Canary Islands

Islas Canarias – The Canary Islands. NOT named after the little yellow bird and not pronounced that way. “The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Islands of the Dogs”, a name applied originally only to Gran Canaria.” Most people pronounce it Cannery as in a fish cannery.

Lanzarote, Canary Island 7th October – must admit I had done ZERO research into what the Canary Islands would be like. But this is not what I was expecting. The whole chain is volcanic and had over the millennium developed into amazing beaches and loveliness. But Lanzarote was totally devastated in the 1700 by two massive volcanoes.
The beach area is lovely with yellow sand, fancy holiday units, lovely shopping avenues filled with cafes etc.

ALL of the buildings are white – except the few rebels. It is mandated that building must be white. You can paint another colour but must pay a large fine.

On the water front was an old fort. Pretty. There as a long stone bridge out to it. And I was so excited to walk across a draw bridge. A real draw bridge. How cool.

I then jumped into a taxi with a couple from the lounge and headed off. 85 Euro for about 3 hours.
We saw the volcano was the main attraction of the island so off we went. We drove past a cycling shop – and Doc is an avid cyclist – so we stopped for him to do some shopping. He didn’t care what he got…as long as it was something different.

This was not a ‘sweet / pretty’ lava flow like what I saw in Hawaii with lovely beds of poured toffee as far as the eye can see.

This was the most massive explosion. Giant rocks thrown many many kilometres from the mountain. most of the island is under 2.5 metres of ash.

Today, I may as well have been on Mars the landscape was that foreign. I expected Matt Damon to come driving around the corner in his nuclear powered vehicle as in The Martian. (and that would have made me happy).

The main area is just the sharpest, most rugged rock you have seen. Piled high. Savage.

It must have been something like the explosion of Yellowstone in the movie 2012.
Once in the Timanfaya National Park, you hop into a bus and do a 40 minute drive around.

The road surface is amazing – best surface I have even been on. Amazing – but wouldn’t like to be on it with some spilt oil. But he road is too steep, twisty and treacherous to let the public drive on it.

I spent 40 minutes flipping between jaw hanging open in amazement to some of the most amazing stuff i have seen – to flashes of horror to what it must have been like in those 4 years where this beast kept spewing its evilness.

The caldera / crater has to be among the most perfect there is.

Back at the visitors centre was an outdoor BBQ – a hole in the rocks.

There was an indoor chimney where they have build a wall around it and cook the meals over it.
Amazing. The guide handed me a handful of small pebbles. I dropped them like a hot potato – was not expecting them to be that hot!
They had put pipes down, and would prime the geyser by putting some water in. Then whooooosh, with a ground rumble and up it spouted.
Further away from the mountains the land has been tamed a bit. The rocks thrown there are much smaller – basketballs to wheelbarrows and have been put to use. Everything is build with them. Houses, walls. roads etc.

The wine industry is interesting.
The island has an extremely savage climate. Hot. Rain maybe four times and year and huge winds.
The old volcanic soils incredibly rich….but is buried below 2 1/2 metres of ash. And don’t forget the wind.

So how do you grow grapes??? You make a horseshoe wall of rocks. Then you dig down 2 1/2 metres to the rich soil and plant one vine. Any rain will be trapped and directed down to the plant, the plant is protected form the wind and has a huge layer of mulch aka ash on top. Farmer then tends the ash pile and hopes for rain.
There is no irrigation as the local drink bottled water all year. And desalination for other personal uses. Many of the young plants have a dripped bottle of a five litre water bottle.
Amazing. And the wine was nice. White only – which I think is as it should be.

Fantastic day!

Gran Canaria – 7th October
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – is the main city on the island of Gran Canaria. Gran Canaria means Large island of the Dogs.
The shield represents the wild dog population that lived here – holding up the seven mountains to represent the volcanos and the seven main islands.

It has an almost endless Spring climate ranging from 15 – 28 degrees.
The Canarii – Berber Aborigines lived here since around 100BC. Europeans conquered the island in 1483 by Spain. Took them over 100years to take control.
Christopher Columbus spent time at Las Palmas on his way to be the first European to discover the Americas. It then became an important stopping off point for travellers going to the new world – and also had a large Pirate problem.
Today I went for a ride on the Hop on, Hop bus and saw the sights. Different to yesterday. Las Palmas is a major city with all the mod cons and is a resort town. This is one of the places the Europeans flock to for the beaches. Apparently this is the best urban beach in the world!

The whole place is very pretty.
Lovely old building and many modern ones. Parts of the original town wall have survived.

Careful what you wish for! You don’t know what’s coming. Bet they don’t think that now.
I went to theCathedral of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Built in 1500. Pretty grand.

And then walked around the many lovely streets and alleys. For some reason the town is crazy for Octoberfest. Guess its because there are so many tourists! I had to work hard to find some Tapas. It was all Kransky and Pork Knuckle. And of course steins of beer served by men in lederhosen, and ladies in little skirts. I worked out that it is because they have such huge numbers of German tourists.

And then went down to the beaches for a look. Lovely. But couldn’t get any Churros – as it’s a breakfast food. Also available in the evenings. But at least I walked lots.

I saw a man taking his sheep to the beach. Yep – a sheep. And it was not on a lead. Just following him.

Also saw a man washing his clothes. All his clothes!

A lovely day in a stunning place.

Tenerife – 8th October
Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands, and is known as the “Island of Eternal Spring” (Isla de la Eterna Primavera). It has a tropical climate ranging from 18-28! It is dominated by Mt. Teide – a dormant volcano – Spain’s highest peak. Mt Teide is snow covered in winter and has about 1 metre of cover.
The island is like a cone. Seaside with lovely beaches, both white and black sand. Then all the land climbs steeply up to Mt. Teide in the middle. Half way up is a huge ring of pine forrest circling the whole thing.

The pine is a native pine – Pinus Canarienus and has really long needles in bunches of three. This pine shoots after fire and is one of the most fire-resistant conifers in the world. SO WHY does Australia – that regularly burns down, grow Radiata not Canary Island Pine?????
The island has an amazing biodiversity of plants with many only found here. Some of the great ones include the Canary Island Dragon Tree – a huge tree that is mainly amazing trunks with a crown of foliage on top, and Tenerife Bugloss – a flowering plant that grown to 3 metres on a wiry looking spike – I saw the dried spikes.

Today I went on a tour with a group from cruise critic. Used Spaindaytours.com again and it was great. Only problem was it was a short day in Tenerife – so that meant an early start. A really early start.
Ship docked at 7am – tour at 7.30. When I got up to the Diamond Lounge (the one with windows), to have breakfast it was pitch dark.
Oh dear…I had messed up the times and it must have been 5 am. BUT no…it was 7 and it was very dark. So down I went and off the ship. I was the first off! Haven’t done that before…but we were leaving very early. We all arrived and off we went.
First stop was a lookout – amazing view but although it was light the sun still wasn’t up.

At the second stop they had the local drink – Barraquito. A coffee with condensed milk, steamed milk topped with cinnamon and an added shot of some liqueur. And since I have been trying all the local fare, I though I would give it a go. It was surprisingly nice. After I stirred it. Sweet but nice.

We then travelled through the pine forest. We were up very high now and the sun had risen and started to heat things up. A massive front rolled in from the sea and look away the land below us. We were is bight sunlight looking down at a solid wall of fog/cloud. Sensational. Spooky. Amazing.

And we climbed higher and higher. And higher. Soon we were higher then Australia. (Kosciuszko is 2228m). We were at 2250 – and no where near the top. The top of Mt Teide is 3718m.
The landscape was amazing. Much redder then Lanzarote.

When the lava surfaces some of it had a chemical reaction with air and turned green. A moss green colour.

Of course they like to name many of the rocks. But “The Flower” rock was very cool.

As was ‘The Cake’. The strata levels were amazing.

The hunters were out today. Sunday and Thursdays are legal hunting days. They hunt mouflon and rabbit. Both introduced for hunting and now doing major damage to the sensitive environment. No shooting in the park – so rabbit hunting only. They hunt with dogs and ferrets. Ibizan Hounds. A tall rangy dog like a big whippet. They are a site hound and love to chase. The ferrets flush the rabbits and the dogs do the rest.

We saw the Mt Teide Observatory, one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world and is one of the three best places in the world for observations. It is currently the largest solar observatory in the world.

Then down to La Guarana for a visit to the lovely Old Town.