Chapter 3: A weekend on Tenerife. Van experience on the Canary Islands!

In this chapter, we're going to the island of Tenerife, to the sweltering heat of the Canary Islands for a weekend. We're going to make the most of the time we have there with our van.

Before I start I have to update you on some news regarding the facilities within our van. The main new installations are that we now have portable electric shower and a chemical bath. Logically, I don't take all the kit with me everywhere I go with the van. I think there's only two essential things you need if you're going to dedicate yourself to this type of free travel and spend a long periods away from home, as you don't have to go through the hassle find somewhere to stay to carry out your basic needs.

With that said, I'll show you the chemical which contains a liquid which is anti-odors and removes grime. The shower has an integrated pump that goes directly into the water tank.

To travel to Tenerife, we bought a ticket at Naviera Armas, . As I mentioned in my publication on "how to travel between islands", it will take longer than it does on the Fred Olsen, but it's cheaper and we don't have to go to Agaete to catch the Fred Olsen.

As the van is within the "small vehicle" limits that the shipping company stipulates, we can get a ticket for a good price. The image below is a screenshot of the ticket. Bear in mind, we are residents of the islands, but if you're a traveller from outside the Canary Islands whether you're Erasmus or any other traveller, the journey may be more expensive. In the image you can see a ticket for one passenger, which is 53 euros, tickets for two passengers will be 77 euros if you're a resident.

I've got to say that a few days before leaving for Tenerife, a friend sent me a Whatsapp message gifting me two VIP entry passes for the event Ritmos del Mundo (rythms of the world) which is held in Tenerife in Siam Park.

We caught this island event by chance so we had to take advantage of the occasion, and since we're here, a little party never hurt anyone, right? The event consists of a music festival with Djs from around the world. As we went that weekend, we went to the first phase where Djs like Dannic, Headhunterz, Mightyfools, Boungenvilla, Aldair Silva and Deff Pete performed. I didn't know them all, but I recognised some of the songs. While you're reading this, you'll see what our experience at this event was like.

We board the boat at the scheduled time, at 16:30 in the afternoon. In Gran Canaria, threatening black clouds were heading towards the city from the South. To be time efficient, we took notes on the boat to in order to work through our subject material for the next exams. The boat has some areas with tables above the cafeteria-dining room. You can take advantage of these and take notes and improve on a topic of interest. As we were leaving the port, we found the oil rigs waiting for their slot at the port.

Keep in mind that if you want to eat something in the boat's cafeteria - dining room, it closes fifteen minutes after the boat has left the port. But it's ok, you'll be informed by the speakers in both Spanish and English. At the back of the boat, there's always a small coffee shop that's open where you can order a coffee or anything fast.

You can stretch your legs on the decks. If you don't get seasick then I'd advise you give this a go, but take a coat because with the speed of the boat and the marsh you can get a little cold. You have some chairs to get some fresh air, there's even a pool. It's normally the children that go swimming in the pool, and normally only in summer.

The ship arrived at Santa Cruz de Tenerife at 19:30 and like in Gran Canaria, the Port of Tenerife also receives oil platforms. As soon as they arrive, they are the dominate the skyline and, due to their large size, they attract attention.

The first thing we did was go to La Laguna. That night we stayed in the area and went for dinner at the Bedegón Viana which we try to visit every time we go to Tenerife and pass through La Laguna. As I've said in other posts, La Laguna is a university city and and whether you've travelled to visit Tenerife or you're an Erasmus student, I recommend visiting this place.

Here, we usually order little dishes to snack on so we get to taste a little bit of everything. The first time we went we ordered a whole serving of each dish, and we ended up regretting it because it was a lot of food for the two of us. So, for two people, I'd advise you to get half a serving, you'll do fine with that if you order at least two of them. This time we order baby squid, scrambled eggs and wrinkly potatoes.

We also ordered half a portion of wrinkly potatoes, and of course, their traditional mojo picón. They also give you two more sauces along with the mojo, just in case you don't like The Canary Islands sauce. Mojo picón is orange in colour, the other sauces are mojo verde and ali-oli.

We also ordered scrambled (or starry) eggs, which in Tenerife is seen a lot in eateries and "bochinches", which are local restaurants that serve traditional homemade food. This dish is made with french fries and fried egg. When serving the dish everything is mixed together and stirred. Chistorra or chorizo is added and stirred in with spices to give it some more flavour. The resulting dish can be seen in the image below.

We ordered a house wine to go with the meal and as we were not going to drive that night, we could allow ourselves a glass or two. As you can see, the bill isn't bad considering how much we ate, and that we had wine.

After dinner at the bar, we were invited to go to a pub-like place, to have a drink and end the night there. The night was perfect because they were doing a beer promotion where the first one was free, so the first beer was on the house. This place is in the same city as La Laguna by the university area, which they call the "cuadrilátero". Th eplace itself is called Jospital, and it's a good place to spend a night and drink a few beers and drinks. There's also a foosball table to throw you a few games.

Even so, they told me there that if you buy a shirt like the one in the photo that Jairo and Pablo are wearing, for ten euros, you'll get some benefit or other when you go to the same place again.

We were in luck that night, as part of the above mentioned promotion, we were given some scratch cards that contained a prize, and we scratched an explorer hat and won a world map where we could scratch off every country that we've visited.

That night we found a room to sleep in in the area, and the next day we got up early and went to the supermarket to buy supplies for a trip to a sandy beach that had been mentioned to us. We bought two ready-made salads prepared on the islands that cost about 2.5 euros each. We also bought some biscuits, a crab sauce and some beers from the islands' brand, of course. My girlfriend Maria is going to be my model in the photos of this trip, so here's a picture of her holding the shopping basket.

When we took the road to the beach, we found a truck full ofCanarian bananas which were freshly harvested from the banana plantations. I really wanted to take a few and take them to the beach, but they are bit green, aren't they? Do you see the sign saying maximum speed 120 km/h? Well, I don't think the speed of the truck and the van put together reached that speed. Even if it doesn't look like it, it's a considerable slope...

We headed to the hidden white sand beach which is little visited, a beach by Valle Guerra by a farm that is full of banana plantations and other plantations such as lemon tree plantations. We went down the street that goes to the plantation, like everything in Tenerife, the road was very sloped. We liked this road full of plants. And to show you how sloped everything in Tenerife is, I'll leave you with this photo of me coming down with the van, so you can see how scared I looked.

Oh my god! It's all so slopey here! We decided to take a little break from the journey and the van, so we stopped and stretched our legs a little. This van is quite cheerful in terms of suspension, so it was a little uncomfortable sometimes because of the small bumps you get as a result of driving along roads with a lot of potholes. Of course, we stopped to take some pictures from a good vantage point. It didn't come out too well in the photo, but it has a lot of greenery and the views from here were impressive because of how high up we were.

To get to this beach you have to walk about half an hour over a mountain. The path is easy as long as you wear suitable shoes, which we didn't have at that time so we had to go down the whole mountain in footwear that wasn't that comfy. As you go down the road you'll find tunnels made of plants.

As you come out of the tunnels, you can see the scenery waiting for you on the beach. It's a small white sand beach with small natural pools which are quite shallow but still quench the need for a good cool bathe when the sun's rays start beating down relentlessly. Due to its geographical location, there are people on the island who don't know where this beach is. There are even people who live in the area who try to keep the beach a secret for conservation reasons, since there are poeple who leave their rubbish on the beach and don't pick it up. So, if you do go, take care of the place.

Once on the beach, we stayed in one of the pools. You can see from the photo that it's right in front of the sandy area and isn't very deep, you have to bathe lying down.

It was soon time to eat and this area had something in store for us. Under the sun and the tidal breeze, we took our cold beers and salads out of the fridge. To be honest, the people there looked at us a little strange when we came to the beach because we were loaded with the big fridge that we had taken with us when we left with the van. But it made a comfortable table.

We stayed at the beach all day until it was time to leave and go to the event I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Ritmos del Mundo. We climbed back up the cliff until we reached the van where we showered and changed clothes before heading to the south of the island. Then we travelled about 90 kilometres, no more, from the beach to the Siam Park water park.

As we travelled south, we came across landscapes like the one pictured below. In the background you can see the island of La Gomera, which is covered with clouds in the evening.

We arrived at Siam Park at about 9pm at night and the event Ritmos del Mundo was very lively. You could hear the loud music and people shouting and chanting from outside the venue. I was surprised at the amount of security the creators of the event had organised at the doors. I have to give it to them, because I'd never seen such well-organised security at an event like this before.

The music at the event was solely house music and the stage was an open auditorium that was referred to as the chicken coop. You could get your drinks from the free bar that surrounded said chicken coop. We really liked the show they put on, there was a mix of fire and confetti in the air and bright, colour-changing balloons that we bounced over the crowd.

Upon entering, we were given a cup and a wristband with the event's logo on it, which will make a nice addition to our accessories in the van. To be honest, the glasses were really beautiful and had typical Canary Island decorations.

As we intended to stay the night in El Medano, I didn't take anything into the event and I would advise you to do the same. Firstly for your own and others' safety and secondly, because on the way out there are police controls, and there's a 90% chance that they'll rat you out, so if you rent a van for this type of travel and drink, you're better off staying on site until the next day.

We left Ritmos del Mundo and headed towards El Medano. On the journey, we got hungry so we stopped at a petrol station that was on route to get some snacks and put fuel in the van. The price of diesel here is hovering around 0.76 euros a litre at the moment, so with 20 euros I could fill up with about 25 litres of fuel. In terms of the sandwiches, oh my god what a sandwich! I almost didn't finish mine. I ordered a special fillet with all the trimmings, as you can see in the photo. Delicious!

We arrived at El Medano and stayed close to the sandy beach. There were lots of vans around us so we felt safe there. We had a nice night there without any problems.

The next morning, we got up and were able to see our surroundings better. In front of us was the Red Mountain of El Medano, and behind us was el Teide which was already completely free of snow.

We had breakfast on the makeshift table we made inside the van. How could we not, we're always monkeying around. Suddenly, we were surrounded by lizards who were crawling on the stones and around the side door, they'd come out to hydrate because we'd sprayed water on the ground. Since we had some cut up melon and papaya in the fridge, we threw some pieces to them. I bet they didn't expect such a feast that morning.

The beach right in front of the area we stayed in is windy. However, you can bathe in the area next to the Red Mountain, which will shield you from the wind a little bit. Be careful when walking on the dry sand on this beach and always wear sensible shoes because we saw some very rusty pins on the road, so don't risk going barefoot. Although we didn't see many, I don't know the beach that well, so it's better to be safe than sorry and wear shoes at least on the sand.

After leaving this beach, we went to the village of Medano which is right nextdoor. It was really windy, so much so that we were a little uncomfortable. As expected, windsurfers had the run of the village beach along with the people who were kitesurfing. If you zoom in on the photo I've given you, you can see the windsurfers.

As it was already Sunday and we had to catch the boat from Santa Cruz to return to Gran Canaria, we decided to spend some time on a beach between Candelaria and Santa Cruz called "playa de la Nea". Before heading to the beach we went to an Italian ice cream parlor found in La Laguna that´s only open in hot weather. I ordered a mint choc chip ice cream. Sorry for only showing you half the ice cream. It was really good and I only remembered to take a picture for you when I was halfway through it.

When we finished the ice cream, we decided to go to playa de la Nea for a bit before heading to catch the boat without having to rush since we were relatively close. The beach really is the perfect place to take a cool dip in the sea and have a sit down on the rocks that are all around. The sand is not totally sand, it seems to be mixed in with gravel so it's a bit uncomfortable, but it's alright. I prefer the playa del Valle I mentioned earlier.

The end of our trip to Tenerife arrived and we were very sad to leave the island as we would have liked to visit more places such as the beach we saw at the beginning, but we'll have more opportunities to visit again. We leave the beach with plenty of time and head towards the boat to get into the boarding queue.

Like I always say, rent a van if you like this type of travel and you will enjoy your Erasmus experience to the max. In the following chapters, I'll provide you with some information on van rentals so you'll be informed before you arrive. And with this final image taken from the boat looking at Gran Canaria, we say goodbye to Tenerife.

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