Iceland: Day Six

Today I was supposed to go to the Vestmannaeyjar, but I missed my flight.  Sort of on purpose.  Because I didn't return the rental car last night, I have to do it today as early as possible.  I've already resigned myself to the fact that I have to come back to Iceland again and, because this isn't tourist season, I thought maybe I would postpone the islands trip.  The tickets were very cheap, so it wasn't too much of a loss.

I dropped the rental off around 10am.  Dagur, the same guy I rented it from, was there and was a friendly as ever.  There was no extra charge for returning half a day late and totally dirty.  And he drove me downtown!

Since I missed the islands, I decided I would just check and see if there were any other afternoon tours I could do last minute.  I didn't want to spend my last day in Iceland shopping and in an internet cafe.  Thankfully, it turns out there were a few options.  Whale Watching or Horse Riding.

Score!  I had wanted to ride an Icelandic horse, but I read on one of the sites that I was too heavy for them.  The lady at the tourist office assured me I was well underweight.  I booked the tour, and still had an hour to kill downtown so I did more souvenir and postcard shopping :)

Icelandic horses, to most people, look like large ponies.  But apparently they are actually proper horses, just smaller and much much hairier.  They have these beautiful long manes and, during the winter, much longer hair on their bodies.  These are the horses of the Vikings.  Iceland protects their lineage as much as they protect their language.  Icelandic horses are best known for their unique gait called tölt.  This is really want I wanted to experience. Apparently standard horses can be trained to do tölt, but it comes native to almost all Icelandic horses.

I am by no means an experienced rider, but I love horses.  I have ridden several times, but never such a small horse.  I felt like I was going to break it, but I didn't.  They are tough!  And the tölt is cool.  Just search YouTube for "icelandic horse tolt" and you will find it... you don't need the fancy ö. 

After riding the horse for a few hours, I came back to the hostel and began packing to leave Iceland and meet Mitchel in Denmark.  I am definitely not looking forward to leaving Iceland, but I am looking forward to starting the trip with Mitchel.