Tenerife Part 1

We left for Tenerife in the Canary Islands on Sunday evening. We were annoyed that it was an evening flight but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because Jason got food poisoning (or something) the night before and spent most of the night in agony. So after 8 hours on the couch recovering we headed to the airport. We were slightly concerned when we first got to our gate because there was a “puddle jumper” plane there- we couldn’t imagine 6 hours on that….but thankfully our plane was just out of sight. When we got on we discovered the seats were tiny and the legroom was non-existent. Jason was feeling pretty bad and we were crammed in which didn’t make him feel better. Luckily the guy in the aisle seat moved to another row so Jason could lie down for the rest of the flight and not puke on me. We arrived about midnight in Tenerife and were shuttled to our hotel.

The next morning arrived and Jason felt better but still not 100% so we took it easy. We needed to buy Jason a bathing suit since in his sickness he forgot to pack one and even though I double-checked it I missed it too. So we got a 15 Euro suit and walked the boardwalk. Then we found a much-coveted spot by our pool and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading. The good news is that it is much warmer then we expected - every day but one was low 70's and sunny! We headed out that evening to explore more of the area and have dinner. We saw an “American” restaurant and had dinner there since we were both craving burgers. We were sadly disappointed with our bacon cheeseburgers. The burger had British bacon (which is not good – sorry Colin), horrible white tasteless cheese and the burger itself looked like a frozen patty. We both ate half and left the rest.

The next day we got a great spot on the El Duque beach in front of our hotel under a palapa. What we didn’t realize was at 1pm we were charged 18 Euro for the privilege of using the chairs and palapa but it was well worth it. We did get an eyeful of European beach activities including numerous topless women. I have to admit that the Europeans in general are much more accepting of their bodies. I saw women in suits that you would never see a woman wearing in America at her size– there is something pretty cool about how comfortable they are with themselves.

So a few notes on were we are staying. The area in general is called Playa de las Americas. It is very touristy and there are lots of hotels and junky souvenir shops. Our hotel is on the west end of this area, which is called Costa Adeje, which is much nicer and well kept. Our hotel was really nice and our room was great. The room had a great balcony and view to the next hotel and it’s tennis courts and helipad (?) and you could see a tiny speck of ocean. The hotel included breakfast, which was excellent. The location itself catered heavily to British tourists- everywhere you went you saw ads for British Breakfast and Champions League Football (soccer). There were also a good bit of Germans and Spanish as well – Americans are rare and we made some friends with our accent. Jason and I both had to admit the area was nice but it could have been anywhere in the world – it didn’t feel Spanish or African (considering it is closet to Morocco).