Off on my bike : Tenerife

With the Los Gigantes cliffs behind me.

It doesn't take long to reach the last Canary Island on my itinerary, and then after a brief halt while the Gaurdia Civil check my passport - nothing to do with the Brexit kerfuffle I'm sure - I'm on my bike again.  Just a short ride from Santa Cruz to the Aeropuerto Norte, where I am picking up a hire car, yes it is cheating, but I am leaving the island from this airport so only a bit.  And, no way I can ride all the way to my apartment from here.  Hmm, I think of Tenerife as dry, but after Lanzarote and Fuerteventura it seems a lush, verdant paradise, particularly here in the East.  It's also very hilly, hadn't realised but the airport is around seven hundred metres above sea level, ouch, but I make it, nice to pass the Dorada brewery on the way too.

Sardinas a la plancha, con mojo - de casa!  With some vino of course.

I have fully two free days here, don't do much with them though.  I try riding the bike uphill, but even with no luggage it's incredibly hard.  On a carbon fibre hire bike, I rode this route all the way up to the caldera, this time I get to Tamaimo and give up, just shows how heavy / broken my poor old machine is.  Other than that I lounge by the pool and reacquaint myself with old drinking haunts, and why not.  Well... turns out when the plan is to wake at 4am and drive to the airport, it probably makes sense to not drink much and get an early night.  The alarm does wake me, but I guess instead of 'snooze' I hit 'dismiss', next thing I know it's 7:30am, oops.

Icod bus station.  Not a place I planned on visiting this trip.

Not good.  I still have to do the two hour drive to take the car back, then take most of the day returning to Los Gigantes by bus - nice to have a little time in Icod at on the way at least.  I find a new flight in two days time, looks like I'm not spending much time on Sal now.  At least I have somewhere to sleep in the interim, could be worse I guess, really don't need the expense though.  Of course, new flight is from the North Airport as well, another long bus journey, then a small turboprop plane takes me to Casablanca where I consume coffee and viennoiserie.  Then onto a red-eye flight to Sal, OK, back on track.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.