Parrots Galore

Our last day in the Canary Islands, but hopefully not for good! We packed, ate a quick breakfast at El Jardin (each morning we had been served bread, cheese, yogurt, coffee, and tea). We left the pensión and walked around the area to drop off our postcards and pick up some water for the car. Starting the day before, it started demanding a couple of gallons of water every hour or so. At a small patisserie or dulceteria, we bought some mediocre pastries, then we left Garachico.

We drove to the east along the northern coast of the island and found ourselves at the beach town of Puerto de la Cruz. We decided to go to the Loro Parque ("Parrot Park") and it turned out to be a great place to spend the afternoon. We saw a ton of animals, including some randy tigers, and more parrots, parakeets, penguins, and other birds than I knew existed. The park was well organized. We went to the "Loro Show" and the dolphin show. The Loro Show was an entertaining bird show with several beautiful birds from South America and Africa. One of the birds rode a bike and wore roller skates. Another drove a car. I volunteered to help one bird buy a beer from a vending machine by holding up my hand when I heard the woman giving the show ask for someone who had a chinquenta cent coin (50 cents). My Spanish was getting good as I was the first to volunteer! Jeanette was surprised that I stood up, but it was fun and after the bird picked the coin out of my hand and bought his beer, he returned with a sticker for my trouble. The dolphin show was fun, but not as well choreographed.

The Loro Parque offered a great aquarium with a pretty good shark exhibit and some good minnow and sardine tanks.

We left the Parque at about 5PM and headed down to the waterfront designed by Cesar Manrique, who had also designed the beautiful amphitheater in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Its a series of three beaches with a set of terraced gardens and restaurants. It turned out to be a great place to watch the crashing surf and the sunset. We played around till just after the sun went down, then left Puerto de la Cruz, after filling up the car with water.

The car turned out to have a major leak that was worsening. We ended up filling four times that day with water... that was about six gallons of water at least. We drove to Santa Cruz de Tenerife and had to pull over to fill up after only about 30 km. What a pain!

We ended up eating dinner at Ramon's in the town of San Andreas, north of Santa Cruz. The British bartender in Masca had recommended it and we were looking forward to a good mixed grill. As it turned out, we ended up with a cheaper, but less diverse mixed sardine plate after Jeanette tried to order in Spanish, got shy and then ordered in English. She was not so happy because of all the 'heads,' but we ended up with a platter of about 15 fried fish of different types. It was tasty, if a little bony, but J was disappointed to only get 'heads.' With dinner we did try a rosado from eastern Tenerife that was very good.

After dinner, in a nearby bar, we had an odd encounter with a curiously nice man who I think was trying to take us home for some funny business. At least we spent a while practicing Spanish with him. I recall that he was from Venezuela, but his wife was from Tenerife or something like that.

We drove to Los Christianos with the 'check engine' light blaring for most of the way. In a grocery, we bought some cheap ron miel to take home (it turned out to be delicious) and then went for a drink near where we stayed the first night of our vacation. The Miner's Retreat was a British bar and the folks were very nice. We enjoyed a couple of beers and then headed for the airport.

We turned in our car, doing our best to indicate that it might need a little work. Good thing we always buy the insurance. After poking around in the stores a bit, we boarded a very full flight to head back home.