Yesterday we spent a good part of the day relaxing at a hot pool about 40 km away from Reykjavik. This is said to be one of the coolest pool in the world. Known as the Blue Lagoon. It is a must visit place whilst in Iceland. Located in a large lava field, the jagged surrounding rocks make it as if we were on the surface of the moon!
Today there were endless busload of people coming to the place but the whole complex is large enough to accomodate a lot more. The only way to get around in Iceland and visit places are by using bus. There are a handful of bus/tour companies doing that which provide pick up from the hotel before shuttling people to their destinations or tours. Even on arrival from airport, the only way to get to Reykjavik is by bus or coach. There are only a handful of taxis here and they look pretty basic. To visit far out places, the best way is to use four-wheel drives or even snow mobile. Certain part of Iceland got permanent ice on the surface.
Back to the lagoon, it took an hour to reach there after changing bus and so on. Return bus tiket and entrance to the Blue Lagoon cost about 35 Euros. The lagoon was actually created by accident. Read the article below................
"The lagoon was created entirely by accident. In the 1970s, the Svartsengi geothermal plant began to discharge water rich in salt, algae and silica, which turned into a kind of caulk. A pool formed in the featureless lava fields in western Iceland, and when locals jumped in, they found that it cleared up symptoms of skin ailments like psoriasis. Today, the Blue Lagoon sports a 15-room clinic and a spa that attracts 407,000 tourists annually. With revenue of $21 million and 200 workers, the Blue Lagoon is an Icelandic blue chip. "We are one of the 300 largest enterprises in Iceland," says Anna Sverrisdottir, managing director of the Blue Lagoon.
Iceland's economy, which until recently relied largely on fishing, has diversified in recent years, with rapid growth in tourism, manufacturing and financial services. And like the Blue Lagoon, much of the growth has been a happy by-product of Iceland's decades-long strategy of tapping sources of renewable energy. Mindful of climate change and the need to limit emissions, many U.S. states have set goals of obtaining 10 or 15 percent of their energy from renewable at some point in the distant future, and the European Union has pledged to reach 20 percent by 2020. But Iceland is already at about 80 percent. All electricity on the island is generated through geothermal or hydroelectric sources—low-emissions sources that don't use fossil fuels. Most homes are heated by water pumped from geothermal hot spots. "We are blessed with a lot of clean and renewable energy," Prime Minster Geir H. Haarde told NEWSWEEK. "The only uses of fossil fuels in Iceland are people using cars and the fishing fleet." And increasingly, Iceland, whose most prominent exports have been haddock and Björk, is devising ways to export what has been a stranded resource.
Iceland is a small island with a tiny, ethnically homogenous population: only 300,000, with more than half living in the capital, Reykjavik. It lacks coal reserves, and is endowed with massive glaciers, which produce huge volumes of water that can be harnessed to generate electricity. It also happens to sit atop a rift in the earth's crust that keeps significant reservoirs of heat bubbling near the surface. To a large degree, it is the polar opposite of the United States. Yet we—and other developed nations—can learn some valuable lessons from Iceland about what happens when a society commits to the systematic development of renewable energy."
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