Oh 2 BGood: October 2010

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Canary Islands Day 3 & Day 4

Puerto de la Cruz, on the North shore of Tenerife

View from Playa de Las Teresitas near the capital city of Santa Cruz

At the gate of the church meetinghouse in Puerto de la Cruz

Looking up the driveway to the church building

The best view we could get of the meetinghouse

Chapel in La Laguna (the first one built in the Canary Islands)

Another view of the capilla

Sailboat floats, pulled by teams of bulls for a small village festival

I have found that Spain has some of the best bread/pastries I have ever eaten in my life. I am so glad that we have walked as many miles as we have even if my legs and feet hurt so I can eat as much as I want. Today we woke up and the skies were cloudy and it was a bit rainy. We decided to eat breakfast and take our chances on hiking Mt. Teide. As we drove up the windy roads we were a bit skeptical but after we made it through the cloud cover the sun started shining and it was perfect weather.

This is the cable car we took up to the first lookout point on the mountain. Byron got us special passes that allowed us to climb the rest of the way up to the peak of the mountain. I will admit I wasn't all that excited to hike up the rest of the way, there was a little 4 year old boy ahead of us that shared my feelings also. I decided that if he was doing it I better do it too. We made it up the rest of the way and although the view is filled with cloud cover down below it was wonderful.

Byron on the top of Mount Teide

As we drove up the Mountain in the morning we had to drive through all of these clouds to get up to where you board the Teleferico. Once we got above them it was a sunny beautiful day and we were so happy to be up so high in the sky and not down below where it was dreary.

Our little buddies dad took a picture of us at the top.

Here is a picture of a lizard. We thought the kids would like seeing it. We saw lots of lizards all over the place all different sizes. This one was one of the bigger ones we saw.

Rock formations as the base of the Mountain.

For Nina: Our first car in Madrid Mini Coupe....if you look closely you will see the screw in the front tire. We drove it straight to the rental company for a new car.

Byron got lucky and got an free upgrade to much nicer Audi.

For Nina: Our car in the Canary Islands. The cars look just like they do back home. The only difference is they are all much smaller since parking is limited.

Canary Islands Day 1

We landed on the islands early Monday morning to beautiful blue skys. We were very tired because our flight out of Madrid left at 6:30 a.m. and we only managed to get 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before. We headed up to the hotel around the other side of the island and to drop off our bags. The picutre above was taken from a walk/hike up to the town where Byron first served on the Island, Santa Ursala. It is also the same area where our hotel was located.

This is a picture taken looking out on the ocean and scenery from our balcony. What an amazing site!

After the only mid day nap of our trip to Spain we ventured down to Candelaria a small town with some small shops, a historical church and an town square with statues of the Guanches. This is a photo of one of the 9 leaders of the Guanches (the first people to inhabit the islands) before Spain conqueored them.

We continued around the island to see Los Gigantes or the Giant Cliffs.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Espana

Sorry it has taken us so long to update on our trip. We have been very busy in Madrid and we have had little time to spend in the hotel. On Thursday we went up to Segovia, a small historic town up on a hill about a 1hr north of Madrid. We got to see a Roman Aqueduct. It was so big and very impressive. Byron is making fun of how many pictures I am taking….I am just hoping I get one that is as amazing as the sights we have seen to put on my walls at home. We also got to see a Cathedral that was built in the 15th century. We are in awe at how the people back then could build something so large in stature. It was magnificent. Then we saw a Castle (Alcazar) that was equally amazing.

On Friday we drove back into Madrid to see the Prado and to take a tour of the Football (Soccer) Stadium that houses Real Madrid. We didn’t get to see all of the sights the first day in Madrid because 1) we ran out of time, and 2) the people of Madrid (and all across Europe) staged a strike of Labor Workers. This included all mass transit workers and many others. We only saw 3 buses and 0 taxis all day on Wednesday. However we did see thousands of people coming into downtown Madrid to march the streets to a Rally held in the Puerto Del Sol. After Madrid we drove about an 1hr south to a town called Toledo. Here we saw an even bigger Cathedral. We walked the streets and window shopped at a lot of shops along the way. The streets are a lot different from home and very very narrow.

After our short visit in Toledo, we drove 2 hrs to a small pueblo called Alarcon, and there we spent the night in an actual castle. We arrived late at night, and to see the place all lit up as we drove in was quite a sight. But the views we saw in the morning were even more impressive, and we stayed for almost an hour just staring out at the countryside before continuing our journey down to Murcia to the house of some friends.