Shopping and Whale Watching

The weekend after the intern left was full of activities. Saturday I went to Santa Cruz with the other intern. She has never been there, so I wanted to show her some things like the Auditorio and Plaza de Espana. We went there by bus, arrived at about 2pm and started our trip. We passed by the Auditorio and continued our way to the city centre where one could find all the shops. It was quite hot but that didn't stop us. Acutally, I didn't know what to buy so I just looked at things and let her try and buy things. Finally, as alwasy, I found some things anyway and it was expensive enough ;) 

We went to a restaurant to eat some very delicious Tapas and continued the shopping tour. When we had seen almost all the shops in the city centre we decided to get back in direction of the bus stop where the large shopping centre "Corte Ingles" was. With its 9 floors it also took us some time to get through it but as it's quite expensive we didn't buy anything. After an ice cream we had still about 40 minutes to wait for the bus but we were so tired that we didn't want to move anymore, so we sat down and waited. 

For the next day we had booked a Whale Watching Tour. Unfortunately you are quite dependent on tourist agencies on Tenerife without a car, so we had to do it like that. I decided to do some sports before we would be picked up by the bus at 11 (baaaad idea as I would notice later on) and then I got ready for the trip. Usually I don't like those "sit in the bus with 50 other people and see 20 percent of the things"-trips, but as I said - without car there is no other possibility. So we had to drive about 2 hours until a harbour in the south of the island where we would get on a boat. I was tired and it was warm and I was hungry because of the running in the morning, so the bus drive wasn't that comfortable. Finally, we arrived and got on the boat. 120 people is too much! Everyone wanted to be on the top deck, of course, so they were almost fighting for places there. We were lucky to arrive early so we had seats, but there was so much sun, I thought that I wouldn't survive the 4,5 hours at that place. But for the beginning it was okay. There were free drinks and we would get something to eat at lunchtime (actually it was already lunchtime but okay). 

So we started  the tour with an annoying tour guide who repeated everything in 6 or 7 different languages which made me stop listening. I just looked at the sea and tried not to get sick. Actually, I thought I wouldn't mind boat trips and wouldn't get sick because it never happened to me, but I was wrong. Reasons might be the sun and the sports in the morning, but I was quite happy that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was already 2pm. The first 2 hours we didn't see anything, it was just the annoying person telling things about 5 stars hotels at the coast and "interesting" facts about the island I already knew. Finally, we arrived at Los Gigantes, a nice rock formation where we would have our lunch break and the possibility to swim a bit. As I really didn't want to eat anything I decided to get into the water. The other intern wen with me, and it was really a good idea, because I immediately felt better in the water. But after 20 minutes we had to get on the boat again, and I felt sick again. So I didn't eat, just took a glass of water and sat down on the top deck. After 1 hour lunch break we started to our way back, where we would make some efforts to see dolphins and wales. 

Finally, the annoying voice shouted that there were dolphins at the right side of the boat. Immediately everyone tried to get to the right side to see them. And that continued like that from left to right, from right to left etc for about 30 minutes. We weren't that lucky, but anyway we could see some dolphins and take pictures. We even saw a baby dolphin! 

Then, we went on to a spot were usually one can see wales. It was the same right-left-right game as before, but this time we were a bit luckier and saw a lot of cool moves from the wales. They weren't large wales like the ones you are usually thinking of if you hear "wale". They were a bit bigger than dolphins but you couldn't see a large difference. Anyway, it was very nice to see those animals in their natural environment.

After 30 minutes it was over and we made our way back to the harbour. I still felt a bit sick and was happy when we could leave the boat again and got into the bus. After 2 hours drive we were finally back to Puerto de la Cruz and I was happy to be able to take a shower and especially to eat something. I haven't eaten for the whole day. But it was a nice experience that I wouldn't want to miss. 

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