So last weekend we went to the Canary Islands and it was absolutely incredible! The Canary Islands are technically part of Spain, although the are located off the western coast of Africa, and as such have an incredible climate :) It was 85-90 degrees and sunny all weekend and very enjoyable!
On Thursday night I had gone to the Tallest Man on Earth concert with my Spanish friend Alejandra (which was INCREDIBLE by the way) and got back home at about 11:30 p.m. Then we met at 5 a.m. on Friday morning to go to the airport so I was a just a little bit sleepy... haha but anyway the flight was about 3 hours and it was my first time flying Ryanair which was interesting. They talk over the intercom the entire time and try to sell things the whole flight so it was a bit obnoxious and impossible to sleep but oh well we were heading to the Canary Islands so I was too excited to sleep anyway! We arrived at 9 a.m. Canary Island time and headed straight to the beach where we got on a catamaran and went to go whale watching. We ended up running into a group of about 20 dolphins and they swam underneath and around our boat for over a half an hour, playing, jumping, and watching us. It was truly incredible and so beautiful. Then we headed to have have lunch and... RODE CAMELS. It was an interesting experience. I thought it seemed kind of sad because they camels just sit there chained to each other, getting up when needed, having to sit when not, but our director told us that it's a very important part of the Canary Island culture because camels were used there in the old days and that they're treated fine and all that. Anyway then we headed back to our hotel and were free to do what we wanted for the night so me and the girls went out to dinner and then came back and crashed at about 10:30.
On Saturday, we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel and left on the bus at 9 a.m. We went to walk around a small town and see some of the sights there. Then we started the drive up into the mountains. We went to the peak of the volcano Teide, which is about 13,000 feet high and is the third highest volcano in the world. We could only drive so far, and then we took a cable car up to the top and then it was about a half hour hike to the very top. The view from the top is probably the most impressive thing I've seen in my life. You could see the other Canary Islands around us!! It really was beautiful and I had a moment thinking about Grandpa and how he would have loved to see this being the mountain man that he was :) I really loved it and I wish that I could have shared the experience with my family. After coming down, we stopped to have some lunch (we were starving after that hike!!) and then headed to the capital of the Canary Islands, Santa Cruz, to see that city. We did a bus tour of the city, and then went to a pizzeria for dinner as a group and had (a lot of) beer and pizza. We made it back to the hotel, showered, and a few of us went out to have a drink but we were pretty exhausted so we made it back pretty early again and went to sleep.
On Sunday, we didn't have to leave the hotel for the airport until 2 p.m. so we got up at 9 and had breakfast and then headed to the beach. The beach was black sand and it was sooooo beautiful. The pictures really don't do it justice. It also made your skin super soft we were all rubbing it all over our skin to exfoliate (hahaha) :) Then we headed back to the hotel to head back to chilly Madrid :(
Overall it was a truly amazing weekend. The culture, climate, etc. (and accent) there is very similar to those I've seen in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It was nice to get out of the city and into nature for a while. I took so many pictures and they're all incredible that it would take too long to try to put them in this entry, so I'm including a public link to my facebook album so that you can take a look at them all. If the link doesn't work, leave me a comment and I'll try something else. Hope you enjoy them!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3714659917500.2132008.1605750104&type=1&l=b22b758c9c
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