A Canarian Adventure

Day 1

Di-di-di-di ... di-di-di-di ...

Gawd! It's twenty to five in the morning, it's dark, it's raining, why am I awake now? Oh, yes, our Tenerife adventure begins this morning. Up and out of bed, a shower, the last couple of slices of Hedgehog Bakery bread in the toaster, generously spread with the dregs of a jar of 2017 Seville orange marmalade, and I'm ready to go - after a quick coffee made by Mrs T.

Through the dark wind and rain to Bournemouth Airport, the rain easing off as we approach, park up and hurry across the terminal. Boarding on time, and we're off. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Four Way Street on my modified iPod (400GB of flash memory, lossless flac files). Chicago plays as we taxi to the runway and thunder off into the sky, and I wonder what happened to the idealism of the Sixties as I ponder the current political situation in the USA.

Half past nine, I'm wandering back to my seat from the forward toilet, and wondering at the passengers drinking whiskey and beer - I still need coffee at this time of day!

The playlist, for anyone who's interested, was Four Way Street, Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (2009 remaster), Bande Originale (the download for crowd-funders of the current Swing Out Sister project), and the excellent case/lang/veirs CD from last year. This was my first flight using my new Sennheiser Momentum noise cancelling headphones, so I was interested to know how they would compare to the Bose phones I've used for a few years. In a nutshell, far superior. There is none of that pressure feeling in the ears when the Bose noise cancellation is in operation and the sound is, as expected, astonishingly good. The Bose phones tended to leave a trace of chattering people but the Momentum kills that completely - I am impressed and feel the expense well justified.

Tenerife comes into view, well Mount Teide does, its summit poking out of the cloud and we are soon on the ground. A quick bus transfer to the terminal, our baggage arrives quickly, and we're on the bus to Los Cristianos. The hotel is superb, but so far all we've done is nibble a sandwich for lunch and wander along the prom. Off to supper now!

The view towards our hotel as we walked back for supper.

Day 2

Checking out the area, walking along the prom to Playa de Las Vistas. Totted up 16,000 steps on my Samsung Gear, so more active than expected!














Day 3

Day trip to La Gomera. Across on the 8am ferry and a good tour of the island ensued. From San Sebastian up the GM-2 into the heart of the Garajonay national park. Astonishing changes of scenery from the classic bare scrub of the lowlands, much like Tenerife, to the rain forest at high altitude in Garajonay. The changes were almost instant as we passed through certain altitudes, almost as if there had been a scene change! Lunch was provided at Restaurante Las Rosas on the GM-1 heading towards the north coast, where we also had the pleasure of a comprehensive demonstration of the Gomeran whistling language. We then wound our way back to San Sebastian along the GM-1, passing the beautiful village of Agulo along the way.



Day 5

Whale and dolphin watching trip. We encountered a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins within 20 minutes of leaving to port at Puerto Colón aboard the Royal Delfin. These are occasional visitors to this part of the world so we were honoured to see them. I was lucky to grab a pretty good piece of video. 

https://vimeo.com/206546211

Day 6

Teide by Night bus tour

Sunset over La Gomera.