The Chariot of Death

Today we had a fun day. We got up late, waited our turn for a shower (mine was a little chilly), then headed out to walk around Garachico. The town, virtually outside our door, turned out to be beautiful with two old churches and a huge, pleasant plaza, Plaza de San Francisco. The Iglesia de San Francisco is right on the Plaza, naturally, and is the church that contains a huge, silver gilt cross that has 30 kg (66 lbs) of Mexican silver from the colonial days. There were also a bunch of life-sized, or larger, figures such as Saint Francis and a female saint with a dagger through her heart. We walked through the Hotel La Quinta Roja, an incredibly pleasant place with huge wooden doors and a rustic-colonial feel. We might choose to stay there should we return, however at 132€ a night, it's considerably more expensive than Pensióne el Jardin (I seem to remember that it might have been down in the 30€/night range, but I could be wrong).

We had a quick café con leiche in the plaza, then drove toward El Teide, the central caldera/mountain on Tenerife. We did find time to stop for tortilla española on the way for breakfast. 

The drive to El Teide was somewhat curvy, but mostly long and foggy. At last, near the top, we rose above the cloud layer and drove through a moon-like landscape until we got to the base of the cable car that takes people to the summit of the mountain. It was about 50° F at the bottom of the cable car and, after a 'terrifying' ride in the "chariot of death" (according to Jeanette), we found ourselves at the top of the island in 30° F weather. Fortunately, we had brought warm clothing.

We walked around for about an hour and appreciated the great views. Some of the rocks were yellow, from sulfur that we could smell. From the top, we could see La Gomera, La Palma, Gran Canaria, and probably Fuerteventura. We also could take in a panoramic vista of the huge quiet caldera.

We took the 'Chariot' back down and, after checking them out, refused to buy the awful photos of us that we had to pose for as part of the admission. We drove on and, on the way back down, stopped to check out La Piedra de las Rosas, a neat basaltic columnar rock formation that looks like a rosette of huge chords of rock. We also stopped to check out a pumice field in the vast crater on the east side of El Teide (Pico de).

Along the way, we happened to see a bar with some miniature horses out front and, after asking in Spanish if we could pet them, we managed to pet a Farabella (probably really falabella, about the size of a German shepherd), a Cabalitto (a small pony), and a very pretty black stallion. In one of the photos that I took, you can barely see a sign that says in English, "Please don't pet the pony," but we did ask in this case.

We ended up in La Orotava where we hunted for bathrooms and stamps. We saw some more ancient buildings with ornate balconies and wood façades. Jeanette proudly searched two stores for lip liner and bought it, in Spanish, all on her own.

We decided to continue on to Icod de los Viños, known for good regional wines. Unfortunately, we had to stop at a gas station for an hour on the way to allow the engine to cool so that we could fill it with water. In the last two weeks, our poor little Vectra Verde had endured 1200 km of hard time.

We eventually found our way to Icod de los Viños and wandered a bit till we discovered Restaurante Carmen where we had a tasty house wine, salad, potatoes, and queso asada partially covered with a sweet sauce. It was delicious. After our snack, we continued on and found the Placa de Draco where we saw a huge old dragon tree. We finished off the evening with wine and dessert in Garachico and then turned in for the night.