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EuroVicki
Once again we hired a taxi guide based on his English discussion before we chose him. But soon, once he knew that we could both speak Spanish, he switched - and he only clarified in English. As we sped toward the northern part of the island, he explained that bananas are the main agricultural export, along with tomato and grapes (in the form of wine..) There are two airports on this island - but we didn't go toward either.. I thought we were going to the University- the only one in the 7 Canarias (there are 30,000 students ) but the various campuses are spread out over the island. As we were driving we also learned that living in the south of the island is more expensive than the north. Volcano (El Teide, the third largest volcano in the world) near Sauzal is the part of islands with the largest population of Germans and Belgium and French. The white part at the top is snow or ice! And today at the shore was 73 degrees... And the shores are all rocky - no sand. La Orotava is the oldest part of the island The trees (pino canario) grow in 2 years!! The house of balconies was built in 1832 - no nails or glue just wood fitted together. we had a great time looking at crafts and trying the banana liqueur and the honey rum. There was also a very interesting display of an annual festival art where differing colors of sand and flower petals create works of art. Nearby was a church with a plaza give over to a very impressive Christmas display. I took a video and include it! We then drove to Lago de Martianez which is a very nice, high end resort - man made - and our favorite thing was the natural beach that is black sand from volcanic ash. Next we drove deep into a typical neighborhood where it is allowed by the government to grow grapes and make wine in your house and sell the wine! So we went to a guachinche - typical in the city for locals to eat tapas and vino, often in a private home. Ours had tables from telephone cable spools and the seats are from rolls from lithograph paper. The cheese is called queso fresco like in Mexico and the bread and garbanzos are fresh and warm. The vino was quite new, made for this Christmas. The bread is made of gofio canario... The beef and pork were outstanding and the French fries were way too much!! Amazingly this lunch for 3 people including wine was 27 Euro. The address is 42 Calle del Mar on the north side in Santa Ursula if anyone is heading this way. We headed back to the ship but on the way we were able to pass the Tenerife Opera house- quite a pretty building , and we have it on good authority that the inside is beautiful and the acoustics are wonderful. Back on the ship I once again participated in team trivia (we lost today) had dinner, and went to an Agam seminar. We had been told earlier that there would be a Gemini shooting star shower this evening so we joined Joan on her balcony to watch for a while, then we retired to our cabin - Joey to TV, and I wrote this blog!
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Lucy Merry Christmas