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For our last full day we headed down to Guimar, to look at the “Piramides”, thought by some to indicate that pre-European civilisation sea-farers crossed the Atlantic. We had a walk round the terraced structure and watched the AV presentation.

Then we headed back up to the Tiede volcano to take some more pictures of the awesome landscape, and we figured the Polo had a day off from mountaineering yesterday so must be ready for some more today.

Every corner revealed yet another stunning vista, and once above the cloud and the treeline, it really is like another world. Hardly surpising that bits of Star Wars were filmed here.

Tomorrow morning it’s an early start to head back the the airport, then back to Prestwick by late afternoon.

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A relaxing day today, we headed in to the town of Puerto de la Cruz this morning, before spending most of the afternoon at the pool, where, predictably, I got sunburned…

Later we went to Santa Cruz to have a look at the shopping centres and, most importantly, to get some Chips Ahoy.

Tenerife is really an island of contrasts. The volcanic scenery is really amazing, and that’s just the bits we’ve seen from the road. Some of the hiking tours into the back country must be really great. Then there’s the seaside resorts – All the restaurants have the same food, and the shops all have the same junk, I don’t think I’d be happy to spend more than a day or so “in town”.

Tomorrow we’re going to head back to the south coast and have a look around there.

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Today we woke up to a cloudy and rainy day, so we decided to head over to the west coast in the hope of finding better weather and going on a whale and dolphin spotting trip out of Los Gigantes.

First we had to negotiate the mountain road TF-82. With lots of standing water, and steep twisty corners it proved an enjoyable drive, though again our poor Polo 1.4 found the hills hard going.

The TF-82 was nothing compared to the road between Santiago del Tiede and Masca, the TF-436. A narrow road with harpin after hairpin after hairpin and what seemed to be 1 in 5 gradients. It was well worth it though as the views of the valley were stunning, and our photos don’t do it justice.

Amazingly, even on the out-of-the-way roads the surface quality is excellent, we’ve not encountered any potholes at all.

When we got to Los Gigantes we booked out on the “Flipper Uno”, a three hour trip out to look for dolphins and whales. The trip didn’t disappoint with Pilot Whales coming right up to the boat. We then headed back into a cove where there was an opportunity to go swimming from the boat – we didn’t, but load of people enjoyed jumping into the water by swinging off the trapeze.

We headed down to Las Americas for dinner, just to see how it compared with our resort. I think we made the right choice! Finally back to the hotel via the Autopista and we completed a circumnavigation of the main roads on the island.

As an interesing side note, when ordering vodka and coke at the bar, they wait for you to say stop when pouring the vodka, then top up with coke. I didn’t know that, so am now drinking virtually neat vodka through a straw.

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Our first full day in Tenerife. The hotel is excellent, a surprise considering what we paid. Today we went to Loro Parque which is kind of like Sea World in Orlando, with Whale, Dolphin and Sea Lion shows, as well as parrots. It’s very close to the town of Puerto de la Cruz where we’re staying too.

In the afternoon we ventured up onto the high mountain road to see the Tiede volcano. The climb up was incredible, with villages appearing to hang on the edge of steep hillsides. We climbed through the cloud to emerge into clear blue sky just below the treeline. A few hundred more metres and we entered an incredible landscape at 2300m. Our poor VW Polo rental and its 1.4 litre engine worked hard to get there – The trip back down worked the brakes hard too!

This evening we walked down into the town for dinner, down being the operative word as the whole island seems to be clinging to the side of the mountain with the only flat bit being the walkway by the water.

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