Tenerife

 It probably wasn't the perfect way to start the day I thought as I stood on our balcony watching the volcanic island of Teneriffe loom out of the mornings pre dawn impressed by it's tropical appearance before realising that I was providing a beautiful silhouette in my "birthday suit" to the nearby tug pilot guiding us in ... exit quickly stage right !

After dressing and being well fed (despite MSC's chaotic breakfast) we disembarked to be met by our guide for the day Felix a Tenerife local complete with his 8 seater mini van !

Felix in a very short time identified himself as a congenial walking encyclopedia filling us over the next 7 hours with facts ranging from geological and political history, to culture,  to local fauna and flora, to the effects of local weather patterns and an effort to capture cloud moisture to even island drift and erosion which he believes will place the Canary Islands under water and close to the African continent n about 10 million years or so !

Our first stop on our tour was a cafe out of Santa Cruz in the nearby hills near La Laguna the islands original settlement. Here we had an amazing local coffee called a Barrachito, a coffee with 7 distinct layers of ingredients iincluding cinamon, condensed milk and some form of cointreau laceced liqueur ! Even Monika who is not into coffee reckoned that this was tge perfect way to start the day !

After coffee we headed inland climbimg circuitous roads towards the Unesco listed Mt Tiede national park. The views here were stunning. Up front you had an increasingly volcanic landscape while down below you had precipitous views of the beautiful coastline 

After many photo stops we finally reached the El Tiede plateau a landscape of former small vocanoes, petrified lava flows and different forms of volcanic rock including basalt, the quartz looking obsidian and the lightweight pumice stone formed by consolidated volcanic ash !

The centre piece of all of this was of course Mt Teide itself the 3rd highest volcano in tbe world at 3, 800 metres which geologists say extends another 4, 000 metres under the sea ! Mt Teide amazingly has a cable car running right up one of its sides which is unusual in a nationa park. Just over a month ago these same cable cars came to a halt because of a mechanical issue causing over 100 tourists to be rescued from over 60 metres up with many having to stay overnight in one of the Mountains cabin shelters !

After being awed by the incredible scenery we escaped the tourist hordes and descended back the same way out of the national park to a local restaurant for lunch where we indulged in local food and unfortunately for me a local beer which just about put me to sleep 

Rightfully indicating that we'd need to wakk lunch off Felix dropped us off at La Laguna with its historic builinds proving evidence of the early 17th century Spanish settlement. The mall area and brightly coloured buildings provided a lovley back drop on this sunny day.

Once done our final stop off was at Tenerife's incredibly shaped Opera House an obviius estranged relative of Sydney !

Our fantastic day ended with us being dropped back off at the port by Felix complete with a parting gift of bottled cloud water new to tg5e list of recent Tenerife innovations !

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