We were a bit peeved with the car as I had intentionally booked a larger car with the intention that we would have a five door hatch back which would have been more comfortable for four people. What I got was a three door Opel Corsa with a larger, more thirsty engine and alloy wheels! I was half way out to the Autopista before it occurred to me that I really should have complained to the company and demanded a change. Still, it worked for us even if it was very cramped with all their luggage. We even managed to find their hotel in Los Cristianos.
Pat and Sally of course needed a good night's sleep to get over the flight though we did enjoy a good paella at the bar overlooking the marina. The next morning however took us to Santa Cruz in the car and then round to the west side of the island. Santa Cruz is a nice capital city though not quite as bustling as Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. We managed a bit of lunch and then found a very pretty square full of exotic (to us) plants before heading off in the car again. The west coast of Tenerife is the “wet” side and is much greener. There are fewer holiday developments and a lot more banana plantations as well as grape vines in the Oratava valley. We didn't go up the Oratava valley though we did have a quick look round the town of Orotava. Audrey and I will have to visit a bodega later on in our stay here.
Here is a view of the docks at Santa Cruz:
And the park/square mentioned above:
This island, is very mountainous and the drive back over the southern end was very twisty though also quite dramatic. The neat bit was when we got over the mountain pass at 1100 meters. We had been driving in cloud that became quite thick at times until we crossed over and suddenly we were back in brilliant sunlight! This was to be the night that they would see our boat and eat aboard. I did the best I could with some herb chicken and canary potatoes. We had first encountered Papas Arrugadas on Lanzarote and I have now got to grips with cooking them. You have to put a terrifying amount of salt in the water in which they are boiled and then pour most of the water away just as they finish cooking. The potatoes then get a coating of salt on the outside while leaving the inside very light and fluffy – almost like mashed potatoes in their skin!
Sunday was to be our day for an expedition to El Pico de Teide. This is the enormously tall volcano at the heart of Tenerife. It is famously the tallest peak in the whole of Spain – 3717 m or 12266 feet high. Of course, about three miles out to sea and the bottom goes down over 2000 meters so it is really 5700 odd meters high. There are not many places where you can climb 12000 feet from sea level and the contrast between the subtropical coast to the desert scenery in the park is dramatic in the extreme. The temperature also drops by about ten degrees or so so you have to wrap up warm – or at least take some fleeces with you in the car.
The drive up is very vertiginous again with lots of switchbacks. The roads are very well made up and I enjoyed the drive though some found the steep drops a bit disconcerting. Of course, the road only takes you most of the way up and walking up is quite a trek though there is a cable car that goes from about 2100m to just below the summit. Sally and I were all set to take this but it was closed due to high winds. In truth it was blowing quite hard – though not at all on the coast. The usual return route is to carry on north and then drop down the road to Orotava but we elected to continue along a ridge road before coming down on the east side. This gave us good views of La Palma and Gran Canaria depending on which side of the ridge the road happened to be on. It was still cloudy lower down but at the 1900m we were at they were a long way below us.
Quite a few pictures here - mostly self explanatory:
Not sure who this ugly bloke is though!
Sadly for them, Monday was to be Pat and Sally's last day here but we made sure it was a nice one though rather lazy. Essentially, we had a classic long tapas lunch in the Punto Azul bar here in Las Galletas before taking them to catch their flight back to rainy UK. It was a great visit and really nice to catch up with them. We just wish it could have been for a bit longer.
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