Las Islas Canarias!

During the second half of the break for Carnival, we headed to the Canary Islands to soak in a little of the culture at the largest Carnival celebration in Spain. We stayed in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the island of Tenerife, the largest of the Canaries. Unfortunately, we didn't have the chance to see the other islands, but Tenerife itself was so diverse climatically that it didn't matter. Between the rainy northern part of the island, the dry, volcanic south, and the black-sand beaches, we were more than busy exploring. Not to mention, the island's main city was insane because of Carnival. I'm going to have to divide the photos into two posts, so I'll start off with the "natural wonders" of the island, and then put up the images of the street partying after. :-)

Kaydin and I arrived a day before everyone else, rented a car (which we ended up sleeping in), and explored basically the entire island the first day. We spent most of the afternoon in Teide National Park, a combination of a volcanic and alpine landscape, which is home to El Pico de Teide, the third tallest volcano in the world, and the highest elevation point in Spain. Needless to say, it was quite impressive. We wanted to make it to the top, but you have to take a cable car thingy, and it was insanely expensive. The entire southern half of the island is covered in volcanic rocks, and most of the park is lava fields. It was an absolutely foreign landscape. Felt kind of like Mars, or some eighties Sci Fi film.

Here's the volcano:


And my future album cover:This is me getting smashed by a lava flow. Yep.


Us being "fly."
Amazing sage green rocks were everywhere! This place is a geologist's dreamland.

Had to make Rock sculptures...

...And I love mine!


This was up in another part of the park, more in the mountains. I couldn't resist the random door in the hillside.


And this was farther north, where we caught the sunset:

Gorgeous, no?

Needless to say, when the rest of the group came, we went back... Unfortunately, the weather wasn't nearly as good, and we had to wind our way through the most insanely thick fog I've ever experienced:
Behind all the fog is the volcano....


Wind!



We got a little sun on the other side of the volcano, but not for long.


This is what a pine forest looks like on a lava field:

After the mountain, we headed to the black sand beach in the south of the island. There was a red flag up, meaning we couldn't swim, and when we asked the lifeguard why it was prohibited (as the waves weren't that big), he told us that there were deadly jellyfish in the water. Great.


Caught a rainbow on the way back though!


Bananas! A huge portion of the south of the island is covered in greenhouses and banana plantations.

This was a really cool sign post outside a restaurant we stopped at. Each arrow points to a different city in the world. Lord knows how accurate any of them are, but it's a cool idea.

Well, that about does it for the first couple of days and the nature side of things. Up next... costumes and endless marcha (partying).
Ciao!