A Canarian Adventure

Hola a todos! Here I am again, at the blog, hopefully about to write some great stuff, but we'll see how it goes.

This past weekend, I visited the Canary Islands! Now, I said last time that I think I was the closest I've been to Africa when I was in Gibraltar, and mileage wise, I think that still wins over the Canary Islands, but man was I close!! As I took off from Sevilla last Wednesday, March 11, I saw so much African land and it made me so happy. About two hours later, I landed in Tenerife, one of the more popular, I would say, islands, and really the only direct flight from Sevilla. It was in Tenerife that I met up with my friend Pablo who is from the Canary Islands and the reason I traveled there in the first place. Pablo and I then took a much smaller plane (Rochelle, I think you would have freaked out) to an island further east called Lanzarote. It was one of those planes that you have to walk out to, that do not have anything covering the propellers, and that have their own stairs attached to the plane. Here's a map and here's the plane.


While we were in the air, I could barely see anything. And when we got to Lanzarote, we still could barely see anything. This, I was told, was called Calima. The Calima in the islands is something that happens about 2-3 times a year, so it's not so common. Lucky me to have encountered it. While I am a little bummed about it staying around for my whole weekend, I was kind of excited to actually experience it. So, you all must be thinking now, what exactly is Calima? Well, let me tell you what I can gather. Calima is the dust/sand blown over by heavy winds across the ocean from the Saharan Desert. In theory, it sounds both bad and good, like I just explained--like, ew gross, dust?? But at the same time, how cool that I was experiencing African air! And that brings me back to my point about my close proximity to Africa. I mean, I was sharing the same water and the same air--it was fantastic! It was like I was in Africa, especially because a lot of the girls from my program went to Morocco over the weekend; we were basically in the same place! haha. Anyway, the calima was so interesting because it really blocked the sky. You couldn't see much blue in the sky and could hardly see the sun, even though it was still bright outside. It was like looking at the sky when there is so much fog or there are so many clouds, but there really weren't any clouds in the sky. And the best part was that when you looked at the horizon over the ocean, about a little ways up from the water, you could actually see a yellow line span across in the distance, and that was the calima. I have a picture, but I don't know if you'll be able to tell what it is.


Onto other things, Lanzarote was designed/planned out by one man. I don't know his name, but one of his ideas was to only paint the houses white and they could either have green or blue trim. It gave the town I was in such a nice feel. Of course, there are houses that are different colors, but there aren't many. Here's a typical Lanzarote house.

On Thursday, we went to the beach, which is were that calima picture was taken, but it's not like it was that far because Pablo's house, in Playa Honda (which means deep beach, or beach of my old car...hah, just joking), was about a 5 minute walk to the ocean. I think he told me the town was about 5,000 ish people, which was only a bit more than my high school! So, after going to the beach, we hung out at one of his favorite restaurants that is on the main Avenida along the beach. We sat outside for a while, not really watching the sunset since the calima was in the way, and decided to eat. There is a point to this story. Something I have been told about Spanish food is that they really love their seafood, whole. I haven't really witnessed much of it, except for a rough encounter with heads-still-intact shrimp, but this was another great one. Pablo ordered fish, and this is what he got.

Isn't that just great! I mean, he loved it, but I thought it was hilarious. I on the other hand got a pasta, but it happened to be one of the most delicious pastas I've had in so long! Oh, a side note, I ate a salad. It was a real salad. There was lettuce, and spinach leaves, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cheese, and dates! It was probably one of the most delicious things I've also had here. I love salads. Oh don't worry, there are salads in my house here. Yeah, for meals sometimes, when she puts "ensalada" on the menu, that means pre-washed lettuce in a bag and olive oil. While I'm happy to have lettuce at all and eat something green every now and then, you maybe can understand why I was so happy about that particular salad.

So Friday, we had a great day. Pablo doesn't know how to drive. I know how to drive, but I don't know how to drive manual. Pablo decided that I really needed to see the island since I was there, and so we rented an automatic car. Yes, that's right, I drove a car around a European/Spanish island. Some of you out there (aka my parents) might be frowning upon this idea, but look! Everything's okay! I'm okay! Nothing was hurt or injured and we lived! It was such an exhilirating experience, driving around. I really thought I wasn't going to drive until I got back to the states, so I tried to drive as much as I could, but it was pretty nice driving on these roads. I don't know if it's all of Europe or just Spain, but roundabouts are super popular here. That was the only thing I really needed to get adjusted to, how to merge, how to signal, and which way to go. But after doing that so many times, I think I finally got the hang of it! They use the roundabouts way more than traffic signals, and traffic seemed to flow pretty nicely I might add. Another thing is that I don't think I could ever get lost in Spain. Everytime you get to a roundabout or really any street, there is always a sign that tells you which city is in which direction. It's like impossible to get lost there! Alright, anyway, we headed north and stopped at La cueva de los verdes. This cave, not far off from a volcano (by the way the island is full of volcanos, none of them I believe are active anymore) and the cave was formed by lava passing through to the ocean. They called it "de los verdes" because an indigenous group of people named "los verdes" lived there. When the tour guide spoke in some sort of english, she said, "the greens" which made me think, oh some jews lived here! But Pablo didn't get the joke and I thought I was funny, just imagining a group of jews with the last name Greene, hanging out, you know. So, the caves were awesome, they went down so deep and the rocks were just incredible. At one point, the tour guide took us over to this huge hole and looked at me and asked me to throw a rock down there. For some reason I didn't want to, so some old man did, and as he did, there was a huge splash and it turned out that it was a very small and shallow pond that reflected the ceiling immaculately. Of course it freaked me out and I jumped back, so I'm glad I didn't throw it, but it was pretty awesome once I realized it. But still, once the water settled, it looked just like a hole again.





So, we continued driving around and went towards the north to a town called Órzola, and from there, drove through many other little towns, through mountains and of course, due to the weather (it actually was cloudy at that time) we couldn't really see much. Apparently, there are great views of the mountainside/landscape and of some huge craters, but at one point, the clouds were so thick that I could barely see in front of me. We stopped a few times at some really pretty places, I don't know where they were, but it was beautiful.




The next day, we had to use up the rest of our car rental, so we drove to the south side of the island. Now, while I don't remember many of the names of the places we went to, I will try to supplement it with a few pictures. We headed through some mountains until we got to the coast and I saw one of the many black beaches. The black beach comes from the lava, and the south/west sides were mostly black because of recent (as in a couple hundred years ago) lava flow. It was so sublime to see. I think I love volcano things, they just amaze me. After that, we went to this place called "Los Hervideros" which was made up of beautiful volcanic rock that spread out over time--the part of the island that was only recently added and is filled with caves and rocks of all shapes and sizes since immediately clashed with the water. From there, we saw so many volcanos as we drove on, many of which have turned red (due to oxidized iron, yeah I learned something about science at one point in my life), and we ended up at this place, I don't know if it has a name, but it reminded me of Roswell (which I think only Erica, Matt, and maybe my Mom will understand that reference). I don't really know how to explain it, so I will put up some pictures, but the sides of the mountains just looked so unusual to me. And it was right on another black beach!








Finally, we went to Famara, a town on the north end of the island that is supposed to be very beautiful. It was very beautiful indeed, but part of its beauty is being able to see La Graciosa, a very tiny island that is super close to Lanzarote. Unfortunately because la calima still remained, we could barely see it, even though it was so close. While we were there, I tried some mojo, which when I wrote that out the first time made me laugh because I know you're all going to read it as mojo, like Austin Powers mojo, but it's really pronounced moho, if I remembered the name correctly. It's a typical Canarian salsa (as in sauce, not just mexican salsa) that was delicious.

From there, we returned the car and just hung around the town. We ended up hanging out with a friend of his later that night who just took in an abandoned puppy, and the only reason I am telling you this little story is because I was so excited to play with a puppy that it was ridiculous. But I had a great time!! She was no Goby though.

Well my friends, that roughly concludes my trip to the islands! And I think that was a pretty long post, but it was long because of the pictures, so I hope you enjoyed looking at them.

I'm not going anywhere this weekend because it's my birthday! Yes, I am turning 21 and I couldn't be more excited about it. I am even more excited about the package I received today in the mail, with so many birthday greetings from my friends and family. I was SOOOOOOO HAPPY to read your cards and it made me feel so good, so thank you so much for thinking of me, sending mail to my mom and being so creative! I had a smile on my face the whole day (because I obviously couldn't wait until my real birthday), but I'll open them again on March 20 to seal the deal. So, I'm sure I'll talk to you all, but thank you again and I love you!!!!

Say goodbye to the 20 year old Haley... hahahah

Haley