Summer trip to Tenerife

July - August 2023
A 8-day adventure by honglei Read more
  • 9footprints
  • 2countries
  • 8days
  • 17photos
  • 0videos
  • 5.7kkilometers
  • 5.6kkilometers
  • Day 2

    Arrival at hotel

    July 27, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    The queue was long as there were only three custom check points available on arrival. It was about 11:30 pm after we walked out of airport. We wondered where to find the car rental company - Touris Primer. We walked around to see if we could find the bus driver or car rental company, but there was no one. After speaking to another car rental company still operating, we were told go to bus stop 6 to get on the pick up bus. But bus stop 6 was empty. We then went back to airport info, we were told the company stopped operation at 11:00pm. So had to take a taxi to the hotel. The taxi journey was about 15 min and cost 27 Euro. We checked in and went back to room, havd a shower and went to bed. This morning we need to contact Discovery car.com to explain the story so far, so we can get the car rented. Then we plan to visit Siam park.Read more

  • Day 2

    Fun in Siam park

    July 27, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    In order to get the car rental sorted out, we went to airport by taxi and checked the ticket for our Citron 3. We have used same car in our previous trip to Reus. Amazed by the small, easy to drive car. We hit on the road by going straight to Siam park. The car park outside the park was completely full, luckily we found a place to park in Siam mall. Once entering Siam Park, we found it was full of people and we had to queue very long times, one even being up to 1 hour. The excitement felt the same as we did few years back during Christmas visit. One ride Leon missed last time was called Tower of Power, which was a massive slide from around 40 metres tall and the person going down it would be going at around 40mph 😳😱🤯🎢🎢🎢🚨🚨🚨. Due to the age restriction.
    , Leon was unable to go on it last time. It was definitely the most scary ride in entire park. Leon was a bit unsure whether he would like to go on it this time. But with some slight encouragment, Leon was determined to have a go! I would like to say this is the highlight of the trip, the rush of adrnaline is unforgettable and even waiting in the queue for a whole hour was worth it.
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  • Day 3

    Hardest day so far

    July 28, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    The plan today is to do two activities, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, split by lunch as we don't want to miss the all inclusive delicious lunch. After a bit searching, we found that one of the best snorkling spots-Camira is only 1km away from our hotel. So we decided to have snorkling in the morning and an adventure in Teide in the afternoon. We parked our car 30 meters away from the coast, put on our goggles and jumpes into the sea. The temperature of the sea is just right for swimmimg. There were so many fish swimming on the sea bed-mainly white stone, which created a contrast to make the fish look clearer. I cannot name all the fish with different size and colour, but it was a truly amazing 1 and half hour.
    After lunch, we drove one hour north to the highest mountain in Spain - Teide. The villages on the mountain were very small and didnt have many houses or people. The road had lots of bends and at the beginning, our car struggled to get up the hill. We stopped at a few places before going to Teide - one was Mirador de Juan Evora, there was a small museum recording ancient human habitant there, we went for a small walk along the board between lava front which is all blach and original grey rocks. The klack lava field was vast and lifeless, wondered maybe due to no water or could not contain any water at all. Another place we stopped was called La Ruleta Vista Point (the scene could also be viewed from Llano de Ucanca Vista Pointwhich we missed due to lost GPS signal), Sendero Roques de García was the remaining rocks after colliding with the rocks opposite (therefore caused volcano eruption and formation of Teide). There was lots of solidified lava looks like rusty metal colour which had travelled a very long way from the volcano - at least several kilometres. the last stop was Sendero de Montaña Blanca- the mountain remain after volcano erruption. the rock in Sendero de Montaña Blanca was golden brown collored, contested to black rocks pour down from Teide. It was windless and hot Summer day, making the journey a challenge one, but the beauty and spectacular mountain Teide definitely worth it.
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  • Day 3

    Take it easy today

    July 28, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    We did plan in particularly what we will do. Maybe take a easy and relaxed day will be also fun as we don't want to be too hard to us considering such hot day. So we visited the area called Los Christians where has nice beach for snockling/turtle watching. The area was crowded with lots of restaurant, hotels and travel agencies. Los Christians is a larger beach with grey sands, full of tourist, so we fancied a small beach -Playa de Los Tarajales-a rock beach with fewer tourist. It was also a place few snorkelers floating around, must be fishes there! While we are change close to beach, just noticed big weaves crushed on the oval stone shore, wandering where are come from, actually it come from a massive luxury Voyage is sailing out of the harbor.
    We dived into the sea bed directly. There are some rocked here and there, some can be as big as half of table tennis court. There were must some of the sea life grown on the rock, but it looks like lifeless now maybe due to the harbor build up and too many tourist visits. There are some fishes not as many as Armarilla, We have to swimme very carefully not to dusturbe the fishes. A video was recorded though without very clear vision. We spend here for two hours, as the sun gets hotter, and our skin get browner, we divide to head home.
    We had a nap after lunch, which make us feel fresh and relaxed the entire afternoon.
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  • Day 5

    Loro park, here we come

    July 30, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    This is Leon's favourite place to visit.
    Park park , here we come again!
    Leon would like to revisit the Park (maybe due to it being one of the best tourist attactions, but we didn't keep many memories as our camera caught all the pictures were stollen last visit). It was a decision made instantly, so we booked the ticket at 11:00 am and started our trip close to 12:00am. We arrived there by car just past 1:00pm, but struggled to find a parking space as the Lara Park parking was full already. So we have to drive round the Park and eventually parked in Lidle, it eas one km away from the Park so 15min walk to get there.

    Once arrived we tried to overview the ongoing activities. We just missed the Sea lion show, so wondered around in Penguin house, two species of penguins were hosted there small penguin and giant antarctic penguin. The giant penguin has orange colour beak, blank and yellow head, standing upright in group most of the time. Inside the house the light was dim to minic the long night of antarctic climax. We then headed to Laro show next. The Laro house had about 200 seats, the ceiling were decorated with huge screen projected with plant and blue sky making me think it was an open space theate. Laro are incredible inteligent creatures, they have same number of neurons as chimpanzee. Different kind of Laro were displayed in the house including Bago-wearing a colourful feathers, all black laro, white laro from Inndonesia. Laros performed different games on stage such as matching the colours, figure out gigsaus, repeating what the trainers are saying. They flyed inside of the house just above tourists' head. with the guidance of trainers.
    We went to dolphin show next. No need to mention dolphin are incredible mammal like humans. They interact with the trainers and coordinate all the aerobic performance to the perfection. They performed jump the roop, swimming with the trainer, push the trainer 4 meters above the air. The most impressive performance for us was two dolphins dancing with two trainners-a walze in water.

    The next show was Orca ocean. The Orce ocean has largest pool perhaps 4 times bigger than dolphin pool. There were three to four beautiful tiger whales living there. Though their side are big, but they can do amazing movement such as jump up to the stage, flipping backword. While we were recording the show, a naughty while turn his back towards us and made a huge splash, we were completely socked. It was great to be chilled down with salty sea water in a hot day like today. Thank you Figure whale.

    We also visited wild life embassyder which showed how the researches research the animals and how staff feed and care the young and volenable animals.
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  • Day 6

    Hiking and snokling

    July 31, 2023 in Spain

    Today is Monday the last day of July. We planned to go hiking in Montana Amarilla. It was a tourist attraction with high marks reviewed on Tripadvisor. Also it was only 11 min walk (3min drive) from where we stay. Why bother travel far for sightseeing?
    It was a hot day, The Montana Amarillo is not typically a high mountain rather than big hill. It was covered with layers of yellow stone. turned it into golden colour viewed from far. There were no clear footpath, so need to be careful in particularly steep part. There were drought resistant plants growing in the mountain such as cactus and plants with very thick skins and tiny thick leaves.
    Once climbed on to the top, looking toward North was a pit surounded by a chain of mountains next to Amarillo. Looking towards south, the white houses, rocky beach of Amarillo and the yellow edge of Montana Amarillo formed a beautiful coastline.
    As it was a hot day, we fancied a dip into the sea to chill ourself. The waves were big and even difficult to get into sea as it pushed and pulled people out of the ladder helping people get into water. We managed it in the end, the current was as fercious as the waves even the fishes had to move along the current. The waves didn'r stop the fishes come out feeding and playing, we saw so many fishes knack purple fishea close to the shore, biger fishes farer to the shore. I even say a fish a inch long with colour fill tale. A turtle was also caught my eye which was rare in Amarillo.
    In the afternoon, we decided to see different snokling spot Palm Mar a spot I? the south West edge of Tenerife, It was famous for aquatic wildlife. The spots rich an array of fishes was a bit far away from the beach, about 300-400 meter I guess. The waves was restless like in Amarilla. I determined to have a go, It took me 20-30 min to swim to the cliff where kayakers were spotting turtles and other fishes. My visibility were affected by my indoor swimming goggles covered with sun creames. So I only saw some fishes but no turtles. I decided to swim back to the beaches as I am the solo swimmer reached such far. It took me another 20min to swim back with shortcut, and landed on the stone beach to avoid current.
    It was a good excise and adventurous swim though didn't see much of the sea wildlife.
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  • Day 7

    Snokling &Swim with fishes in rock pool

    August 1, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 29 °C

    1st Aug, the last day before heading home.
    We woke up late In the morning decided to go for snokling in Playa de Abades-one of the best places for snokling in North East Tenerife. However the GPS guided us to Fara Punt de Rasco, the place we planned to visit on south east coste of Tenerife. But the roads were blocked by banana farm gate, so we decided to go to Abades as we planned initially. It only took us 30 min drive along the highway TF1 toward North.
    There were few snoklers already in the right side of the beach, so it was not difficult to guess where to dive in and snokling. The weather was windy and a bit cloudy without sunshine. It felt a bit cold when we first got into the sea. There was a wall which submerged into the sea, we walk slowly alone the wall to get deep into snokling area. Immediately we noticed many fishes were eating s skin of orange(or melone) sunk in the sea bed. When we got deep in area filled with white marble stones we saw many more fishes are wondering around with the wave. A group of 50 white fishes were eating the plant growing on the wall and stones. There were large fishes crushing passed us without fear us. I guess these fishes were already uses to see the big creature with two hands and two legs visiting them ofyen without any harm. We spend one hour snokling there, it was amazing!
    After lunch, we decided to revisit Fara Punt de Rasco. least lesson from the morning (road blockages). We decided to stop a bit further from the visit site and walk to it by foot. As someone commented that the hiking in the area was also amazing. We stop the car on the edge of the village and walked along the coast. The cost was formed by black stone, it must be formed by volcano lava in the past. The land was dry and few cactus growing on the edge of footpath, we took few pictures of green captured with background of black rock and vast blue sea. As we walked along the coastline, the wind from Atlanta caused big waves, it crushed on the black rock with a big bumper and splashed with white foames, it was amazing to watch! After about 30 min walk, Leon was tired and we stopped in a small rock pool. Surpriely we found fishes in the pool. I changes my swimming suit and had a swimming with fishes while Leon walked in with his short on. It seemed the fishes were scared of people when people approaching them from the land, while are easy with big guys approaching?g them in the water, maybe they thinking they were belongs to same species-both can swimming but people wearing reading glasses (poor guys with poor sight), and can not hold their breath long (poor guys with short breath). Anyhow the fishes were used to be companied by me, and they even swimming around me and passed by my body.
    With such close encounte in such small space(pool), I noticed that the black/purple fishes were more dominant (in particularly big one). They chased a group of white/grey fishes around. The green sea sardine were bystand watching on motionlessly.

    it was close to 7:00 pm, so we decided not to continue hiking and headed home. After dinner, I suggested to have a small walk around the area as this will be the last night we stay. Leon agreed even he already had 10000 steps in his smart ring. We heading to the nearest beach south of Palia don Pedro. We walked toward to east this time (had a tour towards east the other day). The night getting darker, not much can be seen, rather than hearing waves after waves rushed on to the shores. While we walking, we noticed the dimy moon hanged in the middle of the air from the east, the sky was not brighted with such fading moon light. There were still couples sitting on the edge of the cliff enjoying such peaceful night.
    We returned home at about 10:00pm, attracted my the music and applause from the audience. It was indeed a Spanish dance performed by two male dances one younger and slimmer wearing black dotted white shirt, another older wearing white dotted black shirt, black trousers and high heels shooes. The shoes hit on the wood floor with big pun pun pun rythem with Latin music. I never watched Spanish dancing on stages. The dance was powerfull with full of energy. It was also infectious as the audience clapped their hand when the dances were performing.
    We went to bed with all these great memory of last day in Tenerife.
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  • Day 8

    Homing, sweet home

    August 2, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 17 °C

    2nd August, time to go home.
    I woke up early (7:30am) to pack few staffs was not done yesterday. Leon woke up a bit later and we go for the last breakfast before flight home.

    Leon didn't pick up fried ham this time, only small portion of salami instead. Maybe he would like to eat healthier and improve fitness for rugby next term.

    We first filled the tank before handed back to Touristprime. The receipt checked our car and will refund our deposit in 10 days. The shuttle bus took us to the airport which only 5 mins drive. We passed security chek, boarded without any issue.

    We had a wonderful trip to Tenerife, The sightseeing is breathtaking, snokeling is amazing, and the food is delicious! But there is no banquet lasting forever. It has coming to an end. The positivity is the life is good, we work hard and we need to treat ourself we'll. Next time with entire family during Christmas! Cannot wait!i
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