How could she turn down a free hot chinese buffet?

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Geo: 28.0496, -14.3516

Saw a roach on the counter this morning. Those little b@stards are fast! I tried to cover him with an ashtray but he scrambled away, jumped to the ground, and hid underneath a cabinet. I unpacked and re-packed my backpack to ensure that no stray cockroaches hid inside.

We planned on eating the bread we still had in our possession, but I noticed a little hole in the bag - obviously chewed open by a roach. So I went to the gas station on the corner - no bread. That was a good thing as I picked up some nice, fresh (still warm!) ciabatta. It was yummy - I ate way too much bread and way too much Nutella. Nutella tastes good with everything ... probably even served with giant Canarian roaches!

Breakfast was a nice affair on the terrace - cheese, Serrano ham, grapes, juice ... a veritable feast! Off to the CICAR rental car office - it was closed for the worker's coffee break. When she returned, we realized that I had booked at the wrong office location. That's one thing that sucks about CICAR - you pick the specific location when you make the reservation, but the printout only tells you the town, not the exact location. Luckily the other location was only a 7 minute walk away (but still not an easy walk with my bum knee!)

We left Ha and the luggage there and set off for the other office. When we arrived, the office was also closed for a coffee break! So Ben and I decided to have a coffee break of our own.

We finally picked up the car and then picked up Ha. She probably wondered what the heck happened to us for all that time. We drove to El Cotillo and checked out the tower. Kind of blah, but I think I spotted a couple of Spanish hotties around there. The first ones of the Canaries! We wandered down to the beach nearby - a nice spot, but the water was kind of cold.

Next up was La Oliva - we were getting hungry so we ate some of the macadamia nuts I brought from home. This time, there were no complaints about the smell of my nuts (see Euro 2007 blog entitled "We got our 'Bow Chick a Wow Wow' back!")! It's a pretty neat little town - Nuestra Senora de la Candeleria wasn't too bad, either.

There wasn't anything to see in Tindaya, but we went to "Casa de Pon" for lunch. We wanted to start with the majorero cheese, but it was forgotten (we were VERY grateful for that later). We shared the mixed salad (carrots, onions, lettuce, tomato, peppers, corn, tuna) and some big grilled prawns. My Cruzcampo beer was a little bitter, but the bitterness was offset by the sweetness of the cute waitress! I don't know if she was Spanish or Canarian because she looked like she might have been from South America.

We finished with a couple of cortados, espressos with a splash of milk. That was a mistake! Because when the bill came ... we found out that they don't take credit cards. We were short by roughly a Euro! What the heck do we do? Ben went back to the car the look around for some change. I remembered that I had a little bit of change in my backpack, but we were still 0.45 Euros short and in the middle of nowhere! We kept thinking "what if we didn't get the coffee?" or "what if we didn't buy this earlier?"

It's a good thing that they forgot the cheese, otherwise we would've been 6 or 7 Euros short. We did have some options - I had some British pounds left. Perhaps some tourists eating there would exchange some Euros for them? I also asked the waitress if we could pay some of the bill with pounds - but they declined.

What to do? I felt personally responsible for the situation, because we had a chance to use the bank machine this morning, but I told Ben that we'd just get some cash after we hit the road. Feeling terrible for getting my friends into this predicament, I realized that I needed to make the ultimate sacrifice ... I told B&H that in exchange for forgiveness of our debt, I would be willing to offer the waitress my body for one night (a free sampling of the "hot Chinese buffet", if you will), allowing her to use it however she saw fit.

To be helpful, I even came up with a 12-page list of ways she could utilize me and my body. I even included a further 84 pages of diagrams and a user-guide - I wanted to make sure that I paid my debt in full, even if it took all night long. I was willing to endure this torture, all for the sake of my friends's honour. Believe me when I tell you that I would have received absolutely no pleasure from this obligation.

I waved the waitress over and informed her of our plight - she was obviously dismayed by the situation, but that all changed when I made my offer. She smiled and burst into laughter - she must have found my Spanish accent so cute that it made her laugh. There could be no other possible reason for her laughter, right? She seemed a little perplexed by my diagrams, but seemingly understood when I pulled out my geometry set and calculator and proved that the mathematics and physics were indeed possible. I told her that she did not have to be gentle with me, that I would endure whatever punishment she felt was necessary.

She felt that I was offering far too much in exchange for the pittance of a debt, and declined on that basis. I suggested that she could check out the goods for free on her coffee break, but she was reluctant - what a hard-working girl, she only wanted to focus on her work. I then offered a few hours instead of an entire night, but she still declined. Sensing my chance to repay this debt slipping away, I even suggested a few minutes. Again, she hesitated. I was crushed when my final plea of "30 seconds?" was rejected. Can't a guy just be allowed to make good on his debts? But she just couldn't bring herself to take advantage of me like that.

Yes, I know what you all are thinking - how can there be a man as selfless as I? The answer is, there can't be - but when I am in Spain, I become the most generous man on the face of the Earth. The women of Spain are such lovely people that I all want to do when I see them is give them everything I have to offer. I hope that one day, the Pope will saint me for this beautiful gesture. But unfortunately, that will not happen - because part of the process of Sainthood is the proving of a miracle. But if the waitress did actually accept my offer - it would have been a true miracle!

Anyway, when the other waitress realized that we were only short 0.45 Euro, she laughed, shook her head and said "Chico ..." (kinda like Patricia sometimes says to me) and told us not to worry about it. So we left for Morro Jable. The drive was very nice, and reminded me of the drive from Calgary to Kelowna, the part where you're driving uphill with Oyama Lake on your left.

We had some difficulty finding the hotel, but everything is located on the main strip so we managed to find it after driving up and down a few times. It was a 4-star hotel and was one of the nicest places I've stayed at in a LONG time. Definitely more posh than the average hostel or cockroach-infested condo. We checked in and hopped a little tourist train down to the main strip. It's a sprawling resort and though our address says that we are right on the main street, our hotel is actually a 10 minute walk to the main strip.

We popped down to the beach for some pictures and a quick stroll. The town is ultra-touristy and a little bit tacky. Plus, my knee was killing me. Back to the hotel for dinner. The place ended up costing us $200 for the night, but that's a pretty sweet deal when you consider that it includes dinner and breakfast tomorrow for all of us.

Despite still being a good value, the dinner buffet was crap. There was a bit of a Canarian theme to the dinner tonight. But the selection of cheese was extensive and probably the best part.

It was an early night - my knee couldn't handle the walk back into town. We watched some CNN (the only English channel they had) - it was non-stop news about the Bhutto assassination. It was a little boring watching it, but the San Miguel beer we bought made it a little more interesting.

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Photos

a
Our breakfast feast.

a2
Not much was left of the peanut Cheeto I dropped on the ground two days ago, after the roaches were done with it.

a3
Not much was left of the Nutella, after I was done with it.

a4
Too slow - I couldn't get into the picture before the camera's timer went off. All you can see is my butt in this photo - I know that Mary will love this photo, because all she did for much of the Baltic trip was stare at my butt and smile. Just ask her for yourself!

a5
This time, I made it into the picture on time. What are we doing? Waving goodbye to the cockroaches, of course!

a6
Unnecessarily Sensual Spanish Ice Cream Ad #2: Some of you might remember this vending machine from my first trip to Spain - I took a picture of it in Segovia. Could my love of beautiful Spanish brunettes all have resulted from seeing this ice cream machine, all those years ago?
And what was I trying to do to the machine? Why, lick her ice cream cone, of course!

a8
Atop the tower in El Cotillo.

b
A celebrity sighting in the Canaries! It's Vanilla Rice and the famous Vietnamese fish sauce girl!

b3
Taken atop the tower - despite being so white-washed, I've got the Asian squat down pat, don't I?

c
The beach, located a short distance from El Cotillo's tower. The rocky cliffs on the ocean kind of remind me of Salema, in Portugal's Algarve area.

d
Ahhh ... dipping my feet into the cool ocean. It looks so serene, doesn't it? Well that's because you can't see my face, contorted with pain. My feet are always cracked and bleeding when I travel, but I never really know how badly until I step into salt water.

e
The selection of cakes and desserts was pretty bad. The cakes were crappy, though I did manage to find a sticky/gooey one that wasn't too terrible. They had some of the melon that they always have in Spain, but it wasn't very ripe. There was some crappy ice cream, so of course I had to sample some.

f
What were B&H thinking and looking for? "No ... I'm pretty sure that if we kill Pat, the current will drag his body away forever."

g
It gets pretty windy in the Canaries so locals build these rock shelters.

h
Another one of those little butterfly nets. The owner must be in the Canaries for the same reason as me - to catch some Spanish women.

j
Forgive me for saying this, but this cute frog trash can looks a little inappropriate, if you ask me ...

z
Astro Turf! That's what I need at home!!!

z1
The prawns were tasty, but the odd one was VERY fishy. I was pretty repulsed when I yanked out it's rather nasty intestines.

z2
The grilled calamari was succulent and tender, but a little gritty. Still, the flavour was quite nice.

z3
The look of shame on our faces from stiffing a waitress of 0.45 Euro - how cheap can we be?

za
The 4-star resort at Morro Jable.