In which Sid and Doris go up, up, up and down, down, down. And up, up, up.
On New Year’s Eve the Bull Dorado made a wonderful evening with a drinks and canapé reception before shepherding the second sitting through a glittering portal with lines of hotel staff applauding amidst a rain of gold stars. Though the format was still buffet all guests had numbered tables and place names. Ask Doris what she would like for a special dinner and the answer will be duck. Abracadabra; duck. Ask Sid: maybe chestnut purée pudding? Hurrah. The entire event was so much more than what a grizzled old sceptic might have imagined. Even so the GOS was still feeling the wrong side of well and had an early night while Doris danced to the early hour.
(Our room was the rightmost one on the floor above the pool – amazing luck for an extremely last-minute booking.)
On NYD the plan was to go to the Parador at Cruz Tejeda, via a high point from which to see other islands, and particularly Mt Tiede on Tenerife poking through the clouds. Doris has special picture of the inversion. Some days you can drive above the clouds. On other days you can drive through the clouds.
[Explanation from Doris. Green arrow points to Mount Tiede. Red arrow points to the temperature inversion, which is the cloud layer as seen from sea level. Blue arrow points to the actual sea level of Tenerife showing that there is plenty of it lower down, sticking out in both directions.]
Going up and going hiking are very popular today. The trinket sellers are out in the Mirador viewpoints. Hearing Ra Ra Rasputin on the trinket seller’s boogie box might spoil your solemn contemplation of nature and space or just add a bit of fun. The cosmos does not seem to have been much upset by Ra Ra etc…
Anyway we do get to park at the very peak. Lots of cyclists – many routes to the peak all approx 40km long from the coast so a fifty mile ride with a couple of thousand metres of ascent is a splendid way to spend NYD – if you are fit as a butcher’s dog, but thinner.
A moment on cars. The cars on these islands are very dull though on NY eve we saw the Opel dealer’s collection on display at Fuerteventura. There is at least one other MX5. Looking back and forward the cars of any note include a Seat 131, a Seat 600, an E30 M3, a Renault 4. It is the sort of place where a Porsche Boxster counts as a sighting. Best spot today a FWD Toyota Corolla GTi.
We make the Parador Mirador cafe for lunch. Once checked in Doris suggests – nay insists on – going out for an ice cream. The picture above shows Tejeda village is four kilometres away and 400 metres below, down winding tracks (though less winding than the road route). Sensible shoes and off we go. The ice cream vendeuse does not want a reputation for meanness. Throwing away 2/3s of it gives an appropriate-sized helping to feed the return trip.
Below is the view back to the Paradore, illustrating once again just how much detail the naked eye can force out of the most distant view when it is sufficiently determined.
For the dog lover(s) in the readership here is a very pretty Canarian Podenc with appealing hazel eyes. He is a rabbit hound, though slightly camera shy.
Paradores are hotels in special old buildings, sometimes convents or castles. They are approximately four star, if you allow more stars for the setting and give the service the benefit of the doubt. Dinner helpings here were appropriate for people who had been dry stone walling for ten hours, tree felling or maybe mining or hod carrying. The staff agreed the portions were too large for dinner, but presumably no one was going to relay this to ‘management’. S and D had taken the last room up in the attic which made for great star gazing through Velux windows to the universe and beyond. ‘There is Orion, and there is his belt’, a story for another time.
We finish with a view of the sunset from the bedroom Velux window (Doris had to stand on a chair) as even the amazing iPhone struggles to take pictures of starry skies.
