Tenerife - Canary Islands Rock!

We returned yesterday from a fabulous family vacation in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. It was fantastic with a full agenda (to my delight) and some moments of relaxation (to Dave's delight). Here is a synopsis and some photos of our grand vacation. For Dave's photo files, go to flickr.

Saturday - travel day. An hour and a half taxi ride to the airport. Lots of airport waiting then a 4 hour plane ride. Get the rental car and then drive a little over an hour to our Apartment in Puerto de la Cruz on the North side of the island. Check in, grab something quick to eat and go straight to bed.

Sunday - Wake up and head down a steep, long set of stairs and a steep road down to the black, volcanic rock beach near our hotel. It was gorgeous, the waves were crashing in and the water was beautiful. On later trips we would see surfers there. The kids had fun looking at the water and chasing the hordes of pigeons. We scoped out breakfast and ate outdoors, so nice. Then we trudged back up the hill and steps. Out of breath, we changed into swimsuits and hit the pool. It was a little cold for Enoch, but Hilde was like a fish, wanting to play in the water constantly. In the afternoon we went to Icod de los Vinos. There we found an outdoor cafe for lunch and were treated to a band playing there as well. They looked like mostly High School kids, and they were having fun. After lunch we headed to see the Dragon Tree, supposedly 1000 years old. In the park there we ran across peacocks just walking around in the open and lots of cool looking plants. Banana trees, papaya trees, all sorts of things. After this, we headed to the Butterfly Garden which the kids LOVED. It was small but decent and the kids were enthralled. We drove back to the hotel and then caught a taxi downtown and ate dinner. After dinner the kids played in a moonbounce where the Spanish they learned from Diego came out. The other kids were trying to climb up things and jump down things, and they were all yelling in Spanish. Lots of fun.

Monday - We woke up to a cloudy, overcast day, so we decided to make it Loro Parque day. You couldn't miss the signs for this Sea Worldesque park, they were on every single trash can in town. And it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. We saw a dolphin show, killer whale show, a white tiger and regular tiger, gorillas, panthers, lots of parrots, a pretty amazing penguin exhibit, a shark tunnel, lots of other animals, and the kids played in a nice play area. It was a win for everyone. The rest of the week we heard about Loro Parque, it was clearly a major highlight for the kids. We had a quick dip in the pool after heading home.
Tuesday - We called Tuesday relaxation day. In the morning we drove down to Santa Cruz and the "most golden beach" at Playa de las Teresitas. It is the most golden since the sand was shipped in from the Sahara Desert. This is where we started to encounter the European topless beaches. It was a lot less weird than I expected it to be. The kids didn't notice, or at least didn't say anything. Dave kept encouraging me to "internationalize" my look, but I just didn't feel comfortable with that. Although there were several pregnant ladies at this and other beaches, that had no problem wearing just a bikini bottom! Instead we spiked up Dave and Enoch's hair. There were also plenty of old guys in speedos and crazy dark tans, but we all decided that wasn't an acceptable look in our family. The kids spent the morning chasing little fish and running in and out of the water. They built a pool to try and catch the little fish and overall had a blast. When it looked like people may be getting a little too much sun, we headed back to the hotel, grabbed lunch, and put Dave in bed for a much deserved nap. Then the kids and I re-sunscreened and went to the pool. After we were done with the pool we went back to the apartment and tried to find something on tv to occupy the kids while Dave slept a while longer. Unfortunately, there were only 5 tv channels in English, and those were a movie channel with arabic subtitles, BBC news, two sports channels and a random really bad tv channel. (Bad meaning, you can't stand to watch the horrible acting, terrible stories, etc.). So for the duration of our stay in Tenerife we really only watched Sports if we watched anything at all. One sports channel was sure to be showing soccer, so you would think that we would have watched a lot of that, but NO, my kids chose, curling, snooker, golf, tennis, ANYTHING over soccer. Turns out their ultimate favorite was golf. REALLY?? GOLF?? Hilde even took to wanting to name Baby Y after names she would hear while watching golf. I am so sad..... After some quality golf, we woke Dave up and took a taxi downtown to grab what turned out to be probably our best meal on our trip. Dave ate goat and I had chicken (of course). Enoch ate fish - he had that almost everywhere we went, he LOVES fish, and Hilde had some pasta.
Wednesday - This was our exploring day. We took a long drive up El Teide, the tallest mountain in Spain. We did some walking around and looking for lizards. And we saw forests and scrub brush and crazy volcanic terrain all within a relatively short distance. At times we felt like we were on a tropical island, at times in the Rockies, at times on the moon. It was crazy and amazing. Then we went down to see Los Gigantes and grab lunch. Los Gigantes was amazingly beautiful, lunch was better left forgotten, our worst meal (and most expensive) of the trip. We did some more exploring around the island and went back to the hotel and the swimming pool.

Thursday - We decided that we needed another beach day, so we headed down to the real toursity part of Tenerife and the Playa de Las Vistas. The waves there were much bigger than the waves at the other beach we went to, so Enoch refused to get in. Instead he spent the day playing in the sand, which was just his speed. The highlight for Enoch was some Swedes who built a giant sand crocodile on the beach just down from us. Hilde and Dave spent a lot of time running in and out of the water and they both seemed to be in heaven. We ate a very late lunch at the Monkey Bar & Grill which was pretty decent and headed back to the hotel. We got cleaned up and relaxed for a while. Then we went out to dinner at a restaurant that had mini golf. The kids were in heaven, after watching golf, they were super excited to try it out. It was second on their "best things we did in Tenerife" list, just under Loro Parque.
Friday - A day of relaxing. We walked from our hotel down to the pools on the coast of Puerto de la Cruz called Lago de Martianez. It was a gorgeous day with plenty of sunshine and there was a bunch of pools for people of all shapes and sizes. None of them were heated though, so be forewarned. We spent all day relaxing and chasing the kids in the water. It was fantastic, and a perfect, lazy way to spend our last day of vacation. When done we walked around town and found the worst place to eat in Puerto de la Cruz and promptly ate there. Truly terrible.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and packed everything. We checked out of the hotel a little sad to be returning home, but looking forward to better food and comfortable beds. All in all, it was a fantastic experience. And I can't wait for our next vacation.