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Our Iceland trip, up to this point, had been pretty epic. We had no idea this day would take it to a whole new level! At first, we thought the day’s activity would have an added challenge, as it was raining when we woke up. We stalled a little in the morning hours to wait out the rain. Our good weather karma kicked in and put a halt to the rain long enough for us to see what we wanted to see!
The first place we visited was Svínafellsjökull (glacier) in Skaftafell on the southeast side of Iceland. You may recognize this scene from Batman Begins and/or Game of Thrones.
We left our rental vehicle back at the hotel and joined up with local glacier guides Fannar & Snorri.
Unless you rent your own SuperJeep, navigating to the glacier where we went in search of ice caves would have been problematic.
Fannar & Snorri were incredible guides. Not only did they safely take us to some of the most breathtaking ice caves on Falljökull glacier, but they were extremely knowledgeable about the geography and history of this particular area of the country.
(I swear the above picture was not posed… I wanted to get a shot of Fannar telling Sam about the various parts of the glacier, along with how it was formed.)
We left our vehicle behind and went off in search of ice caves!
This is the first cave we came to. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but we were mesmerized by its beauty on the inside!
Here we are- “Team Awesome”! (Snorri, Fannar, Sam and Toccara)
Fannar & Snorri brought along their ice picks and did a little ice climbing in the caves.
Sam and I weren’t brave enough to give it a try!
They also provided us with an Icelandic language lesson by writing in the snow with their ice picks! (For example- Jökul= glacier, sár= river, lón= lagoon, so Jökulsárlón literally means glacier river lagoon.)
The first cave we came to was beautiful, but again, we had no idea it was about to get even better! Snorri went on ahead to scout out more ice caves and came across one of the most beautiful sights we had ever seen! Besides the northern lights, THIS was why we wanted to come to Iceland!
We felt so fortunate to have the opportunity to experience this remarkable frozen scenery and would not have been able to do so without the assistance and guidance from Fannar & Snorri!
Just as we got back to the jeep, it started to rain again! Perfect timing!
We had about a 30 minute drive ahead of us until we got to our next destination for the day, and wouldn’t you know… the rain stopped as soon as we reached our next destination.
Fannar & Snorri said they were taking us to a secret glacier lagoon, one that not many people know about- Fjallsárlón.
(This is different from the popular Jökulsárlón, which we visited afterward.)
These images seemed unreal to us. It’s like nothing we’d ever seen before, and we wanted to stay there all day and simply admire its beauty!
Our trusty guides- Snorri & Fannar
Goofing off at the glacier! Glad no one fell in… that would’ve been cold!
Since it had just finished raining… a rainbow appeared over the lagoon!
Next, we drove a little further down Ring Road to the famed Jökulsárlón. It was an awesome experience being able to see the lagoon as the sun set.
We said “bless” (good-bye in Icelandic) to Fannar & Snorri at the glacier lagoon and as the sun set, we drove further west on Ring Road toward Guesthouse Skalafell, our home for the evening.
Check out a quick video of our adventure!
A special thanks to our wonderful guides Fannar & Snorri. And also to Geysir Car Rental for providing us with the freedom and flexibility to get to the southeast part of Iceland to meet up with our guides for this wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience! If you’d like to get in touch with our guides for more information about glacier hikes and ice cave tours, please contact Fannar at fannthor@gmail.com. (Please note that Fannar is extremely busy providing glacier hikes and ice cave tours; he is also on the Icelandic Search & Rescue Team and it may take him longer than usual to respond to your inquiries.)