The abbreviated story about Iceland is as follows: we rented a car to drive to the southern town of Vik. We had heard stories of amazing scenery, the black sand beach, the rock formations, etc etc. So we did rent a car and made arrangements to keep it for one day and return it the next at the airport before we flew to Paris. We saw Vik, it was beautiful. The weather was extremely changeable and we thought we might miss our time at the shore because of a storm that raged in, dumped some snow and prevented us from seeing much of anything at the shore. But as we drove away the sun pierced the clouds and storms gave way to a brilliant sunny day, all in the span of ten minutes. That experience should have been a warning.
Our next stop was going to be the Blue Lagoon. We had a map that looked to have only major roads on it, with the occasional dotted line indicating "highland roads" which required off road vehicles. Obviously we knew that we couldn't take those, but we saw a major route that looked direct to Grindavik, where we would find the Lagoon. We turned onto the road and it seemed a bit less maintained than the others. But still passable. The weather was still relatively good and it wasn't far to drive according to our map. Well after about five minutes it started to snow. After fifteen minutes what was a light dusting had become deep drifts of heavily accumulating snow. The falling flakes were blinding enough, but every once in awhile the nose of the car would plow into a deep spot and snow would shoot up on the windshield making it impossible to see anything! The wipers were useless. I didn't feel like I could go forward or turn around! There weren't any cars around and nothing, NOTHING as far as the eye could see. No buildings, homes, farms, people, nothing nothing nothing. There were times when the snow would clear off the windshield and I could see about ten feet in front of me. One of these times I looked to the left and saw that the road was perched on a cliff with a straight drop off into the ocean below.
We drove in absolute terror for about a half an hour and eventually the car slid to the left and off the road. We were at an angle and I had to climb out of the passenger side of the car. We surveyed the scene: mountains to our right, raging, dark ocean was about 100 yards to our left, there was a small house (the only one for miles) next to us. We checked it out but it was empty and bolted shut, a summer cottage. We were in a panic, honestly thinking we could die in the cold and snow easily. Our only option seemed to be sleeping in the car until morning as it was getting dark. But the car would have been covered quickly in the snow storm, trapping us inside.
Needless to say that did not happen. A mere 15 minutes later we were rescued by two guys (Svavar and Eythor) off to get a snowmobile. They looked at us like we were aliens, panicked and disheveled. They explained that they were probably the only two people who would travel that road for days. That road was used only for summer travel and the occasional daredevil. Basically it was CLOSED, with no notification or blockage.
We rode with these two saviors to outer nowhere to get their snowmobile. When we got back to the car five hours later it was already covered in snow. There was no way to pull it out, though they tried. Now we had to figure out how we would get to the airport and the bigger issue: what to do with the car that was sure to be completely buried by morning?
No problem, Svavar knew a guy who worked at the car rental agency and called them, explaining in rapid Icelandic where the car was (next to the "ghost house" apparently). He then brought us to Reykjavik to get our stuff, had us sleep at his mom's house and drove us to the airport at 4am on about 2 hours of sleep.
Next time we go to Iceland it will be in the summer.