R&R in Reykjavik
We’ve been recuperating for two days in Reykjavik. Any weight we had managed to lose is back, and then some. One’s body tends to get used to consuming all calories available while riding 12+ hours a day, but it is also burning said calories. Now that we are just lounging around with more calories than we need at our fingertips, we are binging without burning.
Similarly we are sleeping a ton. Last night I slept 11 hours. I normally sleep 7.
Friday was rainy. We were happy that we were not logging miles on our bike. The campground was a madhouse. I’m really sad I didn’t get a picture of it. The more we walked around the more tents we saw. I would estimate 500 people were in the campground. They were all wet like us. And the whole place was very muddy. This campground was expensive – almost $50 for the two of us.
We went to the nearby pool and soaked our sore bodies for an hour and a half. It was raining lightly and we may have stayed longer but we needed to get out of the campsite by 2 or we would have had to pay for a second day. We had reserved an inexpensive hotel a little bit away from the city center – close to our Airbnb for Saturday through Tuesday. Even though the ride was less than 5 miles it was actually a bit tough. Downtown Reykjavik has several hills which combined with rain and a confusing route to the hotel made for a difficult ride. It probably didn’t help that our muscles were all relaxed from soaking and our bodies were saying to us “what’s up – I thought you gave us the day off!”
However, once we made it to the hotel we were back in heaven. The room was small and simple, but compared to a wet 2-man tent in the middle of 500 stinky, muddy (like us) campers, the hotel felt like it was a 5-star luxury resort. First things first: tent and fly get unrolled and stuffed under the hotel bed to dry and then long showers for both of us. We found a great Indian restaurant nearby and ate until it hurt. Then we slept soundly.
At the hotel our bike was able to be stored inside for first time on this trip! We really appreciated the hotel staff for that. When we traveled Europe our bike was almost always stored indoors. On this trip it’s been a lot more out in the elements – like us. Except we don’t have a tent for the bike…. So at the hotel, the bike was tired yet happy too. It has worked hard!
I think I could have sat around in the hotel room for the rest of the day today and been content, but we are in Iceland with so much to see – so Natalie motivated us to take the bus back to the city center and walk around. We were able to walk around in a 3-masted ship used by the Italian Navy to train its cadets which just happened to be at port. We mostly walked around, looking at the ships and city architecture and art, strolling along the seashore, enjoying the perfectly sunny day. So nice after such a rainy yesterday. We ate vegan ice cream for lunch.
Around 3 PM we bussed back to our hotel and rode our bike to our Airbnb. It is perfect – ground floor with a fenced area to store our bike and hang a clothes line. The first order of business was to do laundry. We were smelling bad! It is so nice to be able to wash our clothes. The campground had two washers, but they were shared with 500 people so you can guess what that line looked like.
After getting our laundry started drying outside we headed for a grocery store where we bought food for the next three days. We cooked a great meal and finished it with vegan ice cream.
It was a good day.
