I got to meet a really cool Chicharro (that’s what they call the people from Tenerife in Spain) when I was in Thailand. We both did the kitesurf instructors course together. Since then, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to come down to the island in the sun to meet up and kite at the world famous el medano! Now was the time.
After a jumpy 3 hour flight I made it to the airport in the north of Tenerife where I had rented a car. Aha, so that was why they were so cheap, I had to ride a freaking bus to get to their offices together with some other pissed off clients. Anyhow, I got out my Fiat Panda, the car that all the big and bad people drive and headed down south.
Yeah! After some initial confusion we found out that the hotel we agreed to meet in front of had two establishments. Once home, we went out to have some Kung Pao Chicken at the local chinese restaurant.
To the left, the cat of the house, to the right, the house.
Actually this was not Carlos, a friend of his lent it to him as he had a temporary job down in the south.
This is the break that you can see from the terrace of the apartment. Not bad at all! It was a pleasure to sit in the sun, having your breakfast and watch the guys go at it.
T-shirt in December. Man, that was just the best sensation after Barcelona starting to get a bit chilly and rainy. Check out my ridicoulusly big sunglasses! I forgot to bring my real ones as the weather had been a bit crappy in Barcelona, so I had to use my surf-specs.. Haha!
Carlos surf board, which previously occupied the second bed, now had to move so that I had somewhere to sleep, hehe :-)
The cat really liked my surf shorts
Most of the days started with some “gofio” for breakfast before heading out. Typical in the canaries.
Typical scenery from Tenerife, there were a lot of cool places to explore along the roads in this really rocky landscape.
No wind. What to do? Let’s go to the water park! The life vests were a bit small :-)
Floating around in this fake river was quite nice change after running around in Barcelona with my winter coat.
The river continued underneath a big aquarium with sharks. pretty cool!
The place had its own pool with artificially generated waves, actually surfable! Really really cool!
Apart from this there were actually some rides that could make you crap your pants. Take a look at the guy at the top of the slider. It was a quite an adrenaline kick to ride this one. Meeting girl in her twenties in tears, shaking her head and repeating “I can’t do it” on the way up made me respect this thing..
Carlos day job in the rip-curl shop consisted in two things. Selling clothes, and playing angry birds.
Finally, the forecast promised some wind in el medano.
But no, even the guys with foil kites had serious problems. Anyways, we pumped up the 12 and jumped around a bit in the sand. Here’s Carlos.
And here I am. Optimistic enough to put the wetsuit on, just in case the wind would go up a bit.
In the night we went out in the tourist getto of las americas. Geez.. Watered down drinks, english dudes in their 50ies picking fights, and hearing 4 songs at the same time from different bars. Anyways, had to try it.
The day after we got up relatively early and headed for Masca and el Teide, the volcano in the middle of Tenerife. Some breakfast accompanied by the worst coffee I had in months at a bar on the way…
This is what it looks like. Green mountains and winding roads.
This is Masca. A small village amongst the hills.
This is what it looks like from one of the streets
This is what the landscape looked like going up the hill. Fantastic. Gren pine trees amongst the volcanic rock, like in a fantasy movie.
Well up on the plateau the landscape changed to be a desert just like in a western movie
Practically two animals live up here feeding off the dry bush. Rabbits and mountain goats.
I expected Zeb Macahan come around the corner any minute.
Looking down the mountain you could see the sea of clouds, as the clouds were just around 1500 meters above sea level
This is also why there’s an important observatory placed here, as they get above the cloud level.
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