On Saturday we planned an excursion with the hotel, we were to take a bus all around the island, mainly the north as we had been south the entire time. We had to get up at 6:30 a.m. to get on the bus by 7:30 a.m., and we did it!! Jet lag 2, Groggers 1!! We waited for the bus, and honestly thought it wasn't coming and or we missed it, when the big red bus came flying around the corner. We got on the bus, excited for the day. After almost an hour of picking up other tourist, we stopped for snacks and bathroom breaks in a small village called Adeja.
Once we were nourished and relieved, we got back on the bus...in the same seat, that was the rule, and continued on our way. A little boy on the bus was a type 1 diabetic so I wanted to tell him I worked to help him, but didn't want him to think I was a crazy diabetes lovin' American, so I just talked to him under my breath like the creeper I am. Anyway, so we drove for about a half hour before we got to the National Park of Mt. Teide, which is the highest peak in all of Spain. The volcano erupted for something like 97 days straight back in the 1700s I think (I'm not the best at paying attention to these things). Our tour guide, who by the way did the entire tour in Spanish, English and German, told us the temperature around the volcano could change 15 degrees Celsius in an hour once the sun goes down, that's like 30 degrees Fahrenheit...wild!
After Mt. Teide, we went on our way. We drove through a small cute little town, Orotava, a small wine making town. People had grape vines right in their backyards, so lucky!
Our next official stop was in Icod de los Vinos. This is site to the famous Dragon Tree which is said to be thousands of years old. They call it The Dragon Tree because like dragons, the tree can not be explained. It was pretty cool looking to say the least. We were also able to go to La Casa del Drago and do a liquor and wine tasting. That was pretty interesting, it was either white or red since they don't have all the variety, and then a banana liquor that seriously tasted like a banana runt. Very strong and strange. We spent some time in there, it was like a shop with lots of little things to buy so we bought a cookbook to bring Tenerife home with us! 
There was a church across the street so we went into there, Church of San Marcos. It was amazingly beautiful. After we left, we went in town a bit for lunch. We sat on this cute little patio looking over the town. In the stairwell of the restaurant there were photos of the waves basically consuming the little city we were in, so they put concrete blocks in the ocean to try and calm the waves. The water was amazing.
So after lunch we piled back into the bus and headed to Masca, I must admit I fell asleep on this ride, but thankfully, because it was a tiny road with lots of turns, I'm sure I would have been the girl throwing up in the bus, which would have only given us Americans a bad name. Masca is the most under developed area of the island, not many live there, so it's pretty natural compared to other parts of the area that have been humanified. We stopped and had to get two beers since the bathrooms were not free and then got back on the bus to start heading back.
Our last stop was Los Gigantes to take photos, by this time all the people from their respected countries had sort of become friends, Ryan and I being the only Americans just had each other, not a friend to find... :)
The ride back was tedious, I think it took almost 2 hours to drop everyone off, quite exhausting.
Once we got back to the hotel we got ready for dinner. I had wanted to go to this Dabda place we had walked by a few times, I mean honestly it was our very important one week anniversary, we had to do something nice! We hit the town and headed off to Dabda, we had to wait until 9 to eat as they had a packed house, so we sat on the patio and had some wine. For dinner I just had tapas, as that was in the name of the place I figured it was their specialty. Ryan had a real meal which he thought was amazing. Ryan got coffee to try and fit in with everyone else, and we ordered tiramisu which was delicious. The highlight of the night I think for Ryan was the roof top bar at the hotel was finally open. We went upstairs, had a drink, and then hit the hay. Quite an adventurous day for the Groggers!! 
No comments:
Post a Comment