Being 30 is rad as @$%#!: Berunes

Alright, the east fjords!

After a couple of weeks and several days of cold and grey drizzle we finally decided to avail ourselves of some modern amenities and get some much needed R&R. You know, from our endlessly trying life of travel and adventure.

So we forked out for things like a roof and linen and free unlimited hot showers - woo!!

Letting go of my frugal ways was not so easy, that is until we stumbled across a total steal-deal hostel in a tiny place called Berunes. More of a bend in the road than an actual place, Berunes is just a couple of farms sitting at the head of Berufjördur.

Djúpivogur seen across the water

It's directly across the water from an actual town called Djúpivogur - which happens to also be very, very small. Our bus cruised through at the fog heavy hour of 11 am on a Sunday, and much to expectations, everything was closed.

No idea who this is

No bread or crackers or wine bottles for us (hah! They don't even have a bakery or liquor store anyway!). We were very happy to get back on the bus and be delivered to Berunes hostel on the other side of the fjord. It sits at the crossroads to an apparent farm, where there was no one and nothing but sheep baa-ing to break the silence. We got off onto the desolate road while everyone else stared and wondered why. But this place turned out to be super awesome!

The hostel is actually a farm house built over a hundred years ago and turned into a hostel in the 70s. It's perfectly preserved and runs more like a B and B. For $80 (which in Iceland usually gets you a trash bag and a bunk bed with no sheet), we got a giant room with windows facing the ocean in the house with a full traditional kitchen and a living room. Awesome!

Hostel views

Take that, old couple who had to walk up the super treacherous stairs to their loft room! It was so awesome, in fact, that we quickly gave up on frugality and paid for a second night and for some mightily priced wine in the attached restaurant. Oh, and chocolate cake, too.

But it was much deserved after a foggy hike along the coastline for a few hours, followed by several more hours of crashing the iPad while trying to figure out how the eff to get this blog to work without a desk top (yes, as the hubby's father has pointed out, we are a few stops behind- weve ( and by we, we mean the wife) spent probably 20 hours trying to get this thing to work ) and with the combined tech savviness of a panda.

Anyway. We ended up befriending the one lone employee, Baldvin, and playing cards all night. The dude was single handedly responsible for making the menu, cooking all the food, tending bar, managing reception as well as being the waiter for the entire place. And looking good all the while. He was super rad, and gave me the home made chocolate cake for free! Hopefully we'll get to hang out with him in Reykjavik when we return.

The next morning was bright and sunny and perfect weather to have a homemade lunch at the farm next door called Karlsstadir. Icelandic people are obsessed with hotdogs, and I'd been feeling quite left out until we found out that the people next door not only craft their own line of vegan Icelandic 'odd dogs', but that you can also go to their house and have a home cooked veggie lunch. So we walked the few kilometers over to their place along the bottom of the cliff face, hopped a few fences, startled a lot of sheep, and had a tour of their farm with their dog and friendly fat cats.

The walk between farms

Arriving at Karlsstadir

We had a super lunch on a patio of bulsur odd dogs and potatoes, and some sort of traditional stewed rhubarb pudding for desert, with cream and chocolate. They both joined us to chat over coffee, and after an hour, we headed out to hike up the cliffs over some sheep trails they told us about.

The couple was actually really interesting - and turned out to be famous musicians in Iceland as the veggie husband is also an award-winning musician Prins Póló (check them out!), and he and his wife play gigs all over the country. In addition to the farmhouse and guesthouse on their property, they also have an up and coming industrial kitchen where they plan on starting to produce baked rutabaga chips, and a jam-space. Iceland is always a random and surprising place.

We roamed up the cliffs and hiked a few hours across the plateau between the cliffs and the looming mountains above, which was beautiful, without an ounce of fog, and eventually headed back into our final night of indoor heated luxury!