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| Coming into port in Tenerife, Canary Islands |
Our next port city was the very next day in the Canary Islands - Saturday
morning, April 7th, when we arrived into Santa Cruz
de Tenerife. This island is in the Canary islands, just off the western
coast of Africa (yet they belong to Spain). The Canary islands are a group of 7 islands of volcanic origin about 100km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. Legally, the canary islands are regarded as a nationality of Spain, but are geographically considered part of the African continent. Which means, this semester, I successfully made it to the African continent! :)
This stop was on the largest island, Tenerife. Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the capital of the island, but we didn't stay in the city for long! This is because Tenerife is home to one of the world's most visited National Parks: Teide National Park. The park is centered around Mount Teide, which is regarde as the highest peak in Spain and the Atlantic Islands, as well as the 3rd highest volcano in the world, with 3,718m (or 12,198 ft).
We took another
excursion to visit the national park as well as Mount Teide.
The drive was quite long from the port because Teide is located centrally on
the island, but it was definitely worth it. We drove so high, we were
above the clouds, and because of that, when looking out, you could see a vast
sea of white, cotton-ball clouds with green pine trees.
There’s was something really touching about being there, because these were all
natural creations that we were seeing. It's been a while since I've been completely surrounded by nature...and it sure felt good to get out of cement city and back into some greenery for a bit!
Since Mount Teide is a volcano, within the national park we were able to see the lava flows from previous
eruptions and where they stopped. It was a really neat area, since I have never seen a volcano before, I was completely amazed at the characteristics of the area - from the vegetation, to the coloring of the rocks, to the cold temperatures. I learned that since we were so high up, there were 2 observatories built on the side of Mount Teide (okay, so we weren't completely out of man made creations). Which makes sense, being so high we were away from light pollution and closer to the atmosphere levels, giving astronomers a better look at the stars!
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| What a sight that would be! |
Also, since we were so high up, there was hardly any vegetation, as you can see in the photos - but there are several types of flowers that are unique to the Canary Islands. One of them is called the Teide Violet, and this flower can survive with such low amounts of oxygen that you can find it all the way up to the summit of the volcano, making it the highest flowering plant in Spain.
Anyway, our bus stopped at this great little
place where we could use the restroom, get some fun souvenirs, and get some
coffee. It was still early in the morning (well, early being around 11am)
so I was grateful for the coffee stop! The morning weather was phenomenal
for our visit to Teide National Park, though, since it was so high up, it was a
bit chilly. We stopped at a few more areas to take some breathtaking photos of the national park and Mount Teide, which included a stop where we were able to climb around on some rock formations - this is where we could see the dried up lava flows from previous explosions. It was incredible!
After we finished monkeying around on the rocks, our tour bus headed back once again to the ship. We had spent a wonderful day driving through a beautiful national park, and it was time to head back to the port so we could set sail for our 3rd port city, Arrecife!
With that, I'll wrap up the day of April 7th! I hope you've enjoyed the photos so far!
besos y abrazos,
Erin
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