Iceland Day 6 - Mount Esja

Our plan was to go to Mount Esja pretty much for the day - but this was stymied because the tourist information office refused to sell us bus tickets and the bus ticketing office doesn't open until noon on Saturdays - hint, unless you want to have to get exact change, buy tickets the day before for travel plans on weekends.

We did make it there, but found ourselves without quite enough time to get to the top and back down before the bus back to Reykjavik (had we missed it there wasn't another one for two hours!)

The hike was still worth it. As a warning, there's a point where the trail splits. All the Icelanders (who insist their grandmother can do this hike) will go straight on.

Straight on is shorter. Straight on is also much, much more strenuous. I'm usually in better shape, but for various reasons I wasn't really quite up to it and was getting my butt kicked...by Icelandic three-year-olds. Sigh. I feel old.

Still, it was worth it for views like this:

And this:

The colors in the Arctic just aren't quite the same as in more temperate climes.

(Another warning. The only rest rooms at Esja are in the cafe at the bottom, and if you try to use them you will get a growled "Customers only").