Vic to Laugarvaten - Day 3

We stayed in the town of Vic last night; the population is 290 people. I think that qualifies as a town. We stayed in a hostel in order to be able to keep expenses at a reasonable level. Hostel is not to be confused with hotel.

Randeen in Vic with our hostel to her left.

It is my first experience with hostels, and we are booked in four more before the journey is complete. It is not like staying in a hotel. It is more like camping inside of a house. Yes, we did share a bathroom with several others, maybe 10 or 12 others.

Everyone's shoes near the front door. I did leave with a better pair of hiking boots.

Our meal at one of the best places in Vic, Halldórscaffi, was pretty average. My lamb was good, not great. Randeen’s pizza was very poor, and the salad was okay. Crunching the numbers gave the average result.

Halldórscaffi

We’ve seen lots of cows and sheep, but we’ve seen even more horses. The Iceland folks love there horses. They are almost pony sized, but posses some interesting gaits. Here is a lint to learn more about the Icelandic horses.

3 Icelandic horses, they don't look much different, but they are not too tall

This morning, the wind in Vic, was blowing at a steady 30 mph with gusts to 40-55 mph. It was tough to climb to the top of the cliff near the Atlantic to over look the village before breakfast. But, we did it. All day it was cloudy and windy. We took off in the direction of Laugarvaten, stopping to see the rock formations and the puffin nesting grounds at Dyrhólaey.

Here are some puffins, more on them later.

After fighting the high winds, Randeen wanted to add a fitness tip. So, here is our first tip.

Fitness Corner

Core Strength can sometimes seem like almost like a cliché – I mean, whether you work out on your own or leaf through a fitness magazine or two, you’re going to see CORE on every other page. If you train with Randeen one-on-one or in her Boot Camps, every other exercise seems to be about…that’s right….the “C” word.

Now here’s why --- because a strong core is pretty handy to have no matter where you are or what you are doing. Take for example Thursday morning when we decided to hike the very high hill across from our hostel; it at first was a fairly minor undertaking, perhaps a 20 minute walk up the hill. When the winds grew from a slightly annoying clip to upwards of 50 mph, legs strength was not going to keep me upright – my core was. I could keep climbing and catch a glorious sight of puffins gliding endlessly out from the cliff rather than lie down, cry uncle, and wait for someone to carry me down the hill.

Randeen NSCA-CPT

Radeen may be down, but she didn't cry uncle.

More on day 3 will be posted later. This is always based on the availability of internet connection.