Tenerife 2007 - 2

After months of staying indoors, sitting in front of the screen and writing my Master’s thesis, it was time for me to go on a holiday and stock up some sunshine, as it was October and our summer holiday was overdue.

Due to our check-in in the evening before, we had a relaxed take-off in the morning. It was raining and really cold outside. We flew through thick clouds first, but soon the sky became clearer. We even had a good meal on board. After arrival in Tenerife Sur a limousine took us exclusively to our hotel in Adeje. We got a room with a gorgeous sea view, the temperature was at 29°C (84°F). Unfortunately, both of us didn’t take the flight too easily and got a headache, that’s why we finally ended up in the evening with pizza and beer in front of the TV, watching a Rugby match instead of going out.

The next morning started with a delicious breakfast, I took a classical English one. The coffee however came from a dispenser. We went to our tour guide Gitti to get some info about the offers they’ve got, and after that we finally went “beaching” to the Playa La Pinta. Sand. Beach. Sea. Sun. Heat. “Ananás, melóni, coconut!” World peace. I didn’t think that I would appreciate that so much. My last beach holiday had been seven years ago! We had some toast as lunch and had dinner near the place where we were staying during the day. We took a walk along the beach after sunset and finished the evening at the Irish Pub next door. It was so relaxing!

The next day, Monday, should again be a complete beach day. But first we went to Gitti and booked some bus tours to get in first contact with the highlights of that island: El Teide, the famous volcano, will be visited the next day, a whale-watching eco-tour was booked for Thursday, and the Loro Parque for Saturday. Then we went to the Playa de Torviscas. We had a great time in the sun and water. Later we returned to the same place to watch the sunset. We had dinner at a homely BBQ restaurant near the beach, where a living parrot said hello to the children at his cage. We went back to the hotel soon, as we had to get up early the next morning: El Teide was calling!

Our clock alarm went off at 6.30, and the bus picked us up shortly after 8.00. We had a classical bus tour with several stops for taking pictures, but although that wasn’t my favorite kind of getting to know a new place, we were recommended to avoid a first tour by car. So we could meet the island without having to think about where to go.

It was interesting to watch how the climate changed within only a few kilometers of drive: Dense pine woods range where the clouds dominate, with long needles to condense the water. In a higher altitude however, where clouds rarely roam, vegetation becomes sparse, and the very special geological structure beneath becomes prominent: I was absolutely fascinated by the cliffy and bizarre lava formations! This mixture of ancient and young lava rocks, colorfully varying between black and red, in very alien structuring, is so overwhelming! The sky was purely blue and the sun still low, tracing the contours of this very unique landscape. We had chance to discover the famous formations Roques de García. A wandering dog passed us by along the straight road, providing a picture like a coyote in a stone desert. We investigated the light weight of small lava rocks. However, it was strictly forbidden to take the smallest bit of stone back home. We also stopped to see the youngest crater at this site: The road went straight through the black lava streams of 1798. We left El Teide at noon, and we planned to return to this gorgeous place by car in a few days.

Back to the beach, the sun wasn’t that intense like the day before, due to a dust storm that brought sand from the Sahara Desert; the mercury showed 26°C (79°F). Later we had again dinner near the harbor of Playa de la Pinta and took a walk along the beach after sunset.

We started the day with a shopping walk along the beach promenade to the south, approaching Los Cristianos. It was rather windy, and we could watch some surfers. I had to pay “douchebag tax” several times during our holidays, as I didn’t manage to get a data tank for my digital photographs in time, and so I had to draw on the duties of various photo services to get some CDs or DVDs burnt with my pictures. Due to the wind, the beach wasn’t too inviting, and so we stood at our balcony. I had started to read through a printout of my Master’s thesis and wrote down some notes for correction. I felt comfortable with the content and didn’t have the impression that something important was missing. In the evening we had a gran paella at the restaurant La Gran Paella.

The next day we went earlier to the beach than usual. We had strong wind, nice waves, and watched several flying sunshades. At 15.15 we were ready to go with the Freebird One for our whale watching eco-tour, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the weather, and so we had coffee and ice cream instead. Later we had dinner at an Italian.

On Friday morning we met our tour guide Gitti to defer the ship tour to Sunday. We also booked a visit to La Gomera for Monday and rent a car for Tuesday ‘til Thursday. After breakfast we had a parking space reserved in our hotel, as it would be rather difficult to find one in the “wilderness” of the city. We took a longer walk again, this time to the north, reaching the classy Playa del Duque. Later we went to the supermercado to buy bread, ham and wine for a home-made dinner. We went to bed earlier, as the Loro Parque was calling.

The clock alarm went off at 7.15, and after breakfast we went to the bus stop waiting for the tour bus to pick us up. Other buses stopped by in the meantime to pick up other guests. All of them were going to the Loro Parque! We finally were picked up too, and the 1.5 hours of drive went by quickly.

The weather was cloudy. Right at the beginning we were queued for a picture with two large parrots. We went to the gorillas first, but the penguinarium fascinated me much more: They had built an artificial (or arcticficial) iceberg island for the penguins, surrounded by a glass cylinder, outside of which the visitors could stand on a treadmill that slowly drove them around the island. Some animals stood right below artificial snowfall that came down from dedicated holes in the ceiling, and they really seemed to enjoy it. They didn’t mind the workers in their water that cleaned the large windows from the inside.

We attended the entertaining orca show, as some visitors didn’t seem to have noticed the warning signs indicating the “splash zone”. Generally, we noticed that the name of the park doesn’t reflect the current situation anymore, as it is more a family entertainment zoo today, rather than just a bird park. However, there are still lots of colorful birds in many aviaries all around the place. The signs read that some of them only have a tiniest natural habitat left. You really fall in love with those beautiful birds, more than ever when you see them babbling in their cages or when they fly over your heads in the loro show.

The park also shows a variety of local vegetation, tropical plants and alien cacti. We had a snack, and at the exit we attended a poll. However, I think that the visit of such a place is just more fun if you have children at your side. The drive back to the hotel went by quickly again, but the air conditioning in the buses is much too strong for the feel of a European.

Back to Adeje I had the pictures burnt on CD, and we went out for dinner to the La Gran Paella again. We noticed that this restaurant was rather popular, as the guests were waiting in groups for the next table to be cleared.

Although Europe got one hour of extra sleep due to the clock change to winter time, we had breakfast a little later than usual. We were staying at the pool instead of going to the beach, as we didn’t have too much time until the ship tour.

We arrived at the harbor at 13.15. A group of chicks was allowed to enter the Freebird One before the other guests, and we wondered whether they were part of an on-board entertainment program, but they weren’t. They just teetered with high heels over the boardwalk and occupied the best seats. So, the male guests weren’t quite sure if they should appreciate their company. The women probably didn’t. It seems that those chicks were part of some kind of local TV production, as they had their own camera guy with them and had to pose for him. However, we soon set sail and enjoyed the tottering ride through the waves.

And indeed, as we approached a small group of other boats after some time, we had the chance to watch some pilot whales. The motors were all switched off to not disturb them. However, I had the impression that the boats actually came far too close to the animals. We didn’t see any dolphins, but I guess we had already been lucky enough. A little later the boat continued its ride.

Some of the chicks and some guests started the usual barfing. Luckily, Doris and I weren’t feeling bad at all. The catamaran stopped at a bathing bay, where we were served something to eat. Some guests went for a swim, some for a barf. The Caribbean music that was playing all the time became more and more boring. Finally, the journey lead us back to Adeje. When we had entered the boat at the beginning, a photo gal made pictures of the guests that came on board. Now we were offered to buy them for €10. But just like a few other guests I made a picture of the picture in an unwatched moment. Those chicks, however, were offered those pictures for free.

Later I had another CD-ROM burnt, and the evening ended with pizza.

This day we had our visit to Tenerife’s western neighbor island, La Gomera. When we were picked up at 7.55, we were the first ones in the bus. We were brought to the ferry in Los Cristianos, where we cast off at 9.30. Reaching La Gomera about one hour later, the ferry docked in San Sebastian, where another bus was already awaiting us.

La Gomera is still a pristine island. The road that lead us through the country was only a few years old; there was none before. The higher our tour took us, the colder it got. Gitti warned us to wear warm clothes, but we, being stupid tourists, simply forgot about that and went in shorts and sandales. But it wasn’t too hard to bear the temperature when we watched La Gomera’s fascinating nature. The climate literally changed within only a few kilometers of drive, due to the mountainous landscape that only allowed dedicated paths for the clouds to go. We stopped at the famous La Roque de Agando that was partly shrouded by quickly wandering clouds. Pines with long needles were fishing the moisture out of the air.

We had another stop at the Laguna Grande, where we took a short walk through the misty wood. Due to the permanent presence of clouds the trunks and branches of the trees were covered with moss. Later we visited a botanic garden, and after that we stopped at a restaurant where we had lunch. After the meal we were presented the local whistle language, but as usual at such presentations with tourists as target audience, one cannot be sure about the originality.

Before we returned to the harbor, we had a stop at a banana plantation. I was fascinated, as I never had seen such trees before. Back at the harbor we were impressed by the crystal clear water, where lots of fishes were cavorting in the blue sea. On the ferry back to Tenerife we had some coffee indoors.

In the evening we had dinner at the restaurant La Brasserie that had a good-looking appearance, but it turned out that the waiters were rather unobservant, mixed up the checks, and also charged drinks to our account that we didn’t order.

The car rental guy fetched us from our hotel at 8.30 and brought us to his rental store. We got a red VW Fox. We fueled the vehicle and headed northwards, with Icod de los Vinos as first target.

We parked our Fox in a parking garage and went to the famous “1000 year old” dragon tree. We thought that the Casa del Drago was the entry, but it turned out the be the exit of the dragon tree’s park. We were heavily impressed by the dignified appearance of the ancient tree. It was downright breathing the history of centuries. It was also interesting to see some younger dragon trees at that site. Once again we saw bizarre plants that are typical for the Canary Islands. There’s also a volcano cave in that garden.

Whenever there was a rustling in the grass, one could be sure that it was caused by geckos. I somehow fell in love with those animals. Their grand population on this island made the gecko an icon for Tenerife. By the way, the largest feral animals on the Canary Islands (and probably at the same time the most dangerous ones) are—bunnies.

Our journey led us to Garachico, where we were absolutely overwhelmed by the 300 year old black lava formations at the coast. A volcanic eruption buried the ancient harbor beneath it. The pristine cliffs are still visible at the water, and they were partially formed into seawater pools. The crystal clear water surged at the rocks. We saw crabs, living as well as dead ones. After a snack we took a walk to the ancient harbor gate that was obsoleted by the volcanic eruption. It is located in the town at a significant distance to the coast.

We proceeded to the headland Punta de Teno in the northwest of Tenerife. Near Buenavista del Norte the road became narrow, and large signs warned us to not take that way during rain or wind. They also said something about access to a building site for authorized personnel only. But other cars just continued going that way, and we did as well. We soon noticed that those warnings haven’t been put up for fun: The road was a real adventure. Small stones were scattered over the narrow and winding road, warning us to bargain for larger pieces to come down. We didn’t feel too relaxed, because we didn’t see anyone else driving there. But as we finally approached the lighthouse after the mountains, we were relieved when we saw that several other people had already discovered that place. There was a strong wind, but it was sunny. We went to the coast and enjoyed the view. Slowly it became cloudy, and finally it started to rain. But the rain didn’t last long, and we were rewarded by a beautiful rainbow. Watching the sunset might be really romantic there, but one shouldn’t think of the drive back in darkness.

The rainy drive to Masca was accompanied by several narrow serpentines. The sun was breaking through the clouds, but it kept being cold. The sunset threw light on the town Masca through the canyon, and we saw another rainbow. Driving homewards it was getting dark slowly, and then quickly. I had another photo DVD-ROM burnt, and once again we went to the La Gran Paella for dinner.

Today we wanted to discover the Esperanza forest northeast to El Teide. We headed to Santa Cruz de Tenerife at 9.30. It was cloudy. The traffic near the city was chaotic, but thanks to Doris we didn’t take a single wrong turn. When we got on the TF-24 at La Laguna, all of a sudden we were in secluded nature. We had our first stop at a viewpoint and admired the red forest soil and the long green needles of the pine trees. The higher we got, the more clouds came into our way. Although we were looking attentively for the miradores (viewpoints), we missed them. Probably our first stop was at the Mirador Pico de las Flores anyway? However, it was fascinating to watch the wandering clouds, changing the face of the landscape from minute to minute. At Mirador Ortuño we took a short walk.

We entered the area of the Teide National Park and had a ride through the thick fog of permanent clouds. Exiting the cloud layer we met pure sunshine and had an overwhelming view onto the cloud ocean. The peak of El Teide poked out of a sea of batting. We stopped at a viewpoint and watched how the clouds slowly sneaked up on us. Other cars stopped as well, and it was fascinating to see how the clouds finally enshrouded us and made the sunshine almost disappear. In this foggy moment we were able to see a circular rainbow right in front of us. One minute later the clouds dropped back and freed the sun again. I was able to capture this sequence of moments in a movie.

During our journey we came past the Observatorio del Teide. We entered the cloud layer again, where it started to drizzle. At La Caldera del Pedro Gil we wanted to see the stone formations called Organos, but as we didn’t know what turn to take at a fork, we turned back. We took a snack in our car and drove on. We came past the Piedra de la Rosa that is located right besides the road, but we didn’t find a space to park our vehicle, so we moved on.

We headed for Orotava. As the weather was still hazy, we didn’t have a nice view anymore. The Mirador Humboldt would have interested me, but it was closed and a building site, and the weather wasn’t suitable anyway. So we finally decided to drive home again. Doris managed the traffic hell near Santa Cruz de Tenerife with excellence for another time. We stopped for a coffee in between and reached Adeje at 17.30.

As the next day was a public holiday, we went shopping to the supermercado. Several other people had the same idea. We overlooked the Halloween whoopee. Later we had dinner at “our” BBQ restaurant again. From our balcony we could watch the fireworks that celebrated the end of the summer season.