Tenerife Part 3

Another day in the car exploring the island.  I'm sticking to the green, wild north side today, I learned my lesson yesterday.  My first destination of the morning was the picturesque mountain village of Masca, located at the furthest west point of all those green squiggles.  It's set in an incredibly steep gorge, and was incredibly remote up until 13 years ago when the first road to the village was finally built.  My reading warned me that the "narrow road can be hairy" with blind, steep curves (ergo=green squiggles) and "can be packed, come early or late".  I have to say, I do have some experience driving curvy, steep, narrow roads but I do get worried about other drivers who don't!  So I had an early-by-Spanish-standards start of 8:30am and reached the start of this newest motoring adventure by 9:30am.  I was lucky to have only 3 cars coming up in the other direction to get around and the sun hadn't yet made it over the pass so in the end it wasn't too overly harrowing.

Heading back to the south coast

Overlooking part of the road to Masca

I made it! Masca!

Looking back at the valley Masca is in

The setting was stunning, the village charming, but I was a bit antsy about traffic and I didn't relish returning the same way I came like a little minnow trying to fight its way upstream, so I took a few snaps and headed on up and out thru the far side of the gorge.

Okay, so I beat the hordes of tourists at Masca but I could not outrace the wind. It was raging up at this elevation! I tried to stop at a viewpoint to take the next photo but my little Fiat was literally rocking back and forth and I was truly scared that it was going to be flung out over the precipice! So I drove a few hundred feet further and stopped in the (empty) oncoming lane of traffic where I felt safer! ;-)

What are those big scars in the little hill? I drove right by them, so someone was digging something out but what? And why so neatly spaced?

After such an exciting morning the rest of my planned stops seemed a bit tame - to see a 1000 year old tree and some seaside swimming pools built out of volcanic rock.  The weather over here was dark and cloudy and I thought: wouldn't it be lovely to stop driving, return the car, and have a long leisurely lunch back in Puerto? So I did!



And that was yesterday.  Today I'm flying back to Madrid, then tomorrow back home to the desert. ¡Qué gran viaje ha sido!

Tenerife Part 2

Day 1 of my two day driving tour of Tenerife.  There was a little kiosk right outside my hotel so I rented a little Fiat Panda and set off up into the mountains!  I couldn't see Mt. Teide from my hotel room so I wasn't sure what the conditions would be like on top but as it's extremely high and one of the best astronomical viewpoints in the world, I anticipated I'd end up being above the clouds and in the bright, clean high air.

I outlined in blue my route on the map above and you can see the squiggles I had to deal with on the way up, dozens and dozens of hairpin curves.  I started to feel a bit nauseous - and that's pretty rare when you're the one doing the driving!  I was right (and alright) in the end, as I progressed up from the tropical seafront to pine forests, then through the misty cloud layer and up into the startling clear air on the volcanic plateau that formed the National Park of Mt. Teide.

Cooled volcanic basalt columns that had been turned sideways at some point during their formation and 'burst' open to form this flower shape. Pretty neat.

The volcano is still active though it hasn't had a major eruption in a hundred years or so. Evidence of the different flows can been seen in the different colored rocks and shapes of the flows

Can't really see but over my left shoulder there's a cable car that goes up to almost the top of the volcano, from 2356m to 3,555m (top is 3718m)

Heading over and down the other side of the park to the south end of the island.

I have to say, the bicyclists around here are legendary!  I saw dozens riding the roads up to Teide - this has got to be at least 20-30 miles going UP without any relief, and UP to the tune of 6500'+!  And then another 20-30 miles DOWN the same hairpin curves.  In fact, one lady cyclist passed me, passed me while I was driving my car!  Incredible.



Just as I reached the ocean I stopped for a photo op overlooking Los Gigantes and their famous sea cliffs. It's supposed to be pleasant and peaceful with a good selection of English bars (so says TripAdvisor) but I wasn't hungry or thirsty so I turned left to continue driving down to the South bit of the island.  Remember, the south is the touristy side.  So much so that I couldn't bear to stop: people, cars, hotels.  Besides, my ankle was getting a bit cranky from working a stick-shift for so long so I headed to the highway and did a drive-by of the whole rest of my route.  Barren, arid, dry, windy. Just like home! Ha!  I don't even have any photos to share as nothing seemed photogenic.

Class Is Dismissed!

My four weeks of Spanish language studies are over! Here's another picture of my fellow students along with our long-suffering morning professor, Pablo.  I've definitely learned a lot in the last month but still have a lot of vocabulary and tenses to learn before I can actually carry on a conversation but I've enjoyed it and it was good to stretch those old brain cells a bit.  I coincidentally booked my departure for the afternoon of the final exam so I had the pleasure of cramming for 3 days and taking a 2-hour test...it's been decades since I've had to do that!  I've no idea how I did, as I'm missing Friday's class, I'm hoping Pablo will email me my grade!


The school offered activities every afternoon: paella-making lessons, a trip to an modern art museum, an interchange with English/Spanish students, etc. I ended up studying most afternoons but one activity I really enjoyed was a bike tour along Salamanca's river.


I'm not sure why this elephant is doing a headstand but I walk by it every day on the way to and from school and it never fails to make me smile.


The morning of my final exam I walked by this statue, the Struggling Student and Patient Teacher? I know how the poor guy feels....


Salamanca is full of students and tapas bars. This vegetarian cafe became a favorite of mine and my classmates. Cheap, excellent food, and lots of veggies which often seems hard to find in Spanish restaurants, unless you consider french fries a vegetable...but just at these tapas offerings!


Just a certificate of attendance, not a diploma but I know I'm ready to tackle Level A2 and the Past Tense now!!



Good-bye Salamanca! I'm on the express bus to Madrid where I'll spend the night before flying out to Tenerife tomorrow. The Canary Islands belong to Spain so hopefully I'll be able to practice my new language skills a little!

Week Two In Salamanca

Me, Mary, and Elena enjoying our 2nd out of 3 tapas bars on Calle Van Dyck, a street full of bars & restaurants

A new week meant a new student and a new roommate!  First was Elena, knocking on my bedroom door last Sunday night at 11:30pm asking what time was I going to use the shower in the morning...= my new housemate.  She had just arrived from Germany and was here for a week to do her practical for becoming a Spanish language teacher.  Born in Argentina she's obviously fluent in Spanish and has been taking private students at home in Germany but she'd like to get into her state's education system as a part-time instructor, ergo her visit to my school in Salamanca.  You'd think I'd have taken advantage of living with a Spanish instructor to do a little extracurricular practice but we clicked so well we spent every lunch and dinner together chatting away about everything and anything in English!

And Mary joined my school class last Monday- she's from North Carolina, an International Relations student who needs a foreign language for her upcoming degree. She'll be here for a total of ten weeks.  She has far more background in Spanish studies than I but in our own way we each have problems getting our mouths to spit out what we think want to say so we've signed up for some additional conversation classes with our morning professor, Pablo.  He's very gentle with us, and obviously knows what we've been trying to learn, so we hope he can coax us to make some coherent sentences, if not phrases, during our sessions.

This makes a good segue! I decided to stay two more weeks here in Salamanca.  There was a special at the school, pay for 3 weeks of study and get a 4th week free.  I wasn't really feeling that I'd learned a huge amount already, enough that I'd actually remember some of it, and I was so close to learning the Past Tense (it's very frustrating to try to only talk in the Present!) that I delayed my plans to visit the Canary Islands to stay here longer.  I'll have to move apartments next weekend as 15 members of the bride/my flatmate's family are coming to stay, but that's no big deal. Perhaps the next apartment will be quieter and cleaner! :-)

I was going to publish some pics of Salamanca but instead here are some photos of last Saturday's day trip to Avila, a small city famous for its town walls, the most complete in Europe I believe and 2.5 kms in circumference. One could walk exactly half way around, which I did, but as you can see from the photos, the weather was iffy and it was cold! I shivered most of the day.

A poor photo as it was taken through the train window as we were slowing down from 152kms/hour! But it's a good indication of the town walls..

Every city has its cathedral. This one was built with its back end right into the town walls, for protection most likely, but without a large square in front so it was hard to get an image of its scale...

As well, every Spanish city has its Plaza Mayor, Avila's little one was nice, but less impressive than the larger cities

A little noontime refreshment - a little 'bite' to accompany the beer, 2€ in total

With lots of churches to look at I'm glad I chose this one. Not always impressed to pay an entrance fee to see a church but 3€ included the audioguide and the $ goes to preservation

For example, this shows the martyrdom, then the accuser repenting after the trio die and go to heaven. Hard to miss that message that you might get it wrong sometimes....

Everyone's seen the inside of a church before so I'll highlight this Sepulchre which I thought was pretty unique. Built in renaissance times its frieze panels tell the story of the brother & his 2 sisters who were martyred here in quite graphic detail, but it's the literalness and intense coloring of the figures that got me. And carved what, 600 years ago?!

Wonder what the bored 3rd Wise Man on the right was thinking....!

 There's lots to see and do in Salamanca and many scenic towns a short bus ride away so I won't be bored while studying here!

A "Student" Once Again...

I've been a very dedicated little student this week, spending every afternoon and evening after class studying my Spanish.  I was not put into a pure Beginners class, as expected/hoped, but into a "A1+" class which was already finishing up Chapter 7 of the textbook(!), so I have a lot to catching up to do.
There's 5 of us in the class: one each from England, Holland, Japan, and a lady I met at the registration desk who's also from Southern California and who's just finished a Camino!   We're taking Spanish Immersion, so it's supposed to be conducted wholly in Spanish but I'm afraid I tend to insist on some explanation in English when I'm totally confused.  Luckily everyone speaks perfect English so I don't feel too selfish taking up the instructors' time :-)

We have classes from 10am - 2pm with a half hour break in the middle which is ideal.  I have time to do my last-minute homework in the morning, and we finish at the perfect time for a long, large lunch which is so popular here in Spain.  The route I take from my apartment to school is right on the main pedestrian shopping street which runs from one end of the historic center to the other and is lined with bars and restaurants and gourmet food shops so I'm spoiled for choice.




My apartment is ideally located on a small square, surrounded by car-free streets and with a large Carrefour supermarket just 50m away.  My bedroom window looks out into a huge maple tree with a church beyond so I've a peaceful view, much better than the other bedrooms that stare right into the school classrooms opposite.

Add caMy building is to the right of the picture, you can just see the green of my maple(?) tree

The girls I live with are friendly and they've had a massive cleanup of the apartment as they hosted a Bachelorette party last night for one of the flatmates who's getting married at the end of the month. I took some pictures of them while they were prepping for the party and they knocked on my door at 11:15pm asking if I wanted to join them but as they were practising for going out to a Karaoke bar later, I graciously declined.

The girls were "stewardesses" and they had a "pilot's" costume for the Bride-To-Be!

The Chinese student moved out Saturday so I had huge scrub-down of our bathroom and am no longer afraid to go barefoot in there or touch the walls of the shower. I'll have to set some cleanliness rules with the next lodger I share with!

Salamanca is a wonderfully vibrant city that's full of young people due to its two universities and countless language schools.  There's lots to offer tourists too: cathedrals, squares, shopping and cafes. It's all astonishingly clean and in good repair, as if all the old buildings have recently been power-washed so their soft golden stonework glows brightly.  That'll be the topic for my next blogpost - Salamanca's sights!

Day 6-8: Traveling To Salamanca

I flew from the Madeiras back to Porto, where I had two nights before heading over to Salamanca where I'll spend just over two weeks. I've been suffering a bit from a gimpy groin pull (what else?!!) so I stayed close to my Porto hotel and caught up on old episodes of Lewis and Vera on TV.  Luckily few shows are dubbed here, unlike Spain, just subtitled, so I had quite the number of crime dramas to choose from!  I've no idea what church that is pictured above but it was right outside my Metro station and it's the only picture I took in Porto!

There isn't a direct way to get to Salamanca from Porto, the easiest was a one transfer bus ride: Porto-Viseu, Portugal; Viseu-Salamanca.  If any of you have taken a long-distance bus ride in Europe, I'm sure you'll agree that it is no hardship - comfy chairs, wifi on board, toilet (if you dare), and my 2nd leg even included a free 3-course buffet lunch! No kidding! We pulled into gas station/rest stop and the driver passed out vouchers and said we'd be here 40 minutes.  That seemed like an outrageously long bathroom break but it turned out the voucher was for a meal so we all trooped off, stood in line and had a nice repast.  Not bad for 40€.

The 'why' re: spending 2 weeks in Salamanca is that I registered for a Spanish Immersion language class.  I've been taking a once-weekly class during the winter and I thought I'd try to keep up with it, if not improve it and Salamanca apparently has one of the more neutral accents in Spain.  I opted to share an apartment with other students but after being shown my apartment I'm not so sure that was necessarily the best choice.  There's 5 of us altogether, 3 are full-time university students (female), and the other is a Asian-Russian male with one week left at my Spanish school who seems to not want to do his share of cleaning.  Not that I could tell that anyone cleaned at all.... At least my room was spotless, if basic.



After a run to the grocery store I tackled the kitchen counters, cabinets and sink and my shelf in the fridge; then my shared bathroom (with Fei, the Asian guy).  I'll leave the living room to the girls, they've been here almost a year and if that's how they want to live; "hay no problema", I've lots of room in my little room.