Tenerife, Canary islands

I love Tenerife (not the weather in March though😡 58° to 70° when we were there). It is the highest island of all those in the Atlantic and is the largest of the Canary islands.

This island has so many unique features that it's easy to see why some seven million tourists flock to this tiny island every year.

For example, while this tiny island of only 2000 square kilometers ( just over 700 square miles) and while it snows in the mountains, it is a major producer of tropical plants like bananas, avocado and citrus on the plains!

At the Alua hotel 

The place is absolutely pristine with narrow but scenic undulating roads, numerous beaches, (with both black and white sands) lots of shopping and  of course attractive hotels and apartments everywhere.

Another huge hotel

Most of the tourists come from Europe and we were told by our knowledgeable taxi driver Alexandro, that the Germans love Tenerife so much that they have their own enclave where ever the postman is German!😊

The original inhabitants were Berbers from the Sahara , but were subjected and exterminated by the Spanish after almost a century of resistance.

The area where the most bloody battle occured which caused the original population to surrender is the town known as Mensenay Meceyes which means "Kill some!"

We did a wonderful tour of the island in just one day.

When I say we, I mean my travel companions Sonja, Camille, Michelle and Kadi who joined us a day late.

Our first stop was at a national park called Icod de los Vinos where you find the oldest El Drago plant in the world. It's 800 years old and is a member of the onion plant! You calculate its age by the number of branches.

The 800 year old El Drago plant

 
This is near old Tenerife and a section where the very wealthy citizens once lived. Among that set were the ancestors of the south American liberator, Simon Bolivar. A bust of his is in the square.

Gara Chico island

This is the oldest monastery in the Canaries. 11 closeted nuns live here. There are no windows, no tv, no entertainment and they never go outside.

The oldest nun is 75 years and she hasn't been outside in 50 years😩!

 I have never been able to figure out religious zealots. Smh .

Cyclists love these undulating roads.

The waves in the old section get so large at times that sea water floods buildings across the road.

The most fascinating place I have ever visited is a remote village called Masca which is nestled in the Teno Mountains.

 The 20 km road to get there was only built in the 70's and that alone is a feat in itself. For it is narrow, hilly, winding and full of traffic as it is so scenic that people flock the area which has less than 300 permanent residents.

But despite the traffic and the hairpin curves, we never saw a vehicle with any dents.

Then it was on to Mt. Teide, their most famous volcano. ( Incidentally there are 303 active volcanos but only a handful are still active. Lao the island has small tremors almost every day. 

The last big earthquake was in the 80' but no one was killed.)

Mt. Teide

Mount Teide is the major volcano. It is over 12000 ft high, the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic and the highest volcano in the world, when measured from the ocean floor.

This is still an active volcano, having erupted last in 1909.

The volcano and it's environs are a national park of almost 50000 acres and was named a UNESCO heritage site and is the most visited natural wonder in Spain.

That's not fog but the clouds!

Section of old Tenerife 

In the Mt. Tiede national Park.

Time to prepare for our departure from Tenerife.

Our group at our first dinner on board 

Party time😊

This tenor closed out the night's entertainment.

We departed from the port of Tenerife at about 9pm.

More anon.

Being quarantined is no fun

As a joke, on the 21st February 2020, I put a post on my Facebook page asking if anyone wanted a free cruise. I was absolutely shocked by the number of persons who replied yes, considering that the horror stories about people being quarantined on cruises ships and ports of call refusing them landing, had started to surface.

I don't think anyone in the world loves cruising more than I do. Or just travelling for that matter.

I got my first cruise when I was 14 years old and was so excited about the experience that the first job I applied for on leaving high school was to work on a cruise ship.

Thank god I never got the job for I learnt later in life that working on these floating hotels is no fun.

For the workers seem to work almost 24 hours per day. Also, they live in cramped quarters on the bottom of the ship and have to be nice to all sorts of assholes.

Not getting that job was probably my best luck in life for apart from the horrible conditions under which cruise ship employees work, lots of them pick up dangerous viruses.

But back to quarantines.

I am claustrophobic so being quarantined is a fate worse than death.

 I have been quarantined twice and thank god it was for short periods of time.

The first time was when I developed a fever after returning to Jamaica from vacation in Guyana. On that trip I did the exciting trek through the forest by minibus over to Brazil.

When I went to the doctor after developing a fever shortly after returning home, it created panic with the damn doctor who swore I had developed dengue, malaria or yellow fever, mosquito borne diseases that were no longer in Jamaica at that time.

That's when she said I must be quarantined in a hospital, public or private.

At least I could go on my balcony

 I had never heard about the process before so called a friend who was a GP, to find out what would happen if I refused to turn myself in. He soberly advised me that they would send the police to bodily take  me in. That was enough for me so reluctantly I checked into a private hospital and was confined to bed under a mosquito net for three whole boring days.

It turned out to be a colossal waste of money as nothing was  wrong with me except some ordinary damn flu.

The second time was in 2018 when a group of us went on a cruise of the Canal zone. The  night before we arrived in Old Cartagena, Colombia,  I had gone to watch the show on board and had to comment how a man behind me was coughing non stop.

The next day we took a tour of the old city and after we had finished  visiting the square, I stood on the sidewalk waiting on my friends when Bam, I collapsed on the sidewalk. nearly bashing my head on raised section. Maybe I was temporarily out as when I came to, a crowd was standing over me with everyone offering to help. My friends secured my belongings and put me in a taxi back to the boat.

I had not been feeling ill but when  they took my temperature it was 104 degrees. Long story short, I was then quarantined to my room for two days. It was so boring. I did not really want to come off in Limon, Costa Rica as I have visited it quite a few times, neither did I want to come off in Colon as I had also visited that town once and did not like it.

That's all I could see of Colon from my balcony

But being confined to my room while everyone else was out having fun was a killer.
I later learnt that 40% of the passengers on that ship had gotten the flu and some even had to be airlifted off.

I recall all this as I listen to the horror  stories of people being quarantined on cruise ships for up to fourteen days during  this corona outbreak and I sympathize with them as I think I  would die if I was confined to a cabin for such long periods!

 I really love taking cruises and was looking forward to doing the river cruise down the Rhine later this year, stopping in Northern and central Europe on the way, but I think I might just give cruises a break for a while.

For while cruises are fun, quarantine is hell.