Quality Time with the Kids
August 26 - September 2, 2017
Because Mazz is a super-scientist, a few times a year she has to work 12-hour days for a week straight looking at molecules through a particle accelerator the size of a school gymnasium. This is exhausting work, and when her "beam time" is over she usually says, "Kirb, where's my vacation?"
We're not entirely sure on the specifics, but we're pretty sure Kirb's parents are part of an international vacation timeshare pyramid scheme. What we're unsure of is whether they are running this nefarious organization or merely pawns trapped under a force they can never hope to control. Regardless, they had some time that was "going to expire," and let us peruse a website to see if there was anywhere in the world we wanted to go to put the expiring time to good use. There was a slick-looking resort on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands that had an opening the week we wanted, so we decided that was as good of a place as any to go explore. Though the Canary Islands are just a stone's throw off of the coast of Western Sahara, Africa, they are actually part of Spain. We had been to Spain a couple of times already, but figured this would be a significantly different experience than Barcelona or Andalucía.
We never go to resorts. It's just not the way we roll. But the lure of hot tubs and swimming pools and ocean-side bars was too much to resist. Kirb had big plans of lying around by a beach or pool and reading books for a week straight, but Mazz wasn't having any of that. She wanted to fully explore the island. Eventually we agreed to meet somewhere in the middle.
We also usually prefer not to rent cars when we travel, but it seemed pretty impossible to get around Tenerife in a timely manner without one. Luckily, there was a rental company called Autoreisen based on the island that used beat-up, older cars and was very reasonably priced, costing only $65 for an entire week with full insurance. When we picked up the car at the airport, we noticed that there were dents and scratches all over the car that were not marked on the damage sheet (nothing was), and less gas in the tank than noted. Kirb went to ask the attendant about it, and she curtly informed him that they knew about the dents, and would mark the lower gas level on the computer. When Kirb pointed out that she didn't know his name, or any of the information about the car to bring it up on the computer to make these changes, she chided him loudly, informing him that they never check the gas levels, and that basically nothing he was saying mattered at all. "ANYTHING ELSE?!?!" Kirb slunk away defeated, but also pleased that he didn't have to worry about setting this car on fire or driving it off a cliff, because Autoreisen clearly doesn't give a shit.
Our resort was located on the southern part of Tenerife, and our first impression of the landscape was, "Wow, this place is a barren shithole." Everything was brown and dead, but the coastline looked nice. We got checked in to our place and were very pleased with the room, which had a balcony with a view of the ocean and a full kitchen. The resort was full-service with restaurants and bars on the premises, but we were planning on cooking the vast majority of our own food to save money and keep ourselves eating healthy. Traveling often usually leads to eating out and eating too much garbage, which we were going to try hard to prevent on this trip.
There was an organic farmer's market about 20 minutes away on the western part of the island, so we headed there to load up on produce. All of the fruits and vegetables there were grown on the island, and they had some really great looking greens, avocados, and local hot peppers.
Loaded up with groceries and back at the resort, we took a look at the activities they were offering and saw that there was bingo every afternoon at the outside bar. We'd seen plenty of kids around the concierge area and running around the pools, but bingo was the first time we had to interact with them. We're used to playing bingo with chain-smoking grandmas in run-down bingo parlors, so being some of the only adults playing with two-dozen children was a bit of a change. Mazz filled in her card at the same time as a preteen girl, and the announcer forced them to rock-paper-scissors to decide the winner. Mazz won, like she does, and we were given a coupon for a free breakfast for two at the poolside restaurant. Neither of us felt particularly bad that the little girl didn't win because that's a lame present for a child; her parents were buying her breakfast anyway.
The weather was drab and overcast, but we laid around by the pool in spite of it. There were children running and screaming and splashing in every direction, and we realized that if we actually wanted to relax out here we probably would need to bring some headphones. It started raining and we went inside.
On our way to the resort we had noticed an Irish Pub only a few blocks away and took note of it. Rule #37 of traveling: No matter where you are in the world, if you see an Irish Pub, you're probably going to have fun there. Even more enticing, this place had an area of the bar called "The Snug." Having a snug is probably in Mazz's top-3 all-time favorite things, along with petting a dog and eating a egg. There was a 2-man Irish cover band that night that boasted they were the best cover band in all of Tenerife. As they were the only cover band in Tenerife we would see, it's hard to validate that claim, but they were really, really good. When they asked the crowd for suggestions, Kirb shouted out "ELO!" and they broke into a spot-on rendition of "Mr. Blue Sky" that left both of us thoroughly impressed.
The weather was a bit nicer the next day, so we decided to head out early and find a good place to hike. The first tourist information office we stopped at was closed, so we searched for another one and headed towards the town of Los Christianos. When we got there, we searched for parking for nearly 20 minutes before giving up and heading towards a third office in the nearby town of Adeje. Here we were finally able to park the car and talk to someone who could give us some options for nearby hikes. He loaded us up with maps and informed us of some good hiking areas around the island, but recommended for today that we try the Barranco del Infierno, a canyon hike that starts on the edge of town. However, since only 300 people are allowed into the canyon each day, we'd have to hike up a big hill to the starting point to see if there was space for us that day to enter.
There was indeed room for us, and after paying the €8 entrance fee we were given specific instructions on how to behave in the canyon and outfitted with helmets. Specific instructions were, "Don't be loud," and, "Don't stand in place for too long." A few years back, a French woman had been struck on the head by a falling rock and killed.
The path into Barranco del Infierno takes you on an old pastoral trail 350m above sea level to a riverbed of a ravine tucked beneath massive rock walls. As you get closer to the river, the environment changes from brush and cactus to lush trees and wildflowers. The end point is a waterfall, which depending on the time of year can either be roaring or a trickle. Since we went in August, we got the trickle. Still, the 3-hour hike took us thorough a fascinating and diverse variety of landscapes, and was much more about the journey than the destination.
Tuckered out after a long day of walking around in the hot sun, it was time for a drink. From the resort we had spotted a little surf shack bar down on the beach, so we made our way down there at sunset to check it out. The little beach bar was an adorable place to watch the sun go down, and made a delicious pitcher of melon sangria.
We started early the next morning to make our way to the northeast corner of the island, where we had read of a great hike from the info point at Cruz del Carmen to a small town on the cliffs called Chinamada. After a series of very confusing roundabouts outside of Santa Cruz, we finally found the right road and starting making our way up and up into the clouds. When we reached Cruz del Carmen we were actually inside of the cloud, and visibility was minimal. We checked with the information center to make sure our path was ok, and hit the trail through some spooky-looking woods.
The path meandered through forests, along roads, and through what seemed like people's private property, but trail markers always made sure we were going the right way, even when we were sure that couldn't be the case. The one constant of the trail was that it was always going down; after an hour or two Mazz declared there was no way she was walking back up this thing. Eventually we got down out of the cloud, and could see a distinct line of blue below the gray. The lower we got the more the sky and ocean opened up in front of us, with a massive canyon dropping off to our left beneath the trail.
We were surprised when we reached Chinamada that there was so little to the town – there were only a few buildings and nothing was open. We had hoped to at least be able to buy some more water or use a bathroom, but there was literally nothing available. We made our way through the town to the coastline, checking out houses that were built into the caves and cliff side, before sitting at the viewpoint and eating the lunch we had thankfully packed for ourselves. We had also hoped to catch a bus here to somewhere that could take us back up to our starting point, but there was nothing around. Neither of us had any desire to make the multi-hour uphill trek, so we started asking travelers who had arrived to the town by car if we could hitch a ride with them. A nice British couple said that they would be willing to give us one after they had seen the town, and if we hadn't found a ride by then they'd pick us up on the road. We started walking, and sure enough after about 15 minutes they rolled up, pulled over, and let us hop in. We thanked them graciously as they dropped us off back at Cruz del Carmen, saving us hours of difficult climbing that would have surely wrecked our muscles for days.
Since we had started so early and cut our walking time down significantly by hitchhiking, there was plenty of time left to explore the northeastern-most part of the island. We drove our way back down out of the cloud and found that the weather was actually quite nice in the beach towns of the Taganana valley. After driving by a few small waterfront villages, we settled on Roque de las Bodegas, had a glass of wine, and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and relaxing on the beach. We returned to the resort and made our way to the pleasantly child-free spa, where we could rest our old bodies in the hot tub and sauna until we felt human again.
The next morning we cashed in on our free breakfast, and on the way back to our room, noticed that no one was playing on the giant chessboard. Both Mazz and Kirb consider themselves to be intelligent human beings and skilled chess players, but until this point had never played against each other. The game was hard-fought, and long. Mazz likes to think over every move extensively, and doesn't like to be rushed. Kirb is more impatient. After several groups of young kids had walked by hoping to play, a queue of people began to line up for the next game. We were down to only a few pieces each, and it was clear that this game was going to grind out slowly and require some of the few remaining pawns to make their way to the other end of the board before there would be any sort of resolution. Feeling bad, Kirb conceded the loss to free up the board so other people could play; Mazz wanted to fight it out until the bitter end and said the kids could wait their damn turn.
We wanted to spend this day exploring the western coast of Tenerife, and knew now from experience to avoid the tourist trap town of Los Christianos. We settled on the town of Playa de San Juan, partially because we wanted to check out a weekly street market they held there. We caught the tail end of the market and found a nice present for Mazz's mom, but were nonplussed with the beach options there. A friendly woman at a tourist office advised us to make our way a little further up the coast to Alcalá, where there were natural pools in the rocks that offered good swimming.
After loading up with some pink wine and a bag of ice to chill it down, we made our way to the pools for a pleasant afternoon of swimming. The naturally enclosed swimming areas offered pleasant bathing with some respite from the bright sun and the big waves crashing into the shore. After a refreshing wine and lunch break, we made our way a little further down the coast to a black sand beach for more sunning and swimming.
The resort was having an all-you-can-eat steak and BBQ dinner at the poolside restaurant, so we made reservations to secure a spot. The restaurant was packed with families, and the service was slow. We ordered a bottle of wine and got our first plates of meat, and Kirb joked with the waiter, much to the chagrin of Mazz, that we'd prefer a table away from the children. As the meal progressed, Kirb became more intoxicated than he anticipated, and slowly transformed into the glassy-eyed alter-ego his friends have come to refer to as "Waxman." Waxman wanted more meat out of his all-you-can-eat experience than the slow service was allowing, and had no patience for the irritating children running and dancing all over the restaurant. Eventually both Mazz and Waxman had their figurative fill, and she dragged his drunk ass back to their room, but not before Waxman bought another very unnecessary bottle of wine form the resort minimarket, put it in the freezer to chill, and then immediately passed out. They were both fortunate it had not exploded when they discovered it in the freezer the following morning.
Mount Teide is a massive volcano situated in the middle of Tenerife, and unexpectedly, is the most-visited national park in all of Europe. We stopped for information in a small town along the way, and were surprised to find the same woman from Playa de San Juan there to help us in this town as well. We thanked her for the information and told her we'd see her again tomorrow, wherever we decided to go.
The road along the western edge of Teide climbs steadily until you are above the cloud line and the sky is brilliantly blue. Here, there are seemingly endless fields of pumice broken up by groves of pine trees, with the volcano looming in the background.
As you continue to gain elevation, the trees disappear and there is nothing but rock. At one road stop viewpoint, we overheard a tour guide claiming that scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy were filmed here. The barren landscape and surrounding cliffs definitely look like the area where Obi Wan Kenobi saves Luke from the Sand People. However, a little investigation into this matter seems to have uncovered that this is merely a fiction told by the guides on Teide, and that all of those scenes were shot in Tunisia.
We made our way closer to the volcano to the Roques García, an iconic cluster of rock formations that have been used in the past on Spanish currency. It was around this point that Kirb, still very hung-over from his stint as Waxman the night before, pleaded with Mazz to be done climbing around on rocks on a volcano so he could go sit in a hot tub.
The flights between Tenerife and Berlin didn't quite line up with the time available at the resort, so we were forced to spend an extra day on the island after we had checked out. We found a cheap room in an Airbnb near where we had been staying, and found our host was a very energetic woman with lots of advice for how to spend our final day. We heeded her recommendations and made our way to Masca, a small town built into a rocky canyon that she called, "the Machu Picchu of Tenerife."
The road to Masca took us along a small, winding road up into the mountains and then back down via a winding, snake-like series of switchbacks that forced you to drive only a few miles an hour. There was precious little parking outside the small town, causing us to wait to poach a spot for a half an hour at least. The town was worth the wait though, as it is precariously positioned in a steep valley - the sort of place you can't help but wonder why anyone would choose to build a village. There is apparently great hiking from the town down to the coast, but doing so requires booking a boat back to Puerto de Santiago in advance, and then paying for a cab to bring you back to Masca. We chose to enjoy the view and move on.
From Masca we made our way down to the beach town of Chamorga, which offered a more developed version of the natural pools we swam in at Alcalá. The weather was overcast and not particularly warm, so we decided against swimming and opted instead to wander through the town and explore its shops. We settled in a Sioux-Indian themed old man dive bar, where we sipped cheap, chilled red wine with a view of the water.
For a spontaneous trip to a place we had never thought of visiting before it became an option, Tenerife offered a lot of excitement and a variety of unique excursions. Thankfully, the uninspiring landscape of the southern end where we stayed was only one of the many ecosystems on the island, which varied from barren hills to pristine beaches to Jurassic Park-style rainforests. It's hard to turn down a free stay in a resort, but we're not sure how quickly we'd do it again. There's a reason we don't have kids (nobody tells us what to do!), and we haven't built up the mental callouses required to spend any extended amount of time with them. Especially when we're trying to relax. Still, it's hard to beat a bottle of wine on a balcony overlooking the ocean, or a good soak in a hot tub after a long day of hiking. Those are luxuries we could probably get used to, but won't, because we don't have very much money.