Tour of Mount Teide
Trip Start
Feb 18, 2009
1
10
18
Trip End
Mar 11, 2009
Tenerife,
Canary Islands,
Spain and Canary Islands
Sunday, March 1, 2009
(for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide).
The 1/2 day took us to the mountain and we paid to go up the cable car to take us to 3500 meters above the sea. The bus was full with about 40 people picked up at other hotels. The ride took about 1 1/2 hours because we of course had to stop at a little town for the 'opportunity' to buy local crafts/souvenirs. The tour included a guide who spoke German and English (no Spanish!?)
The tour guide sounded like Steven Hawking with a German accent! In a word, he was terrible as we could barely understand him and he seemed so bored and uninterested in what he was reciting
cactus
. We did learn that the 'Canarian potatoes' are prepared by cooking in sea water which deposits the sea salt onto them giving them their unquie taste.We finally arrived and had about an hour and half to explore. At the base of the mountain, it was about 13-15 C and an altitude of 2300 m. The cable car ($25E) takes 8 minutes to travel the 1200 meters to the lookout.The views were fantastic. The temperature was -4 C at the top of the mountain but it was sunny and not too windy. Still, we only stayed about 16 minutes at the top (2 cable car trips time). There were no trails or hikes you could take at the top.
After the mountain topping cable car ride, we travelled to another viewpoint where there are volcanic rock formations sticking out of the ground called 'pipes'. The soil around them had eroded away, leaving the pipes sticking up from the surrounding landscape. Again, great views.One other stop was at the last volcano to erupt on the island in 1909. The lava flows were much darker thena the surrounding ground and no vegetation had taken hold yet. We had 1 more stop where we had the 'opportunity' again to buy stuff such as catus berry jam and spreads. We didn't. And then we arrived back to the resort area but it took an hour to deliver all the other people to their hotels before we arrived at ours. While I loved the views, next time we would book a private van or a smaller tour group so we could have more time exploring the landscape and not local stores
cable car
. We were starving by this time (3pm) so we stopped at one of the myriad of British style cafes/pubs/restaurants that occupy Los Cristianos. But the half chicken with roasted AND mashed potatoes and peas/carrots and cabbage covered in gravy was good ($7E). And a pint was only 1.5E. Everyone was watching some very important soccer match on the telly at all the bars and most of the shops were closed because it's Sunday.
Andy has picked up a bit of a cough/cold ( he thinks from a woman who coughed on him at the Tenerife SUR airport) so we walked down the boardwalk to locate a pharmacy and buy him some drugs. Plus his 1 ear is plugged from the attitude shift we experienced today. He can only hear out of 1 ear.
Because of this, we didn't go out for dinner and I picked up some ear drops for him and Burger King (the horrors!). I'm sure after a nite's sleep, he'll feel better.
Along the boradwalk, we again saw the "Ghost of Manolo'. He's a 'street performer', in the loosest sense of the concept. It's a guy who sits on the beach in a ghost costume (a potatoe sack with the eyes cut out) surrounded by a small 3/4 meter high cardboard castle. And he makes 'ghostly sounds and phrases' in a very weird voice. It's more humorous than pathethic than it sounds...really...Dale gives him a coin each time we see him.
