All around Tenerife. Days 7-10 of the trip

Morning of March 14. Sveta was feeling a bit better, but she still could not walk much. So we decided to simply drive around the sights, get as far as Masca Gorge, but not hike it, or at most walk only a short part of it. We also had to cover everything we had planned for yesterday and then even more, because I had booked part of an apartment far away from our current location. First we had to go back along the coast and then turn around and drive toward Santa Cruz.

We arrived at Masca Gorge, found a parking place, and walked to the village where the route begins, only to discover that the gorge was closed. Before the trip Sveta had read somewhere online that it was closed, but someone in the comments had written that he had walked it, so we thought it must already have reopened. Apparently that comment was simply out of date. In the end we were not too upset, because we would not have been able to hike it anyway, so we just photographed the village.

After that there were many interesting places. Here we were passing a curious mountain that looked like a cake cut into slices, with some of the slices already eaten by someone:

Then we visited a futuristic lighthouse:

And an arch nearby:

Then we visited a tree that, if I remember correctly, was around 100 years old:

After that we drove into Santa Cruz, where while searching for parking we accidentally ended up in the wrong place and saw a Russian Gazelle van:

When we finally found parking, we walked to the famous auditorium:

That was enough for the day, and we drove to check in. When we reached the place, we realized it was an ordinary apartment in a residential neighborhood. But the apartment was divided into a common area and two or three separate zones. We had two rooms and one huge shower room with a jacuzzi. There was also a shared dining room and eating area. Overall it was great. There was even a coffee machine, and every day we were given two coffee capsules for free. That evening we also bought a papaya and ate it, but to me it was not especially good, rather tasteless.

Morning of March 15. We woke up, got ready, and drove to our marked points. There was a lot to visit that day. Before the trip we filled up the tank in the town where we were staying. The gas station was nearby, and the price there was absurdly low.

Then we drove to an interesting place, a road cut right through the mountain.

After that we stopped at one of our viewpoints, from which there was a beautiful view of the valley:

Then we went to a place where there was a lot of walking to do. We found a parking spot under a cliff and started walking. But when we reached one point, we saw and heard dogs, and from a distance it was not clear whether they could get to us. While we were sitting and thinking what to do next, some other people walked by without being afraid of the dogs, so we followed them. The dogs were guarding goats. Here we are passing them, while the goats seem confused about what creatures are walking through the lands where they have been grazing for centuries.

The path went off in this direction:

For some reason we decided not to go farther. We had already walked quite a lot, and there was still even more ahead. Here is one more view from that spot:

In that photo you can see the cliffs we drove toward afterward.

When we got back to the car, there was already a parking frenzy around us. There was nowhere to leave a car, and some people were clearly waiting for us to free up the space.

We drove on toward those cliffs, and here we were already close to them:

And here is the view back. Somewhere there is the mountain from which we had come:

We did not go down to the rocky beach because we were too lazy to descend and then climb back up. Instead we drove on and visited another beach that was easier to reach:

That was basically it. We headed toward our lodging, but on the way stopped by another beautiful beach. Sveta had read that the sand there had been imported especially from the Sahara desert.

We walked along the beach and then drove to the apartment, arriving even before sunset.

While driving back I turned my phone on again. I had kept it off because my charger had broken and I was saving battery. As soon as I turned it on, my mother called and said everyone back home had been very worried because we had disappeared somewhere. My sister had panicked. She saw that we had long vanished from the map. I had not even thought that people might be tracking us so closely. She had even written to the manager of our accommodation.

Later that evening he came by with a guy whose English was better than ours and asked whether everything was all right. I explained what had happened.

Morning of March 16. We got up early and checked out. Right as we were leaving, the electricity went out, which complicated the departure a bit. Just in case, I wrote to the manager about it. He replied only closer to evening, saying that construction workers had cut the power.

All right, back on the road. We stopped at a beautiful viewpoint on the way:

Then we continued toward the airport, but decided not to use the highway and instead took a road running parallel to it along the mountain slope. We drove through villages.

Once we had to stop for about 10 minutes because some kind of competition or event was taking place in one town. I never quite understood what it was, but there were many people in reflective vests on the road.

Since the south coast is known for strong winds, you come across wind turbines there:

We began to understand that it was almost time for the next check-in anyway, so we decided not to continue through the villages, dropped back down to the highway, and sped off.

We had to search a little for the hotel, but found it. Nearby there was some kind of camel park. I went inside to check in and met the manager, asking what language he spoke. It turned out he spoke Russian, he was from Russia, I think from Astrakhan. He ran the hotel together with his wife. She was local, and as far as I understood they had met while studying in England. When I said we were from Dubna, he was very surprised, because his father-in-law often flies to our town. The father-in-law himself does not speak Russian, but he has a Russian wife who seems to live somewhere nearby. In case it is useful, the hotel, or rather guest house, is called El Cerro de la Luna.

We dropped off our things and drove back into the mountains. We revisited all the places where we had already been. In the mountains we had to put warm clothes on again because it was cold.

The weather was different now. There was no haze, so we could finally see everything clearly. I also climbed the mountain we had skipped at the beginning, while Sveta stayed below. Somewhere down there in this photo, Sveta is standing:

This was the view from the top:

Then we drove to another beach, or rather to a natural or semi-natural pool. It was nice there, but too crowded. After that we went to our favorite restaurant. We had a bite there, and when leaving realized that they had not charged us for the lasagna. But we decided not to go back. I thought it would have been too difficult to explain that they had missed something on the bill. After that we drove to the hotel. That night I distinctly remember feeling the charm of this kind of life. We were driving along a quiet highway at night with good music playing and seeing lights all over the coastline, while somewhere back in Russia there was mud, slush, and terrible cold. Traveling like this really is wonderful.

In the evening I dealt with the car, cleaning everything out of it, because the next day we had to pack up and leave for Russia.

Morning of March 17. We got ready slowly and drove off. During the day we did not really do much. We went to some beach marked on our map. There were many surfers there. We watched them for a while and also noticed a nearby hotel where behind the fence people, presumably guests, were sitting and sunbathing. Some were reading newspapers, others were simply lying there. And looking at them I suddenly understood that they were like animals in a cage. We had driven around two islands, every day bringing some new adventure and new views, while they had most likely spent five to seven days lying behind that fence. What a bore.

Then we went to another beach and by luck found a place to park. This is what it looked like:

After the beach I thought there was still plenty of time, so we should somehow fill it before the flight. I looked on the map for a place where planes should be taking off and landing, and found it. There was also some church built right into the rock. We spent about an hour there, had a snack, packed our things, changed clothes, and drove to the airport.

At the airport we went to the same place where we had picked up the car. We parked it, took out the suitcases, put them on a trolley, and I went to return the keys. Everything was very easy. Then we went inside the terminal and wrapped our suitcases in plastic. If I remember correctly, it cost 10 euro per suitcase. After that we checked them in, waited for boarding, got on the plane, and flew away. One funny detail: on that flight a girl from the group Lyceum was flying with us. And she had also been on our outbound flight to the Canaries on March 8. The return flight took place in the dark, and at one point I looked out the window and recognized the outline of Geneva, or more precisely Lake Geneva itself. The lake was black, everything else was lit up, and the bridge across the bay was lit as well. That is exactly how it looked. We had driven along the Geneva waterfront in our own car in July 2017.