December 2016: New year eve was just round the corner and I was on a trip of Iceland along with my friends Alap and Soumil. The photos here tell the story of our excursions through the land of hot and cold :) Visit Alap's blogpost on the trip here.

The Auroras or Northern lights

At Horgsland cottages, in southeast Iceland, we witnessed nature's fireworks. To our add to our delight, the auroras happend on the day of New years eve!! Yay :)

The gleaming glaciers!

The frozen glacier melted my heart! Look at the huge blue sheet of ice, slowly sliding down the mountain, reaching for the ocean. That's Vatnajokul glacier. Interestingly, 11% area of Iceland is occupied by glaciers. That's a lot!

As the glacier enters the ocean, the blue ice sheet breaks into nice little pieces

Inside the glaciers- The ice caves!

It kinda looks like the scene from Interstellar, isn't it? It's amazing how the water melting inside galciers carve these ice caves.

These vivid patterns of ice are simply mesmerizing!

The Icelandic landscape!

Good stuff on the way: the town of Alafoss and its pretty waterfall.

Snow, snow everywhere....

And some people actually live in this pristine landscape

The Treasure of Golden Circle!

That line is the divide between North American and European tectonic plates, that runs across Iceland. The geological activity fuels many a geothermal vents. Geysir (middle and right) is one of the biggest, giving out spectacular water blasts every few minutes.

Gulfoss Waterfall - It's one of its kind!

I guess its marvel is amplified in winter. Taking a 30m step downwards, the water makes noise rivaling a rock concert.

Towards North Atlantic Ocean...

The selfoss waterfall (on left), the Icelandic horses and North Atlantic Ocean shore

The balck sand beach of Vik - Blue, black and white coming together..

Skogafoss, another huge waterfall in Iceland.. One can actually climb all the way and see the waterfall from the top!

Bridge between the continents

The divide of tectonic plates again. It was fun crossing from Europe to North America on a bridge!

Goodbye Iceland!

At Keflavik airport. They really have put in a lot of thoughts in the design!