Day 12: A Half Day

Only one thing on the agenda today - horseback riding! I'm not necessarily a huge horse fan but these little horses sure are cute and unique in that they have a 5th gait, the "tolt", unlike other horses in the world with just four. They're considered a pure breed and Icelanders want to keep it that way, so it's not allowed to import any horse to the country to keep all diseases, etc. out.

My riding company sent round a minibus at 8am to pick me up, and I ended up getting a free little tour of downtown Reykjavik as we toodled around picking up the other guests. It's quite funny in the mornings here, there's little clusters of people out on street corners and standing in hotel doorways in the magic hour of 8am - 9am as a whole army of tour group minibuses gather up their passengers. There are dozens and dozens of different types of tours to do from town and everybody does at least a couple.

                                                   Quite the operation!

                    Black Beauty was a little headstrong. Well-suited perhaps? :-)

                                                                 A trainee....

It was fun. The tolt is a bouncey thing, faster than a walk and not quite a trot. I'm sure I'll have bruises tomorrow! The super-orange riding gear was more for wind protection than anything but we did have a bit of rain.

The rest of the day is free.....!  I plan to have a nice nap this afternoon after having a wander up & down the main shopping street. I didn't get in last night from diving till 12:20am - a true midnight sun tour! The company forgot to bring our BCD's, essential equipment, and it took over an hour to have them delivered up to the site. And the actual diving went a bit slowly so we were well behind schedule. Then I was up at 6:30am for the riding, so a lazy afternoon will be just the ticket.