Coming Home: Thursday Nov. 12, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the largest city in the Canaries.  As a city we were told it is kind of boring, so instead of doing the city thing we hopped on a city bus and headed 10 minutes away to Las Terecitas, a beach built with imported soft sand from the Saharan desert, which is supposed to be nicer than rougher black volcanic sands on the natural beaches on the island. We enjoyed ourselves and caught the slightest bit of color. David later found out where he missed spraying the sunscreen and a bright red and painful triangular shape showed up on the back of one of his knees, but what would a trip to the beach be without a weird sunburn? After spending the morning hours hanging out at the beach we did make it around to check out the city itself, but after an hour or so headed back to the boat to get our grub on. Tenerife had its own special beauty. It was nowhere near as lush as the banana covered Madeira. What we saw on the side of the island we were on was rather unvegitated volcanic mountains. There are, we are told, many distinct microclimates and even rain forests in the valleys and other parts of the island, but not having a vehicle to get there, nor purchasing an expensive cruise ship excursion they will have to be left to our imaginations.