A wonderful tour we had in Iceland was a combo tour with Sólhestar, which is a family run business. We had just arrived from an overnight flight from Boston, but one of our rules of travel is you keep going based on the arrival time – don’t go to bed until their night time as this helps with jet lag, adjusting to time quickly, etc. Our pickup time for this tour happened to be 9:00 am. Did I tell you our trip was in mid-January!?! In mid-January the sunrise time in Iceland is approximately 11:00 am. I want you to imagine 30 degree weather, but the wind blowing so hard that the snow slaps into your face – you get an instant microdermabrasion, you don’t need a professional to do it for you. Also, it was very dark.
Two very sweet young ladies picked us up at our pick up spot and drove us to their facility, which wasn’t but a 15 – 20 minute ride. We then suited up in warm gear, plus a professional horse riding helmet. Remember, it is still dark outside and try imagining getting onto a horse as if you are standing on an ice rink – yes, that is truly how it was. Slipping, sliding, trying to get my left foot into the horse’s left stirrup so I could throw my right leg over the horse. You need a little oomph to do that, but wasn’t too terribly easy on a sheet of ice. My husband and I finally got situated and waited on others to get onto their horses. We then set off on our horse ride adventure. Yes, I was very excited as I love horse rides!
This part of the combo tour (the horse ride) was approximately 3.5 miles, which took about 2 hours. Remember how I was telling you about how cold it was with the sleet and snow slapping my face. There was a point in my horse ride that I told my beautiful horse, Norta, that I was so cold that she was just going to have to guide and carry me through and she did. I will tell you in a post on part two of this combo tour as to how long it took me to literally thaw out and for my teeth to stop chattering.
The tour was very scenic and we got to see a lot of red lava rocks. At some point in time, a volcano underneath the lake nearby erupted, it resulted in large and jagged lava rocks. The red in the lava rocks are due to the amount of iron that was in the lake water at the time the volcano erupted. We also got to see the outdoors get brighter, but because of snow and sleet, even when the sun came up it was gray and dreary.
Icelandic horses have 5 gaits where any other horse has four gaits. We were able to try the Tölt, which is a natural, fluid gait of the Icelandic Horse, during which at least one foot always touches the ground. The horses were so gentle and I truly enjoyed trying out the various gaits of my horse. The landscape still had a bunch of snow and ice on the horse trail due to a snow storm that had blown through the week before. The horses were able to manage hills of ice by the fact they had spikes on their horse shoes. When the horse went downhill, you leaned back and going uphill you would lean forward on the horse in order to help the horse with its balance.
When returning from the horse ride we had to dismount. If you think getting onto a horse on a sheet of ice is hard, then you haven’t tried getting off a horse on a sheet of ice. After ungracefully getting off the horse and sliding my feet across the corral to get to the barn, we were able to pet and see all the horses in the stable as well as take in some wonderful hot cocoa, tea and cookies. It was very nice to be able to have time to speak with our guide and owners of the tour and property. My main goal was to get warm. Even after the tea and hot cocoa, did I get warm? Nope, not even close, my body was still frozen and my teeth were about to break from the convulsive chattering.
Iceland can’t help their weather and it was up to us as to the time we visited so do not take anything I write here as negative against this tour as it was truly a great experience for what they offered as part of their tour.
Please see my blog entry regarding the Perlan Museum, which was part two of this combo tour and to hear when I finally thawed out. Please feel free to like, share and subscribe to ChefofBeauty on Instagram and Twitter.
