Unplanned Stop: Canary Islands

Canary Islands:

The Canary Islands were beautiful; I was grateful to be privileged enough to go there; they were not Morocco.  I do understand fully why we didn’t go, and I still mourn the loss of getting an intercultural exchange where groups of people could come to better understanding of one another.  I trust that this all happened for a reason, and wonder if I’m just simply supposed to travel there at a later date with my friend Garrett Naiman and our copies of The Alchemist and hang out at the Marrakesh market and camp out under the stars in the Sahara.  Anyways, the Canary Islands were dramatically beautiful.  We arrived on a Sunday, sailing in to Tenerife—a city poised on beautiful waters and in between volcanic folds of mountains with sharp edged-tops.  The Canary Islands are a part of Spain, and were named after all of the wild dogs on the islands…and then the birds were named after the islands.  Sunday in Canary was quiet;  there was a big market in town with lots of odds and ends that went on for several blocks, beginning with permanent stores, waving out to tables and booths, and ending essentially with lots of people with their wares on blankets on the sidewalks.  I bought a pair of $5 shorts which were definitely worth $5, and no more or no less.  I also got a dark leather brown bracelet with a silver spiral on it that was all hand-made and probably the coolest thing in the entire market.  It was still early when we left and passed by the Santa Cruz cathedral, which was having Mass.  I went in with a couple of shipmates for a service—I’ve never been to Mass before (I’ve been to Catholic weddings) and one of the things on my scavenger list is to go to a religious service that is not of my denomination.  Also, as a midpoint in the voyage, it was a good time to reflect and pray.  After Mass, we had lunch on the ship and rallied a group to go over the mountain to Tenerife, another city on the island with black-sand beaches (from the volcanoes).  There were 9 of us, which warranted two taxies.  Yes, we got separated.  Our taxi pulled ahead and dropped us off and we spent the next 45 minutes hiking to the left through the city (which had a variety of rocky beaches right in the city-front—places that you could walk out along a concrete wharf and climb down in to the ocean as if it were one giant powerful pool.  There was also a private pool area with huge pools.  In my group was Jacques, Emily, and Jonathan, and we had fun hiking around looking for the other party.  I stopped for gelato—fig & marscapone—awesome.  After searching very far to the left (you know where this story is going, yes?) we came back to center and got into the ocean to cool off.  Then we all took a nap on the beach plaza by the stony beach (there was a beach plaza—with showers).  It was a great nap, and a little strange to just fall asleep in the middle of a city, albeit at the beach plaza.  After our nap we decided to wander a bit and look for a good place for drinks or dinner, when Jacques had the most brilliant idea—to find a postcard of where we were (since we never really found the big black sand beach).  Once we found an aerial postcard, we realized that the big black beach was way to the right, and we headed in that direction to see if we could find the other group of folks (Kierra, Keith, Kate, Annalyn, and Brett).  We agreed to run towards our friends in slo-mo if we saw them.  We got to the black sand beach, which was beautiful, but there were no friends there.  We hung out on the beach for a bit looking for seaglass when they found us—they had hung out there for a bit, and then headed to the big pools, and then came back to look for us.  Reunited, we all went out to a Chinese buffet for dinner (40 dishes for 7 euro), watched an amazing sunset, and then watched Annalyn and Brett get a fish pedicure.

Santa Cruz, Canary Islands

Tenerife, Canary Islands--we swam & napped here

black sand beach, Tenerife, canary islands

dancing with the clouds while sailing towards Africa

Day 2—Jonathan Kroll (one of my RDs who is getting his PhD from Fielding Institute) and I led a leadership retreat.  We had 10 students come, and I think it went well.  Since this was an added-on country, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide something free and different for students.  That was only about 2.5 hours, and at the end of the retreat I headed out to wander solo around Santa Cruz—I stopped by a market with over 50 stalls and got curried beef empanadas and pistachio baklava for dessert.  I also found an internet café and caught up on emails over a cappuccino and then headed back to the ship with a lot of extra chocolate to use up my euros.  Leaving the Canary Islands was breathtaking—the sun set over the islands with the volcano making an appearance to the left, and Jacques and I stood out in the warm air with the cool breeze making us feel weightless as we snapped picture after picture of the dance of the cumulous clouds in the sweet-tart sky, laughing like 6 year olds—for me, it was one of those eternally timeless moments, laughing and being bathed in beauty from every side, suspended above the ocean and making our way on to new adventures as we headed to Africa.