Mount Tiede
Lotus
Thu 5 Nov 2009 17:04
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We headed back to Santa Cruiz to hire a car and do
a bit of inland Tenerife exploration. Much of the coastal North was fairly
built up and uninspiring but as we made our way up through the mountains towards
Mount Tiede (highest point in Spain), the landscape became much more
interesting. we passed through extensive pine forests where we saw loads
of hunters with dogs in trailers desperate to blast hell out of any small
creature, these gave way to the volcanic slopes of Mount Tiede itself, a weird
and lunar like landscape, with vast areas of volcanic flow. you could
easily imagine Raquel Welch in her fur bikini being chased down
by dinosaurs in 'the land that time forgot'. Luckily we didn't
have to hunt for our own food and called into a roadside restaurant for a
delicuious lunch (well John's chicken was nice but my banana salad left the
palate wanting). We went up to the cable car station but decided against
going right to the top as it was a little busy, the 25Euros per head might have
had something to do with it too.
    Prior to picking Jim and Jo up from the airport we
popped in on Phil, Lesley and Anna in their 5star resort hotel, just to see how
the other half holiday. John was delighted to find that Phil had managed
to track down cans of Strongbow with which he could replenish stocks which had
just been exhausted, despite rationing since leaving England. I wanted to
limit his purchase to 12 cans but Lesley insisted in buying the rest of the slab
to see him well across the Atlantic.
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