Sunday, July 08, 2007

Blue Lagoon of Iceland

Ask anyone about Blue Lagoon and one might immediately conjure up images of a prepubescent Brook Shields frolicking in the summer sun on a clothing optional beach.

Ask me about Blue Lagoon and I will summon you a picture much different.

Sure, the water is blue, as seen in this unretouched photo. The weather is a bit cloudy, but sunny nonetheless. It is...well, quite beautiful.

No Brook Shields, however.

The problem is that the water is frigid. This is the Blue Lagoon of Iceland, outside of the capital Reykjavik. It is supposed to be a mixture of cold seawater and underground thermo pools that gives anyone who choose to bath in it an as yet undetermined medicinal boost.

Well, for that pool, you'll have to walk about another 100 meters and pay $35 US dollars. And it looks like this.


Very impressive, actually. Except that the water is more of an algae green than blue, and parts of the ground underwater is mushy. And the whole place smells like someone who ate two dozen hard boiled eggs and farted in a locked room with you in it two hours later.

The mushy ground is the sulfur sand. It is pure white in color, and people gather them with their hand and feet (water tends to get deep) and vigorously rub on their bodies. Many folks there sports a white face mask of said material. When asked if I will do the same, I said no. The mere idea of rubbing sulfur sand onto my body and face, of which was done previously by hundreds of thousands of others with who knows what ailments, made me dizzy.

Then I heard this woman next to me, as she entered the water.

"Ooooh. This will be so nice for my bunions!"

I left the pool after that.

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