Inside the Volcano - After walking on the rims of a couple of craters so far on this trip, it was time to go inside a crater. For a typical volcano, as it erupts, a cone-shaped mountain forms around the site of eruption. When the eruption ends, that cone collapses and makes a crater at the top of this hill or mountain depending on how big it is. This is one of the rare volcano eruption sites where the cone did not collapse and is still intact after about 4500 years from the time when it erupted. The actual site of this volcano cone is a good 2-mile hike from the meeting place for this attraction. The weather was quite nice and we had a good time doing this flat 2-mile hike. Can’t imagine how miserable it would have been if it was raining and windy. This company has put up an elevator which is basically a cage on cables that is lowered through a hole in the ground. They have some walking trails at the bottom of this cone at about 400 feet below the ground.





Amazing to see how the molten lava was dripping from the walls and cooled down to form structures that looked like stalactites. Over time, a lot of different minerals have seeped in through the cracks and have colored the walls of the volcano with many different colors.






After we got back out to their base camp, they offered us the traditional Icelandic lamb soup. The hot soup hit the spot after all the exertion of the morning. Overall, it was a good experience.

After coming back to Reykjavik, we went out to buy some Icelandic chocolates to take back home. After a longer-than-expected walk, we found the chocolate store but they didn’t have the kind of chocolates we wanted in stock. It was quite disappointing but we got to walk through the harbor area which we wouldn’t have visited otherwise.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant on this last night as we had to pack and be ready to leave early in the morning. As we got back to the room, the Aurora forecast was looking good. Even though I was tired after this long day, I decided to go out and check out the view. Walked out to the waterfront and it was just fantastic. Probably the brightest and most expansive display of the Northern lights of our trip.