Return to the Blue Lagoon

Thought I would share some stories about my visit with Kim to the Blue Lagoon.

Iceland’s primary tourist attraction is the Blue Lagoon, which is rather interesting given that thirty years ago the place didn’t even exist. This obviously requires some explanation and not surprisingly power plants are involved. Iceland gets most of its electricity through geothermal plants and typically they use the water involved for hot water for houses. Well, the water from this one plant was too salty for domestic use so they just made a lagoon out of this volcanic region and just pumped the water in there. In doing so they created this wonderful, one hundred degree lake filled with blue mineral water. After a few people started swimming in it they realized what they had done and built a spa around it. So now it is the one place in Iceland that everyone visits.

There are a few interesting experiences before you even get to the lagoon. When you check in you get a wristband that acts as the key to your locker and a virtual wallet for when you are inside the spa. Very useful and much appreciated. Then you are asked if you need to rent a towel (which I did as I neglected to take the words of Douglas Adams to heart.) Also, if necessary you can rent a swimsuit. Now, on the list of things that I wish to rent in my life a swimsuit has to be at the absolute bottom of the list. I don’t care what type of laundry service you provide that just seems rather nasty. Plus, given the number of speedos I saw on display I really don’t want to know what you would get.

Once you go inside the locker room to change you are informed that you must shower before entering the pool. This doesn’t sound too interesting until you see the signs that highlight in great detail what particular body parts must specifically be washed. I mean, you see a picture of a body and arrows and everything. Add to that you are in a communal shower with a significant number of large Germans with various bits flopping around and it makes for a rather interesting experience. (For the record, they may not have been German but I have decided that every foreign language is German for the sake of convenience.)

It is now time to enter the lagoon itself. For this you go outside into the 45 degree air with a good 20 mile per hour breeze whipping across this barren volcanic landscape. It is like you are on the surface of the moon except that the rocks are darker. The cold just sucks the air right out of you as you drop off your towel and flip flops and walk stiff-legged as the cold has frozen your joints solid. You somehow make it to the pool itself and step in and….

Release the biggest sigh of your life. Nothing has ever felt as good as getting out of the cold air and into what is just the nicest, warmest bath of your life. The water is so salty that you just naturally float in it. You don’t even swim; you just kind of hover around in a search for a spot that is just the right level of warmth for you (they move about so it is a thrill when you stumble upon one.) There are waterfalls to experience and mud masks to wear but just the joy of being in the water was amazing. Plus, since we were at the end of tourist season it wasn’t too crowded so at times Kim and I seemed to have the entire place to ourselves, which made it seem ultra-romantic.

Making things even better was the fact that they served beer. There were two small problems with this though. 1) You had to go inside for the beer, which meant getting out of the pool and walking into the cold. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. You know how you feel so heavy when you get out of a normal pool? Double that and give yourself hypothermia in the process. If anyplace needed a floating bar it is this one. 2) They impose a three drink maximum per person. This seemed tragically small as we probably would have stayed there drinking until we were forced out. I assume that they have a good reason for it (you do dehydrate like mad and it does keep people from, uh, puking) but it cost us a bit of enjoyment.

This was easily one of the highlights of the trip. We stayed in the water for hours, just floating around and laughing and enjoying the fact that it was windy and rainy and just horrible outside to the point that the lifeguards were wearing heavy winter jackets. We didn’t care about anything else in the world. We just enjoyed the moment. If there is anything more you can ask of from a vacation I don’t know what it is.