The Canary Islands are a Spanish Archipelago 1,300 km SSW of mainland Spain, off the African coast east of the Morocco/ Western Sahara border (1). Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands with a roughly pear shape, rotated about 60 degrees east of true North.
The flight landed at Tenerife Norte Airport (2), in a col between the mountains transecting the islands at about the point the pear-shape narrows to the long stem.
I had planned to drive into the Northern Mountains, but there was low cloud cover and rain at the airport's altitude, so the mountain drive (higher up) would have been in the fog. I therefore descended to the coast to drive the coastal highway north from Santa Cruz de Tenerife under cloudy skies with sunny breaks (3).
The road is quite narrow and has been carved into the rocky cliffs, particularly north of Playa (Beach) de las Teresitas. The road ends at the small town of Igueste de San Andrés. On the return, I descended the very-steep side road to Playa de Las Gaviotas, a black sand beach (4) where a few guys in wetsuits were catching a few waves on boogie boards. A young couple ran into the water without wetsuits. In the time-honored tradition, I rolled up my pants and waded in (3); the water wasn't cold at all.
After dinner, the waitress offered me a complimentary cream liqueur: Crema de Orujos. It was delicious. When I asked to see the bottle (thinking I might try to find it at home) she told me it was homemade. Since I was interested, the chef also gave me a large shot of his homemade limoncello which the chef made using his Italian grandmother's recipe. Getting up slowly after a glass of wine and two liqueurs, I staggered to the seaside Promenade.
There was a Portuguese square rigged tall ship festooned with flags and lights. The full moon was rising right between the mainmast (middle) and foremast. On the way back to the hotel later, I heard the bosun's pipe trilling as he or she piped a group of people off the ship.
The London Philharmonic was in town, playing Tchaikovsky & Sibelius at the Adán Martín Theatre on the sea front. The crowd was quite enthusiastic, calling the conductor back on stage with their applause four times.
(1) Although Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco for decades.
(2) Tenerife Norte (a) airport is the site of the worst crash in civil aviation history in which two 747s (KLM and PanAm) collided on the runway in heavy fog in 1977 (b). As a result of the crash investigation, communication protocols between the tower and aircraft were modified and standardized. The role of co- pilots was also strengthened.
(a) Just Tenerife Airport at the time; Tenerife South airport opened in 1978.
(b) While there was a low cloud cover today, visibility on the runway was good (i).
(i) Twice in the last two years I have been on the aircraft that had to abort just before landing and go around due to insufficient visibility on the runway.
(3) Due to the prevailing winds, sea temperatures, and widely varying elevations, Tenerife has a wide variety of microclimates.
(4) When showering later, I noted a large volume of black sand near the shower drain that I had brought with me on my feet.
Playa de Las Gaviotas
The coastal road
End of the road
Black-sand La Gaviotas Beach
Portuguese square-rigged tall ship at moonrise
Adán Martín Theatre (2003) on the sea front. Presumably inspired by the Sydney Opera House.
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