Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Today we arrived in the Canary Islands island of Tenerife. This is a remote part of Spain off of the western coast of Africa.
Our excursion today was a 4x4 adventure in Land Rover Defender vehicles with the top removed and replaced with a roll bar. We had excellent views as we traveled around the island of Tenerife. The island is shaped like a duck and our port is just below the bill of the duck. Zoom out in the map and you'll see it.
We started from the ship directly to the 4x4s and headed our of the city to the Teide National Park. Along the way we saw Mt Teide. We drove through winding streets and actually drove to an altitude above the clouds. As we drove the temperature dropped probably 15 degrees and it was nice and cool with very blue, sunny skies. Our guide explained that there used to be a volcano millenia ago and it has eroded since then. The crater is now huge hills of black volcanic rock.
Along the drive to the national park the land changed from tree covered to more barren reddish stone and black volcanic rock. We were able to visit the park and climb up to some of the viewing points. It was a little difficult since the mountain is roughly 12,000 feet above sea level. The views were magnificent with the blue skies, rock formations and infinite views of the island.
We made additional stops in the park at viewing points to take amazing pictures and take in the views. The very windy roads to lunch were a lot of fun since we still had the top of the vehicle off and our driver was very aggressive in the turns. We were sitting in the very back 2 jump seats and sometimes it felt like the truck might have one wheel in the air. It was all safe and they do this drive most days.
After lunch we had some more views and winding roads to get back down to sea level. We basically drove a loop from the ship, through the volcanic crater, up to the top and then back down again to the ship.
It was a great day! Lots of driving fun, excellent views and a chance to walk around and do a little light hiking.Les mer