swimming around, lying around, moving on, and lying back again. Also had a silica facial and an algae facial. I can’t really speak of the veracity of these facials, but my skin did feel softer, so who knows…maybe it works, maybe it’s all in my head.
In the end I stayed for a long time and took the last bus back to Reykjavik. It was past two in the morning when I went to sleep, and I could only sleep for about three hours before I had to get up and leave for the airport. It was a good last day in Iceland though, and I regret none of it.