The drive to the river was about an hour and a half. Along the way was mostly just beautiful countryside. We met a family from Virginia on the bus and we talked to them about their trip. They have been to Iceland 6 times! They are practically writing the Frommer's Guides! They shared a lot of interesting information with us and instead of taking pictures along the way, we found out the best places to eat "off the beaten path"! Sorry.
We were picked up at the hotel at 8:00a.m. and off we went. You have to understand, Charles and I have been hold outs for white water rafting all over the world and for some crazy reason we agreed to do it with the kids here, in Iceland! Not in some warm wonderful spot, Iceland! We really did not know what we were getting into and sometimes that is best.
We arrived via nice tourist type bus and then were told to sign the waivers to not sue them if we died. After that, we were put in a large room and given very specific "rules" of the water. Then...the gear!! Oh my! If you have ever gone snow skiing and never really loved it because of all the gear you have to put on just to head to the lift, this is not for you! Again, this is not for you! They gave us wet suits that were wet. Yep, wet. They had not had a chance to dry from the previous groups that had come through to go down the river! I could hear Charles over in the men's area saying "Are these really wet or are they just cold"? I should have known then that things might not go so well. Wet, wet suit, wet shoes and a wet life jacket. Lucky for us that all these items do heat you up from the inside out, so the wet really wasn't that bad once you were able to pull the wet suit over your dry skin with about 25 other ladies standing in the changing room with you in all states of dress. Once in the gear...off we went. Where, to the lovely school buses that took us up to the river. May I say that my wet suit probably had been down the river a few dozen times before I got in it and the sweet smell of their fun was left in it for me to enjoy!
We were split up into groups and off we went to Louise, our river guide. It was Louise, our family of four, a couple from Chicago, sisters from Colorado and a couple from Florida. The youngest in their group was about 65. Kathleen and I volunteered to paddle the front and be the ones that kept everyone paddling in lovely poetic style. We had some practice drills of paddle forward, paddle backward, stop and hang on. Four commands. Not too hard. Ya think?? We pushed off and in the very first rapid, off fell Sharon...no last names. Sharon was so quiet about falling out, we did not even miss her! Our guide did and rescued her immediately. She was coming back into the boat drenched like a wet dog before we missed her. I would have been screaming my head off! The water was coming straight off a glacier...not cold but freezing cold. We had on wet wet suits for goodness sakes. Got the picture? Sharon, safely in, we got back to paddling. The people in Iceland waste no time with their fun. We hit large rapids very rapidly, guess why they are called rapids...sorry. The next big DIP caused much screaming and much water into the boat. We did not lose anyone but Charles was swallowing his first gallon of water for the day. He managed to hang on and not hit the lady that was telling him that he was not holding onto the boat correctly! He was just glad that he stayed in the boat. All scary parts and risking lives aside...it was FANTASTIC! We managed to forget that we smelled like hobos, didn't care that we might fall out, and had a ball.
The pictures may look like we were wet, tired and not having fun...wet and tired yes, the not fun, no. The kids said it was one of the best things we have ever done.
We got to spot midway down the river to jump off a cliff. That was not in the paperwork and when they said that we were going to jump, it was not well received by Charles! The kids wanted to jump, so off they went. We don't even let them jump at Chimney Rock at Lake Martin, but here we are in Iceland and I guess the air is too clean, we went nuts and let them jump, they loved it. Again, sorry for the poor photos. I was worried they were going to hit their heads on the lava rocks and forgot to snap pictures! There are some on the edge and in the water after the jump. Most everyone that did jump, screamed went they hit the cold water. One Japanese man kind of lost his mind for a few seconds and forgot to swim back to the rock wall and started to float down the river and he was thrown a life rope and did not have the sense of mind to grab it but did start to swim! The guide called him a late swimmer, it was pretty funny. Scary for him but he never realized it.
We got back in our boat and made our way down the river with no more close calls. Actually, so of the guides started doing back flips off the back of the boats just for fun and tried to get us to do it...maybe next time!
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