Look at those mountains!
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2007
1
3
129
Trip End
Ongoing
Masca - Tenerife, Spain and Canary Islands
Sunday, March 2, 2008
We didn't get chance to get any provisions when we arrived so we made our first port of call a small café where we ordered a croissant and coffee each. When they arrived we realised that we could have actually shared one as they have to be the most enormous croissants we've seen. After breakfast we bought supplies at the local supermarket so that we can have breakfast on our balcony for the remainder of our stay.
There was a market which had set up opposite where we are staying, so we decided to take a wander round as John likes looking round markets - this one though was pretty much full of the general tourist tat that you find, with everything labelled up with 'Tenerife' on it - except one stall where I saw a bag I wanted to buy and had good fun haggling the price of it and eventually bought it at a much lesser price. We realised what we had come across when we saw coach loads of people being dropped off to look round - time to escape!
As we had got up late it ended up being lunchtime before we were ready to get in the car and go, so we had something to eat then got on our merry way. First impressions of Tenerife are that it's extremely mountainous and has masses of banana plantations, it's beautiful. Upon seeing the banana plantations my mission for the day was set - find a stall selling fresh bananas.
First stop was Los Gigantes - this is a small tourist harbour, it's fairly low-key and the main reason for the visit here was to see Acantilados de Los Gigantes (Giants' Cliffs). These lava formed cliffs rise around 600m out of the sea, there isn't really anything other than the cliffs here to see, but they are quite dramatic.
We decided to make our way along to Masca, which is a village that sits isolated amongst wild mountain scenery. We had read plenty that advised us not to attempt driving a hire car round these winding roads, but as John is such an excellent driver and can turn any car on a sixpence, I thought we would do it anyway. The views are spectacular, purely breathtaking and I was asking John every couple of minutes to stop the car so that I could take photographs to try and capture some of its beauty. The roads were winding and steep in places, but nothing someone used to driving abroad couldn't cope with (or anyone who already drives on the right-hand side of the road!) and there were plenty of passing bays along the way. We deliberately headed over there to arrive later in the day as we had been told that Masca is one of the destinations offered on an island tour for coaches from the resorts and that they would have all disappeared by about 5pm. On our way we met with several coaches that were going in the opposite direction and managed to negotiate the road with these obstacles as well. We only came to one sticky point and that was due to the fact that another tourist came against us and he seemed scared stiff and was totally unwilling to move another inch forward when he saw us coming the other way -even though that inch would have meant we could've squeezed past each other. The fear on his face said it all though, so John put the car in reverse and drove backwards up the hill and round the bendy bit till the man was comfortable enough to pass.
Along the way there was a viewing point where we pulled off the road to find a small stall selling - amongst other things, fresh bananas! I'm not quite sure why, but the stall owner seemed to find it extremely funny that we only wanted to buy two - maybe it was the way we said it - who knows, but we got our bananas and very nice they were too. In the time it took us to buy and eat these bananas another car had pulled up to buy coffee and sit at one of the tables that had been put out - why is it that when you park up somewhere - even if you are the only car in sight and there is oodles of room that you always get someone that has to come and park right beside you, literally an inch from your door - so close in fact that the lady in the back of the car really struggled to get out - although thinking about it now as I write this, its even funnier - I have no idea why she didn't just get out of the other side of the car as her friend had, there was nothing that side cept fresh mountain air - she even went and squeezed back in the same side as well!!!
When we reached Masca there was a small café still open, so we ordered banana cake and coffee and sat outside taking in the dramatic views. The sun was going down and it was glistening on the sea, there was also a haze around the mountains which made it quite atmospheric.
On the way back we didn't really come across any other cars, we more or less had the whole ravine to ourselves. It was very strange actually because John pulled over for me to take a photograph of the sun going down through the gorge and within a minute of us pulling over we were suddenly joined by 4 cars and a mini bus!! It was like they came out of the rock face, no idea where they all came from, but it kinda took the moment away to be surrounded by other people, so we got back in the car and moved on - the sky glowed a golden colour and the sun disappeared into the sea - I love watching the sun set.
It was wonderful feeling the sun on my face today, bearing my legs to the elements for the first time after winter and going along barefoot in the car - these things made me feel free and happy today.
