28 MAY 2010 - SANTA CRUZ, TENARIFE, CANARY ISLANDS, SPAIN - BACK TO CIVILIZATION

Whenever Jim and I here of Tenerife the first thing we think of is the horrific crash of a Pan Am 747 and KLM 747 in 1977. Other than that we had no expectations of what we would find here. We were pleasantly surprised. Tenerife is owned by Spain, and it was a welcome return from third world countries. It has wide, four lane highways, it is clean and modern, and the stifling humidity was absent. We arrived to blue sky, but there were clouds hiding the mountain tops.


We rented a car and invited Brynn and Eunice to join us. The main place I wanted to visit was Teide National Park, which contains Mount Teide, a 12,000 foot dormant volcano.




We weren’t sure how much we would see because of the clouds, but headed up.



















The clouds turned out to be more of a mist, and as we drove into it we found lush green landscape. The wonderous thing was breaking through the mist, where we found the beautiful blue sky and amazing views of Mount Teide. As we drove further we could look down on the clouds, which obstructed views of the towns, but we could see the ocean.

















Around Mount Teide we found the Teide bugloss blooming. There was a cable car the went almost to the summit, but the 25 Euro fee plus the fact the clouds would obstruct most of the view helped us to decide not to go up it.
























































When we left we decided to take a different route back, which would take us up the coast, and we just enjoyed the scenery.















There are some pyramids in the town of Guimar which closely resemble the pyramids found in Central America. It cost 10,50 Euros to go in, and we only had ninety minutes before we had to be back to the ship, so we decided not to go in. However, Jim found a break in the fence and we were able to get a quick look at them.









After we returned the car Jim and I walked around the city for an hour seeing some of the sites, including the auditorio which looks like a wave.






































































It was a surprisingly beautiful day.