Beautiful Torture: Almost as sweet as angel hair

Europe » Spain
January 5th 2008

Published: September 30th 2017

Breakfast at Last Terasitas - I started with a ham pastry with gooey, wet cheese. Not terrible, as is common with most Spanish pastries.

Geo: 28.0498, -16.7174

I slept in! I was late picking up the car rental! This can't happen! Now that I'm back to traveling solo, I need to get back to my crazy, hectic style of travel! I didn't sleep for long last night, but I slept well.

Off to San Andres - I popped into a small pastry shop and picked up some breakfast. I had difficulty ordering - I couldn't remember the word for "behind", as in "I want the pastry behind those sandwiches." It's funny how I can hit on a Spanish waitress for an hour and a half, but at times, I can't say the simplest things. Of course, I tend to believe that it's more important to be able to hit on a Spanish woman than it is to order food!

Anyway, I fumbled through the order, with the help of a nice old man waiting in line behind me. I apologized for not knowing the words, explaining that I sometimes can't say the simplest of things. He told me "It's alright - in the end, we understood and that's all that matters."

I ate at Las Terasitas beach, supposedly frequented by locals and tourists from

Pascual juice - good stuff!

the peninsula. It was too early ... sigh ... is seeing Spanish hotties on the beach too much for a guy to ask for? It wasn't the nicest beach, though a sprinkling of Spanish hotties would've fixed that right up. The sand at Las Terasitas is actually imported from the Sahara desert.

After finishing up breakfast on the beach, I rose and noticed that my butt was wet from sitting on the sand. Deep down, I wondered if I had wet myself ... maybe I was so happy to be away from the excessively-touristy resorts in Gran Canaria that I lost all bladder control?

It's wicked driving on this island! Tight twisty turns, hairpin curves, brilliant scenery - you can't ask for anything more than that. Traffic wasn't as busy as the days that Ben was driving so you could whip around the island pretty quickly. Plus, there were no passengers to worry about tossing around - even more fun!

It's pretty foggy at the higher elevations - one of the tunnels exited straight into a sharp turn with absolutely no signage. That's an accident waiting to happen. My first stop of the day was the Roque

I also had a horrid, dry and crusty pie - inside was either mashed chicken or tuna, mixed with a bit of mayo. It wasn't tender or flaky, like a pie should be. A good thing about beaches is that the scenery makes crappy food taste better. But not in this case! There was a nice looking bakery that I passed by on foot in Santa cruz, on my way to the car rental office. But I didn't want to wait the 5 minutes for them to open up. Sometimes my impatience while traveling is a bad thing!

- incredible!

It was actually a fairly warm day, despite some clouds and the stormy seas lashing against the rocks. My pictures simply don't do it any justice - it was surreal in its stunning power and beauty. It was incredible to watch the waves crashing onto the shore. It's views like that which make you absolutely fall in love with a place. For me, usually only the women make me fall in love with a place!

I had to stop and enjoy the moment, and a quick cortado. The guy asked if I wanted leche (milk) or leche leche. I thought maybe I had heard wrong so I said "leche leche?" Turns out that's what they call condensed milk, so it was like Vietnamese coffee but even sweeter.

My knee wasn't too bad today so I was able to work the clutch OK. It was tough passing in spots - there were broken passing lines on the highway going around blind curves! I'm not brave enough to attempt a pass without knowing what's on the other side. You really had to work to pass cars because the safe passing zones were so short - you'd have

Some unreal scenery on Tenerife's coast at Roque de las Bodegas.

to stay tight with the car in front and blast around them without any hesitation. Fun, fun, fun! There were a number of gracious drivers on the road that pulled right over onto the non-existent shoulders to let you through, but even more @sshole drivers that would drive painfully slow until they reached a passing zone, where they would speed up.

I drove through the towns of Cruz Carmen, Bajamar, and Punta del Hidalgo - there's not much going on in these places. I pulled into Tegueste to check out a market - pretty dead. It would probably be fun on a busy day, but not today.

I wanted a pork sandwich, but they were out so I settled for a chicken sandwich. I thought it might be a freshly grilled piece of chicken, but it was just pre-cooked shredded chicken. It had a nice flavour to it - perhaps a touch of cumin? I used some of the mayonnaise I stole from the hotel in Morro Jable to moisten up the meat. Lettuce, tomato, and good crisp bread grilled in a panini press - mmmm ....

I bought some pastries from another market stall - "Cabello de

The stormy seas were pummeling the coastline today.

Angel" - angel hair. Very good - inside was a lemony jam with crisp, preserved fruit (or it could've been roaches). The pastry was nice, with a light glaze on top. The lady let me try one and I ended up buying 4 or 5.

Off to La Laguna - it's supposed to be a lively University town (according to America, it's got one of the best in the Canaries) but I'll never know. It was busy and jammed with traffic and I didn't want to waste time. What I saw from the car didn't look that great, but maybe I completed missed the town centre.

Next up was Mt. Teide. Apparently 80% of the world's volcanic formations are in the Canaries - that doesn't quite sound right to me, but I don't know exactly what they are referring to by "volcanic formations". The drive to Teide was pretty cool.

Off to Los Cristianos - I had some trouble finding the budget hotel I had booked but was pleasantly surprised as I walked up to it. 4 stars and beautiful! As I was thinking about how I lucked into this place, the receptionist couldn't find my reservation. Turns

Tegueste's dead market.

out that the guidebook had the sister hotel's address listed by mistake - I wouldn't be sleeping here tonight 😞

Hotel Andrea isn't too bad - simple, but clean and comfortable. There's no TV in the room, but they've got a TV room in the lobby area. They've also got internet - but 4 Euros/hour is pretty offensive when you can walk 3 minutes and find it for less than 2 Euros/hour.

Off to check out the town - there was some kid's fair going on with a few rides. Ave Maria was playing - ahhh ... the song of Spain, for me. Los Cristianos is tacky, but less so than Maspalomas/Playa del Ingles. At least it has a short, but fairly decent pedestrian section.

Down to Playa Los Cristianos - nothing special. Off to Playa Las Vistas - a little better; I just missed the sunset as I arrived. I plopped myself down on Punta del Camison - it was a little cool and breezy. It felt like I was the only person on that stretch of beach as most people had already left. It was a bit of a "City of Angels" moment, where the angels gather

Some kind of electronic board displaying commodity prices?

on the beach at sunset.

Waves gently sliding up the shore, clouds rolling in, palm trees gently swaying with the wind ... even in these touristy areas you can occasionally find something good, something real - even if it's only a small piece of it, and if for only an all-too-brief moment.

Time for dinner - I left the beach and went through the Playa de Las Americas area - very glitzy, reminiscent of Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki. I felt so out of place here! It's just not an environment I like or am comfortable with. I guess I'm just not meant to travel through places like this anymore.

I'm pretty lazy nowadays - instead of searching for restaurants on my own, I'm simply relying on the guidebook. But so far LP's (Lonely Planet) recommendations have been pretty good, and for the most part I've managed to steer clear of the excessively touristy restaurants.

Mama Rosa - LP mentioned fajitas and tacos being on the menu - and sadly, I was craving something like that, but it was nowhere to be found. Where's the Mexican? I'm talking about the food, and not Ben! Looks like they

Arrrgghhhh!!!!!! It took me forever to pass this van, but when I finally did, I quickly pulled over for a photo-op. Just as I was about to hop back into the car, he passed me back! Nooooooo!!!

are now concentrating on the Italian dishes, and spruced up the joint since it was last reviewed by LP.

I was pretty out of place (again) with my hoodie, 5 day beard, sandals/sand-encrusted feet, convertible pants, and tech t-shirt. I was sent to the back of the restaurant, hidden from the classier clientele.

The waitress was quite attractive, but not Spanish - possibly Eastern European? In fact, I don't think any of the waitstaff was Spanish - mostly German. Italian food in Spain, German staff - real authentic restaurant, eh? Only English is needed to order here.

The portions weren't big enough to satisfy my appetite - it was gelato time. 4D, one of the gelato shops in Santa Cruz, also has a branch here. I went for the Mandarin - it was OK, but most likely was artificially flavoured. I slurped it down at a very nice spot - in a plaza just outside the Iglesia Carmen. Because of the locale, the gelato probably tasted better than it should have.

I quickly used the ATM - 8 language options! English, German, Castilian Spanish, Euskadi (Basque), Galician, and a few others. Back to the hotel patio for

On the drive to Teide, a view from above the clouds.

some chilling and journal writing. The attached pizzeria smelled INCREDIBLY tasty! I badly wanted to eat a pizza, but didn't like the idea of eating a whole pizza just before midnight.

It looked like a pretty popular place with the locals. It's times like this that I wish I was still traveling with B&H - for sure Ben would've been interested in a pizza, and that would have been just the incentive I needed to order one. It was torturous to smell the pizza without eating it - but a most beautiful torture!

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