Tenerife gets a bad rap

Karinya
Tim And Vicki Schofield, Captain Cal 7 and Jess 4
Sat 2 Oct 2010 10:36
Hi All
 
Tenerife if you do the "tourist thing" is marginal, however exploring the island with local knowledge uncovers a beautiful island. The first day we went up the highest mountain in Spain, a long winding route through the forest/ tree line up to the volcanic area and down to La Cruz. Really interesting the diversity of the island, 1 minute we hot coastal, cool forest, freezing in the cloud level, then hot on the volcano level reversing on the return.
The following day we went to South and West of the island. The roads were magnificent, made Chapman's peak in South Africa look somewhat tame. Hundreds of hairpin bends with 1000 ft sheer drops into gulleys and down to the sea. The area reminded me of the "valley of spears" in the Drakensberg, if you could imagine that with a 1 lane road winding through it, you get the picture.
Yesterday was a kids treat day, we went to Aqualand in the heart of tourist ville! The kids loved the day going down all the slides etc, I spent time looking at heads in the pool and guessing which bodies would be covered in tattoos when the emerged from the water. I got really good at it, but had the odds on my side as 95% of the clientele had tattoos.
 
We went to the dolphin show, which was actually quite good. Cal got chosen from the crowd to ride on a kayak while one dolphin pushed it and the others dived over him, then he got to kiss the dolphins afterwards. That made his year!
 
Today we are cleaning the boat, then off to laGomera for a few days. After that we off to La Palma where the hiking, caving etc is supposed to be spectacular.
 
By the way, we are receiving very few emails, if we don't hear from you we will ban you from the blog!
 
 
Sydney?  No copy in Santa Cruz
 
Kids in the tree/cloud line
 
 
So starnge, above volcanic hot blue skies, below semi cloudy hot, in freezing no visability....ok maybe not that strange, just what happens in clouds
 
Above the cloud line on the highest mountain in Spain
 
This gives you a view of the road we travelled
 
A town hanging of the cliffs
 
Weneed to scan the picture of Cal in the Kayak, will do soon