Tenerife

Oct 30th
Tenerife

The island of Tenerife is pretty much one gigantic volcano, and the tour I went on today took me to the top of this giant volcano. The mountain is 12,000 feet high, we made it up to about 10,000, the extra 2000 was only accessible by cable car. It was a really awesome drive up to the top though. The first half was through this really dense pine forest, from which 30,000 tons of pine needles are collected every year by the locals to make compost. Then, after driving trough the cloud layer that indicates where the trade winds bring moisture to the island, we got to the top half which was pretty much baron. There were just small bushes, and all this really amazing geology from the volcanic activity. Also, it was great watching the clouds climb up the mountain face, and some of them were just speeding through the forests. We’d be driving, go from clear to foggy, and then back to clear in a matter of minutes, where the fog was thick enough that the driver needed his wipers on. We had made 2 photo stops up the mountain, and then a third at the top at these volcanic “chimneys”, as they were called, a site we could explore to a certain extent. Nothing was active at the time, but the volcano erupts every 30-40 years, and is well overdue for another eruption. Then, we made it back down the volcano, I met up with Peter who was on the other bus, and we got dropped off in the city. We ran into Gianni, the guitarist, and walked around with him for a few hours, stopped at a place for espressos, and eventually made it back to the ship. That night we played Pete Matthew’s show, the juggler, and I went to bed. It was great day though, and the city was really nice to walk through. Unfortunately, it was our last time there, so I’m glad I went out on a good day!