Well, if my post about
Alhambra was long because I wrote so much, this one will be long for lots of pictures. I couldn't stop taking them, because it was all so pretty...and now I am one of those tourists who must show you
all most of them because I can't decide which are the prettiest. Lord help me when it comes time to print them for scrapbooks and frames!
When I'd looked at the options of the excursions for
Tenerife (in the Canary Islands, which are off the coast of Morocco, but are part of Spain), I was at first discouraged. I didn't want to get a tour of the city...I was citied out from Marseille, and the pictures looked like it was your average European city. Blah. I began reading about the options out of the city. One was a bus tour that gave a panoramic tour of the island. The other was to see a volcano.
Have I ever mentioned on the blog that I am afraid of volcanoes? No? Well, I am. Let me explain. When my family lived in Hawaii while I was in college, we went to the Big Island once for a holiday. The Big Island is all one big volcano that is still active. Constant flowing lava. You can go walk on cooled lava (that still has hot lava underneath it), and walk right up to the flowing hot lava (which moves slowly). At any point, you could step on a part of the cooled lava that isn't so cool and hardened yet, and your foot could crack through and fall into the hot lava. Bye bye foot. While seeing the lava was really cool (haha), I was absolutely freaked the entire time. I, to this day, say that was the stupidest thing I've ever done. And I've had zero desire since then, to go visit a volcano. One never knows when they'll decide to go from dormant to awake. From slowly flowing to burp! fastly flowing. No thanks.
But the pictures of
El Teide looked really pretty. Nature. No city. From what I read on the internet, it seemed like the best option for the excursions. I talked to thecamelridingcowgirl, and she signed us and her parents up to go. I figured, if I could get through the bus ride going up up up (I'm also afraid of heights, and it's the 3rd highest volcano in the world), I could survive the volcano. And well, if it erupts while I'm there...I get to be with Jesus, right?
When we arrived to the place where we were supposed to meet to get on the bus, the boat announced that due to all the rain over the previous days, there had been a major mudslide the night before and some of the busses were delayed in arriving. I found out later that the people who went on the panoramic tour couldn't see anything due to all the rain clouds, but they did see alot of the mudslide. I'm so glad I didn't sign up for that tour! The news of that mudslide had me pretty paranoid in my head during our entire bus ride...I kept praying that we'd be safe as we went up, up, up.
The bus ride up the mountain was absolutely beautiful...and oh-so-scary for me. The clouds made it to where you'd look out the window and not be able to see anything below us (probably good for me), only the trees that were right beside us. However, when we seeing the tree tops peaking above the clouds, and not the rest of the tree, I had to close my eyes and wait until thecamelridingcowgirl told me it was good to look again. I didn't take any pictures, but just concentrated on not freaking out.
Our bus stopped at a lookout and this is what we saw. The volcano!
The clouds we'd just emerged from! It was cool that we made this stop on our way to the volcano, because on the way back, those clouds had completely moved in and covered up the entire view!
Zoomed in view of the volcano El Teide.
We climbed back into the bus, and the tour guide explained that from there we would begin to see all the various rock formations from the different times that lava had flowed. This particular one we were passing they called The Birthday Cake because it looked like different layers of icing on a cake. It was so beautiful with it's different colors!
Once again I marveled at clouds. There's something so heavenly about them. When I see clouds like this, I find myself staring at them intensely wondering if I could see a glimpse of God in there.
We stopped at a cafe where a hot chocolate was included in our excursion price. I'm not a big hot chocolate fan, but since it was included, and this place was apparently known for it, I decided why not? I'm so glad I did! It was really good, and I think I may have even drank two? I bought a bar of the chocolate they used, which is just melted with milk. We'll see if it tastes as good!
At that stop, they also had some canaries in a cage, which are the only canaries I saw on the Canary Islands. I learned from the tour guide how the Canary Islands got their name: Back during Roman times, the islands had many wild dogs on them, and so the Islands were named for that:
Canariae Insulae from the Latin word for dogs,
canis. Later, when the birds on the island were discovered, they were named for the island, and that's how the birds came to be named canaries. Cool, huh?
After the pit stop, we headed over to the area called Las Canadas del Teide...where there was lots of rock formations from the lava destruction. It looked like Mars for awhile. In fact, scientists study the rocks here to learn more about the planet of Mars!!! We learned that Planet of the Apes (the original) had been filmed there, among some other films that I'd never heard of. From the bus:
I liked those two dark lines where you could see the lava had flowed:
Our first view of the formations we were headed to see:
We hopped out of the bus and had free time to walk around. Despite the abundance of tourists, I was absolutely enthralled. You can see people at the bottom right of the photo.
This is probably one of my favorite photos from the entire 2.5week trip:
This rock is called The Pregnant Bear. Can you see it?
I know the tour guide told us other names of the rocks, but I was so enthralled I don't think I actually heard him. Bad tourist syndrome, sorry.
Long before we'd gotten to this point, I'd already been glad that I suffered through the scary bus ride to get here. Honestly, the bus ride was so beautiful. (Note to future travelers: if you're prone to motion sickness, be warned!) The bus ride was worth the excursion. To say that this part of the excursion, off the bus, was gravy would be well...a gross misuse of that phrase. This was one of my favorite moments of the entire journey. I loved the natural beauty. LOVED.
Can I build a house across the way from this rock and just stare at it out my window? Oh wait...that'd put me in the path of possible lava. Never mind. Look at all those colors!!! It's called
Roque Cinchado, and is one of the largest rock formations of its kind in the world!
Tourists climbing on rocks. Fun times.
I've never been to the Grand Canyon or the Painted Desert. Maybe this looks nothing like those places, but it made me think of them! I just stared in happy bliss.
So just near this spot was a rock that was jutted out from the solid land, and from there, it dropped way down. These pictures give no depth perception to how far below us all that land is. Anyway, I saw tourists standing on the rock that jutted out, and decided...you only live once. I would ignore my fear of heights and get out to have my picture taken on that rock. I had to walk/scramble/not-quite-climb past all this:
And there I was! I told thecamelridingcowgirl later that I wished I'd had her take a picture from the side to show how that rock ledge was jutted out and I really was standing in a scary (to me) spot. Basically, if you look at the bottom right of the photo, that one corner that is lighter is the edge of the cliff, and the rest to the right of me is way below the rock I'm standing on. Don't ask me how many feet...Enough that I wouldn't even stand the two feet behind me to be on the very edge of that rock!
Me and thecamelridingcowgirl! Love that woman! So glad to be her friend and get to travel with her and her parents!!!
There was a random church out there.
On the way back into town, we passed this building that our tour guide explained used to be a prison for pirates!
Their opera house that looks like a big wave crashing down.
The water in the port looked really muddy from all the rain and mudslides that had happened. Seeing all those clouds, it was hard to believe what a beautiful day we'd experienced up at the volcano. I love how those mountains are right there by the water...so pretty!
The city of Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenrife.
The blue skies were fighting to appear!
As we were sailing out of Tenerife, despite the wind and cold, I didn't want to go back inside the boat. I thought the coastline of Tenerife was so beautiful, I didn't want to stop looking at it. Plus, this would my last glimpse of land for the next 6.5 days!
I'm glad I stayed out there, because a rainbow appeared!
I wondered what it was like to live in that small town tucked on the side of that hill, away from Santa Cruz? So peaceful!
Last small glimpse of the rainbow.
I had to play around in Photoshop with this photo to get it where you could see my face. If you look at the photo above, that's much more true to the colors that I saw, of the land and the water, than the photo below with me in it. Backlit...oh well.
As we really began to pull away from the islands, the clouds were big and bold and awesome.
Seriously! Look at those clouds rolling in. So amazing!
I think I love the Canary Islands.
One more cloud photo. Look at the ones that look like stripes in the middle of the photo, just above the islands' mountains. Wowzah!
Last view of Tenerife before I went numb and had to go back inside to warm up.
Besides going to music trivia that night (What's that Love-Movie Theme?), I can't remember what else I did that day once we were back on the boat. Maybe I took a nap and read? Since I pretty much did that every day, it seems logical to guess that's what I did that afternoon! There wasn't a performance in the theatre that night, so I know that I retreated to the room, where I was greeted by an elephant. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment