A perfect day. Early start, out along the motorway heading to Santa Cruz. Failed to reach the two pretty sailing ships in the puerto, but enjoyed strolling around, and loved getting to the Saturday market in the Africa building - bought wonderful fruits and fish. Then up into the most spiky mountains anyone could ever wish to see.... spikes and points and wobbly-looking boulders on cliff-tops, big enough to demolish County Hall. The whole land is like adolescence - full of eruptions and imbalances, joyous and rough and frightening. Ash, lava, intrusions and erosions all piled onto each other, in many colours and varying states of threat.
We made it - over the top, through a fine tunnel, zigzag up and down a thousand metres of geology, loving the mossy woodland and birdsong at the peak. We lunched at Roque de las Bodegas which must have one of the most spectacular coastal views in the world... we watched the young surfers and ate a fantastically delicious and cheap lunch at Casa Africa.
One nice oddity is that you can drive right past the tunnel which takes you to the north coast, and cross over it, on a spinal road - which we did, and ended at the furthermost point of NE Tenerife - ie the sleepy, swanky, tiny, botanically gorgeous Chamorga.
There we met a couple from Devon who were basically waiting for a bus back to the city - they were on foot in these astonishing mountains - so we offered them a lift and had a merry journey back. They run a b&b in Dartmouth, and they took us to San Cristobal and its medieval wonders.
Back now in the apartment, about to eat fresh John Dory from the morning market, with salad.
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