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Our plane was already flying low over the slate waters of the North Atlantic when the first spit of land of Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula came into view. It was just after 6am Reykjavik time and we had begun our journey the previous morning in Prince George, British Columbia, 6,000 kilometres away by airline on the other side of the vast North American continent.

 

It was a long journey - a red eye special - and we were reeking with jet lag and lack of sleep as, squinting from the bright sunlight, we stepped off the plane into the brisk air of an early August morning at Keflavik International airport. 

 

On a whim, rather than bussing directly to our hotel in Reykjavik which was a 45 minutes ride, we decided to take an optional side trip to the Blue Lagoon, a well-known geothermal pool and spa complex. Exhausted, hungry, muscles aching, we had nothing to lose in stopping there as our hotel rooms would not be ready until early afternoon.

 

The Blue Lagoon* ( in photo at right) is set in the middle of a rolling lava field laid down 800 years ago by a nearby volcanic eruption. Treeless, the only vegetation being a layer of pale green moss draped over crags of blackish volcanic rock, the scene looks to be from another world. To add to the otherworldly atmosphere, the Blue Lagoon's turquoise blue waters are fed by an adjacent geothermal energy station constructed of gleaming steel and glass that could have been a space station set down on some far away planet. 

 

Leaving the bus, we entered the Blue Lagoon complex via a pathway cut deep into the lava bed. A buffet breakfast was being offered at the "Lava Restaurant", which, ravenous as we were, seemed like the right thing to make a “pit stop” at before we climbed into the soothing, silken waters of the outdoor geothermal pool that meandered for several hundred metres through the piles of frozen lava surrounding the complex.

 

The restaurant was modernist in style - glass, chrome, polished black tile - with an entire wall carved out of the lava face. But our eyes were on the breakfast. Pickled herring, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, cucumber, thick loaves of fresh rye bread, sweet Icelandic butter, and large bowls of muesli and skyr, which is an Icelandic type of creamy yogurt.

 

The first rule of overcoming jet lag - fill your belly. And we did just that, washing the food down with copious cups of coffee and tea. However, if there would be a second rule, it might just be descending into the warm, milky-blue waters of Blue Lagoon's geothermal pool. Set out in the open air of the lava field, the lagoon is a grand expanse of steaming, mineral and algae-rich hot water - 6 million litres in all, gushing up from the very bowels of the earth itself.

 

As we floated in the warm liquid of the pool, our foreheads were cooled by the breeze blowing in from the chilled North Atlantic, a few kilometres in the distance. Plumes of mist rose from the lagoon, only to be whipped away. Overhead, the early morning sky was bright, blue and endless.

 

Off to the side, a waterfall had been chipped out of a lava rock outcrop. After plastering our faces and necks with handfuls of a slippery white, clay gel, scooped from wooden boxes at the edge of the pool and considered therapeutic for the skin, we stood waist-deep under the waterfall and let the pounding hot waters knead our aching neck and shoulders.

 

And then it was back to floating aimlessly in the buoyant pool, the breeze drifting our bodies this way and that across the steaming surface. After a couple of hours of such treatment, the aches and pains of jet lag faded away, dissolving into a sated drowsiness that lasted the rest of the way on the bus ride across this strange landscape to our hotel in Reykjavik.

 

Stunning, starkly beautiful, unique - there is no other way to describe the terrain of Iceland, which we, now sitting on the shuttle bus, were seeing for the first time. After a while, the outskirts of Iceland's capital, came into view. Reykjavik is a modern-looking city of 200,000 inhabitants with sleek buildings and well-kept roads and infrastructure. Few billboards or signs clutter the view. 

 

Icelandic for "smoky bay", the city got its name from the first Vikings who sailed over from Norway some 1100 years previous and established their camps on the shores of this picturesque site, the misty shapes of mountains visible to the West and North. Ironically, Reykjavik has little "smoke" in its air, as most buildings and houses are heated via an extensive geothermal water system.

 

Gazing at this modern city unfolding before us, it was difficult to fathom that it was the capital of a country that, just three years before, had endured the collapse of its banking industry, the catastrophic devaluation of its currency, and a severe economic crisis that followed. Yet there it was, gleaming in the morning sun.

 

By early afternoon, we settled into our hotel room just west of downtown Reykjavik, the warmth of the Blue Lagoon waters still deep in our bones.