Friday, April 10, 2015

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

What an interesting island! It was like we traveled from a tropical paradise at sea level to Mars. 

We started early this morning and hopped on a double decker bus. In all my years of cruising I've never been in a double deck for a tour. It was pretty cool because we were higher than normal and could see so much more. And oh boy was there a lot to see. 

We started off very quickly with a scenic drive to the north of the island passing little quaint towns, vineyards and banana plantations.  Then we hit this teeny tiny, windy road that took us up into the mountain region and the La Esperanza forest. Eventually we popped out of the forest in what I thought of as Mars.  

Las Canadas del Teidi National Park was established in 1954 and covers 18,900 acres.

Tenerife (Tinner reef ay) has the third largest volcano in the world. El Tiede stands sure and proud overlooking the bay of Santa Cruz.  The surrounding landscape reminded me a lot of the Big Island - volcanic rock formations, ash dunes, lava fields and a caldera.  

When we finally stopped for photos and a bit of coffee the tour guide mentioned that we were now at 7200 ft above sea level.  He went on to explain some of us may get light headed tonight or have headaches. At which point I said to Janet, "If we drink enough wine we'll never know."

It was interesting to drive from a tropical area, through a pine forest and then end up in a very bare and no vegetation area.  Having that distinctive of climates is one of the reasons Tenerife can have several trades - from bananas to ash from the volcano. 

In the volcano national park we stopped at these crazy rock formations called Los Roques de Garcia. The wind and some earthquakes  helped form these rocks and since some guy with the last name of Garcia used to live out here, they named it after him. 

From there we drove into a beautiful colonial town called La Orotava. We got off the bus and had about an hour walking tour in which we walked along cobblestone streets as the guide pointed out historic buildings, churches, etc. In fact Tenerife has three main catholic churches and they are all named The Immaculate Conception.  Creative huh?

One of the historic buildings we saw is La Casa de los Balcones (house of balconies). The two houses belonged to aristocrats some time ago and in an effort to "keep up with the Jone's" they continued to build bigger, more grander balconies. Ultimately the houses looked ridiculous but yet had some charm to them. 

Finally we headed back to sea level and the tour guide dropped us off in the tourist area called  La Puerta de la Cruz. By this time we were starving so Janet and I stopped and had ourselves a pizza and beer. 

We were the last bus to get back to the boat tonight. The boat was leaving at 5:30 and we made it back by 4:45…cutting it too close for me. But since we were on an excursion through the cruise line we knew they couldn't leave us. 

Oh and I learned that the Canary Islands are not named after the birds. Instead the birds are named after the islands. Apparently Rome named them.  The people who lived here where sheep herders and had these amazing, very specific to the island dogs. So the Romans called the islands the Dog Islands. And dog in Latin is Canan or something like that. 

Tomorrow we hit Arrecife. Another Best of…tour.

 

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