Trifter

A little more relaxed this time. One of the targets for this trip was going scuba diving. Thanks to the mild climate, diving is pleasant almost year round. In March the temperature of the water doesn’t fall under 19C or 20C and that’s the coldest in all the year. In total I did three dives in three days. I went to the south of the island, to the fishing port of Las Galletas, next to some of the best diving sites in Tenerife. In Las Galletas there are many diving centres. I chose one run by locals and where many of the divers are from Tenerife. They use a very quick off board boat like capable to carry about twenty divers each time. In those three dives we saw among many others, big groupers, barracudas, salemas, parrot fish, huge greater amberjacks, trumpet fish, tube eels, a beautiful and hard to see sea horse and some very inquisitive sting rays. Lucky drivers can see angel sharks, which are quite frequent in the area. Our deepest dive was 41m and the most shallow one 22m. dives tend to be deeper in Tenerife than in other areas, so it’s better going there already with some diving experience.

In Las Galletas there is a small market where you can buy fresh fish just taken out of the water. So fresh, that sometimes it still moves on the counter. I bought there a big salema one day that we had a special meal.

We combined the diving days with some time in the near beach of La Arena and just walking around in Los Gigantes. The beach in La Arena, just 5 minutes away by car, is a nice black sand beach. Despite the temperature was not more than 25C, because of the black colour, the sand it can get really hot. This beach is a great one to jump waves, which are often big. On the other hand the beach in Los Gigantes is lot more quiet in wave size terms, but as it is next to the cliffs there is sun there only during the second part of the day.

Day 5

This day we went to what they call the “must” of Tenerife, which is the Loro parque (Parrot park) in El Puerto de la Cruz. This is quite a peculiar zoo. Apart from the many different species of parrots living and breeding in the Loro parque, there are some really good spectacles, a nice aquarium and very well cared gardens with lots of palm trees. The four main spectacles are killer whales, dolphins, parrots and sea lions. All of them are of excellent quality. After the dolphins’ performance it was hard to convince people to leave the place as many wanted to see the dolphins a bit closer. One of the sea lions is such a good actor, that really deserves and Oscar. And it was really funny seeing a big parrot dropping a coin in a vending machine to buy a beer.

The big four storey high cylinder.

In the aquarium there is a big shark pool with a glass tunnel under it, a huge single cylindrical tank four storeys high, with hundreds of hypnotizing silvered fish swimming all together in circles, and a great penguinarium with even snow falling. Loro parque also works like a foundation helping in environmental projects around the globe. It is definitely a place that shouldn’t be missed in Tenerife. Tickets cost 30€ for adults. We arrived in the middle of the morning and spent there all the day till 6 p.m when the park closes.

Day 7

This day we visited La Orotava, the northern mountains of Anaga and Güímar. La Orotava is the north part of the island, a nice historical town, with some fine examples of Canarian architecture, lots of small palaces and elegant houses from the 15th century and onwards. I particularly liked the wooden balconies with such detailed carvings. In a way Canarian architecture remembers you America and the Caribbean.

The Anaga mountains are situated in the northern tip of Tenerife. They are geologically older than the Teide, also very stepped, crossed by tortuous little roads with great scenic views of the cliffs, very often covered with mist and topped by bay leave forests. It doesn’t rain much there, but the fog condensates on the leaves and falls to the ground creating a very humid atmosphere inside the forest.

One of the Pyramids of Gmar. Source: Wikipedia.

The last place we visited already late in the evening was the curious pyramids of G mar. There’s been much controversy about their origin, and they have the aspect of ziggurats built by Aztecs or Mayas in fact it seems they are there only since the 19th century.

Day 9

As mentioned in the first article, we went back to Gerona via Madrid. During the six or so hours we had between flights we left our luggage in a couple of lockers and went to have lunch to Barajas, which is the town next to the airport. Just a quick ride by bus to have lunch in place where you can have more home made looking food, staying away from the expensive and colourless airport food I never liked.

Despite we saw the main attraction in the island there are a lot more things that we had leave for another visit. Some more diving, a big aqua park, riding a camel, visiting the capital Santa Cruz, learning something about the original inhabitants of the islands, the Guanches, doing some hiking in Masca, a whale watching trip and many more interesting things.