31/4/11- Canary Islands

    Fuerteventura! Fuerteventura! Fuerteventura! Try to say that three times fast!  If of course, you can even pronounce it.  Fuerteventura was the destination of our springtime holiday.  In Spanish it means "land of windblown goats." No, not really, I think it means something like "great fortune" or "great winds." Fortunes, winds, it was great.  Before this trip I had no idea where the Canary Islands were. I felt like they had something to do with pirates but I think their claim to fame is more with the German and British tourists.  I didn't see any pirates at the nude beaches.
     The Canary Islands are Spanish islands just off the northwest coast of Africa.  There are seven islands and we chose Fuerteventura to get away from the other really touristy islands.  This place was still tourism driven but I guess just not as much.  Aside from tourism this island's big economy is goats.  There were goats EVERYWHERE.
     We spent about five days there.  The flight over was tight and poor Sean did not fit in the seats.  I was still recovering from Tera and Ed's visit and made the stupid mistake of staying up all night before we left.  It was dumb but I was busy getting everything ready, packing, cleaning and we had to leave the house at 3:30am so what was the use of sleeping for a few hours?  Well...dumbest idea EVER.  The slight cold I was fighting quickly blew up into a full on sinus infection.  Complete with ear aches and nonstop snot flows.  So that aside, the trip was wonderful.
     The flight was about two hours with a connecting flight from the main island.  Once on Fuerteventura we rented a car and drove about an hour south to our resort.  What a land. What views.  It sort of reminded me of parts of California.  No forests, just sandy ground shrubs and lots of rock, sand and open skies.  We quickly checked in to our hotel and went straight to the beach before dinner.   I was feeling quite ill and just wanted to go to the room and lay down but Sean was eager to see if nude beaches really exist.  Unfortunately it was so late that everyone had pretty much gone home.  We walked a short distance then wandered back to the hotel where we feasted on an interesting buffet and free drinks.  What a waste though when you're sick!
    I am glad that we had a rental car.  Each day we visited a new beach and a new side of the island.  It's amazing how different they were, each offering a new view and atmosphere.

The beach outside our hotel. 

Our little room and back patio.  It was so nice
to sit out there after a day on the beach and
read in the setting sun before dinner.  This is
where I wrote out my postcards and made it
through two great books.

A little view of the mountains. 

    My favorite beach was Cofete.  It was amazing.  Probably THE most amazing vistas I have ever seen.  We had to drive to the other side of the island, over the mountains, all along these old, barely tended dirt roads.  Our little car handled it well and Sean did a great job driving.  After an hour of windy roads with sun glaring in the windshield this is the view you get once through the mountain pass: 

The stretch of Cofete.  Like nothing I have ever seen.  Sun,
sand, mountains, sky, stretches of surf and every vibrant,
 vital earthly color imaginable.  You can see the road winding
down to the town.  It was a bit unnerving to come around
those turns but luckily most of the tourists stayed on
the other side of the island so the roads were empty.  

Some shots taken from the passenger side. 

I wonder who lives in that.

   We followed the road down to the beach.  There were only a handful of cars in the parking lot.  At least one of those belonged to the single brave surfer in the waves.  The rest of the people were no where to be seen.  The beach stretched for miles.  On your one side you have these large, solid mountains creating beautiful silhouettes against the sun.  On the other side you have the blue ocean with monstrous waves.  The beach was in between; wide and stretching for miles.  Some of the guide books describe this beach as "desolate, eerie and abandoned."  They forgot to mention that despite those few adjectives it also left you speechless and just simply awe-struck.  So worth the drive.  

A lost buoy.

Flat.  

The waves were wonderful.  They rolled
over the sand in long sweeps and left the
beach looking glassy and smooth.

Aside from the grand mountains and angry ocean
we had these big commanding clouds.  It's
hard to find adjectives to describe this.  

I couldn't take enough photos of this place. 

    Sean and I walked for hours along the beach.  The end was nowhere in sight.  It felt like a zen place but nothing quiet about it.  The wind was the strongest here and the waves were impressive.  Despite the breeze the sun was hot and I could feel my forehead burning down to the bone.  But it felt so good to soak up that sun with the wind, waves and mountains in 360 degrees.  After our 3 hours walk  we were both hungry and headed back to the car.  Up the hill a bit into the "town" of Cofete was a little restaurant clearly marketed to the few, but enough, tourists that came through the area.  We had plates of juicy goat meat complete with chunks of bone and I had the bonus of wads of goat hair at the bottom of my meal.  It was so good though and with a cold beer I could care less.  There was a friendly donkey that made its way around the parking lot inspecting exiting guests for treats and entertaining those still eating their meals.

The fabulous modest cafe where we ate our
goat meat and beers.  

The donkey.  

A view of Cofete.  How would you like to live here?  
I think I could.  

Sean next to our Fiat Panda.  That little car
made it through some tough roads. 

On the road coming around a curve.  This would have made
me nervous but I had that view to distract me.  

Goats. 

Some old farm ruins.  There were lots around the islands.

   On our way back down to the hotel from Cofete we decided to drive to the very Southern tip of the island.  There was a lighthouse and a view of this tiny fishing town.

The end of the island. 

     The next day we visited another beach. I don't know the name but it was filled with windsurfers.  This should have alluded to the fact that it was INSANELY windy.  Despite the wind though there were tons of people sunbathing behind the mini dunes.  Each party found a dune, claimed it as theirs by setting up blankets, wind blocks and umbrellas.  The dunes acted as a little windshield but also as a little privacy fence.  There were lots of naked people sunbathing here.  Be careful when you peak over the dune.  You may see an old naked German man.  Sean and I set up our little territory on the edge so we could watch the waves and windsurfers.  If I were feeling better I would have LOVED to have tried windsurfing but we stayed on our blanket and soaked up the sun.  Well, I did, Sean stayed pretty much covered with his fair skin.  When we were bored of laying around we took walks up and down the beach.  There was a giant sand dune that was fun to climb up or you could walk the other direction and be hypnotized by the dozens of windsurfers whipping up the waves.  

Our set up.  Not too shabby.  It did a good job blocking the
wind which was key.  Sean had a good system to keep the
sun off of him for most of the day.  

A view from the sand dune.  All those people in the water
are windsurfers. 

Me on top of the dune. 

   The last full day we had on the island we went to another beach that was really far north.  It was constantly cloudy at this part of the island.  From our beach at the hotel we could look out and see the clouds and then look up and our skies would be clear.  Once we got to the beach we regretted not bringing warmer clothes!  I had a hoodie but between the wind and clouds we were both cold!  There would be no sitting around on blankets and sunbathing here.  Along the rocky beach were stone igloos that were convenient for blocking the wind but it was still chilly.  We explored the rocky shore for a bit then headed into the sand dunes and ran around there for a bit.  The flora there caught my eye and Sean had a fun time running up and down the hills.

  

The beach.  The wind exposed a lot of the rock here.
Also, take a look at that cloud cover. Tsk tsk tsk. 

Sean, cold, in an igloo. 

Sea urchin!

I thought I could find some fun things in the
little tidal pools but like the other beaches
there were no shells, or signs of living
creatures.  Very interesting.  

A little beach flower. 

Some more interesting plants. 

The dunes.  Sean off in the distance. 

I am finding myself more and more drawn into succulent
type plants.  

A view from the dunes.

At one point Sean got a little carried away.  First it started
with him finding a dune big enough to "jump" off of.  I said
it looked lame so I suggested sumersaults.  After finding himself
completely covered in sand he went all in and tried out some
sand angels....

The end result was a scalp covered
and shorts filled with sand.  But still
smiling!

A view from our hotel.  The resort had five pools and
plenty of space for sunbathing.  People here were serious
about their sun.  We would wake up and go to breakfast
around 8am or so and already people had reserved
their lounge chair via towel and book.  There were
signs around the pools trying to discourage this
reserving but clearly people didn't care.  One day
Sean and I came back from the beach early and decided
to lay out at the hotel.  It was close to impossible
finding a chair.  People here were not afraid of skin cancer. 

  The Canary Islands were fabulous and I wish I hadn't been so sick.  It was like no other place that I've been and I think that it would be neat to come back and maybe go see what the different islands were like.  I feel incredibly lucky to travel to places like this which would be almost unthinkable to visit via the USA.  I will never forget that feeling of seeing Cofete beach from the mountain pass.  On our way back to London we flew pretty low over the island and it was amazing to see those beaches from the air.  What a trip, what a trip!  The crazy part is that coming back to London really felt like home....

22/3/11- It's a marathon not a sprint

    Oh where to begin.  Tera and Ed came to visit for a week.  I knew it would be a busy, packed week but I had no idea that we would see THAT much or do THAT much.  By the end of the week I was beat and my immune system was down for the count.  I guess that is why I haven't really blogged.  I have been trying to fight off this cold instead.
   I was well aware that Tera and Ed had been "training" for this trip but for me it felt like a marathon at a sprinter's speed.  No, I can't even make that comparison because I never actually ran a marathon.  I guess if I were to run a marathon it would probably feel like that week.  I don't have much time to write and if I explained about EVERYTHING we did you would be reading for weeks.  It would be like a marathon blog post.  I will try hard to keep it short despite the folder I have on my desktop with 100 or so photos waiting to be uploaded (that won't take long).  I had an amazing week with those two and I'm glad that we were as active as we were.  We had great weather, for the most part, and we crossed everything off of their "must see" list.  Here is a short breakdown of our week:

Saturday:  The visitors arrive late in the evening.  Home, snacks then out for beers.

Sunday:  Early rise. Full English breakfast. Take the tube to Westminster to see Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey. Rain, drizzle, walk along the river to Tate Britain.  Art art art.  Walk to National Gallery.  Stumble upon giant St. Patrick's Day parade and celebration in Trafalgar Square.  TONS of public drunkenness.  More art art art.  Wine bar.  Walk to Buckingham Palace.  Walk through Hyde Park.   Tube back home for Sunday Roast.

Monday:  Early rise.  Tube to Westminster Pier.  We catch a river tour cruise to Tower of London.  Sun is out.  Nice and warm on our faces but the wind is chilly.  Tower of London tour.  Long tour but very, very cool. We see the crown jewels, armor, and the torture chamber.  Walk to St. Paul's cathedral.  Tera and Ed pay to go in. I linger around and sneak in when they open the church for prayers.  Back towards home. Meet Sean at White Horse Pub for dinner and drinks.

Tuesday:  Early rise.  Hop on train and head out to Salisbury.  From the train station we catch a cab to Stonehenge.  Walk around in the sun looking at old confusing rocks.  Watch sheep in all the meadows.  Dream about living in a little cottage out here.  Taxi back to Salisbury.  Salisbury market.  Walk around town.  Warm out! We lug our sweaters and jackets.  Tea and light lunch.   Salisbury Cathedral with our personal tour guide Michael.  Sooooo cool!  Magna Carta! Sooooo cool!!!!! Long tour.  Walk around some more.  Oogling the little houses and beautiful gardens.  We went into some house. I forget the name.  Have more tea and cake.  Exhausted.  Walk some more.  Have a pint at Haunch of Venison Pub.  Head back home on the train.  Exhausted.

Wednesday:  Really early rise.  Train to Paris.  We get stuck just outside the Chunnel.  There is a train stuck in the Chunnel.  It cut hours out of our Paris time but I got to sleep more on the train.  We land in Paris.  Whirlwind! Bus? Metro? We decide to figure out the metro.  Tera and Ed purchase us all day tickets.  Study the map then it's off to Notre Dame.  Tour the church.  It's dark, loud, packed with tourists.  A bit disappointing.  At that point I was done with crowds I think.  We leave for lunch and a bathroom break.  Back out to the metro and on our way to the Eiffel Tower. The line for the elevator up is too long so we take the steps.  Up up up.  Only to the second deck not the very top but still felt like we were on top of the world.  On top of France.  Windy and cold and we head back down. I take a movie on the way down.  17 minutes long.  When I have time I will edit it, speed it up and post it.  Quick look at the iphone and we head to Arc de Triomphe.  Huge.  Tera and Ed pay to go to the top. Sean and I stay on the ground and watch the nutty traffic circling the thing.  Back towards the train station.  We have dinner at a cafe and Sean and Ed eat snails.  Sean eats a sausage that is made of raw cow stomachs.  Gross.  Back on the train.  So tired.  Back to London.

Thursday:  Sleep in a bit. A tiny bit.  Head out to visit West Minster Abbey.  We go inside. No photos allowed.  Again it's filled with tourists.  We see a lot of tombs and monuments.  Poets corner.  Issac Newton and Darwin's tomb plus a ton of queens and kings.  After the church we are hungry so we head to Borough Market.  We CHOW DOWN.  Stomachs full and heavy it is off to the London Eye.  We beat the mad crowd and jump on.  Hello London!  The sun comes out and shines down on the city.  We hop off and head to Chiswick.  Stroll along the river.  Ed looks for fossils.  Bell and Crown for pints.  Sean meets us. We have dinner.  Then hit a couple more pubs.  Our St. Patty's day pub crawl. Believe me, I was crawling.

Friday: I wake up feeling ill so I send Tera and Ed off on their own. I am overly confident that they will be fine now that they have a good understanding of the tube.  I sleep till 3:30pm.  They arrive back home and we all take the bus to mall to eat some dinner and walk around.

Saturday: I want to sleep. I feel sick.  Tera seems to have caught something.  Not a fun way to end the trip.  We see our travelers off as they take a taxi to the airport.  I go back to bed and sleep for three days straight.

  And...a week's worth of photos:

There's our happy travelers!

Cheers to the first pints in London.  The pub was packed on
a Saturday night and we had to sit outside with all the smokers.

Houses of Parliament.

Tera and Ed.

Inside the Tate Britain  in the modern art section.

Tate Britain.  Rooms and rooms filled
with yummy Turners.  

Watch out for those chippings.

This is like an optical illusion.

Oh you guys!

Oh hey look! A parade!

They made off with a nice bunch of balloons. 

Inside the National Gallery.  Waiting for Tera and Ed to
finish up.  Sean had gotten one of those audio guides
and we were learning about that big ol painting there. 

HAD to take them to Gordon's Wine Bar.  

Just a nice cozy moment. 

Tera and Ed among the daffodils.  It had
stopped raining at this point but the air
was still chilly.

At the gates of Buckingham Palace.  This was
the first time I had seen the place in daylight.

The lion and unicorn were fighting for the crown.
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown,
Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town. 

Sean, his sick stache and gold angels. 

Walk through Hyde Park.  Spring is here. 

Sunday Roast.  

Oh hey Big Ben!

Our tour guide on the cruise.

Oh hey the London Eye.  

Inside the Tower of London we joined the tour
that had just started before we got there. MASSIVE
groups listening to this guy.  Very interesting.  I
would like to learn more. 

Knowledge in the Beef Eater. 

Blue sky delight. 

Sick armor displays.  

How could someone wear that?

Just crazy.

The room with all the horses and head.  I totally forgot
what it was called but it had all the horses that the kings had
and portraits of their heads.  That was a horrible description. 

I kind of want a giant model horse. 

Aw Tera had a treat for him.

Tera standing next to the cannon balls to
demonstrate their size. 

Ed and a crossbow.  Enough said. 

Tera in her helmet. 

Traitor's Gate.  If you came through that
you probably weren't leaving alive. 

Tera and her new friend. 

The memorial where everyone was beheaded.

A raven of the Tower.  Story has it that when
the flock of ravens leave the tower then England
will fall and the land will burn.  They cheat though...
they clip the ravens' wings and have a raven keeper
that takes care of the birds.....

Prisoners' graffiti. 

A look out at another giant tour. 

THE RACK!

To be honest I can not remember what any
of these buildings were.  This may have been
White Tower. 

Inside there were the crown jewels. No photos
allowed. 

The contraption used to raise and lower
the massive scary gate.

Outside of St. Paul's Cathedral.  I couldn't take
photos inside.  Outside these guys were doing
a photo shoot.  

The sheep in Salisbury. 

Stonehenge.  To be honest I thought it would be bigger.
But it was still really cool.  I did not listen to the audio
guide as much as I should have. I was too busy trying
to take photos and figure out my camera.  

I bought some books on the way out and
hopefully I can read more about this.  

I wish I hadn't been so distracted.  I really would have liked
to have soaked it all in.  I think Tera and Ed did though. 

It was such a gorgeous day and so refreshing to be away from
the city and out of the crowds.  So much open space
and sheep!

Tera and Ed excited about ancient rocks. 

Tera heading up a dirt road to catch a glimpse
at the sheep and burial mounds. 

Love it. 

Tera and Ed!

Young kids pretending to be in olden times. 

Salisbury Cathedral.  What a wonderful day! It kept getting
warmer and warmer out.  Bluebird skies and everyone seemed
to be out enjoying the sunshine.  

Of course we wore heavy jackets, sweaters,
hats and scarves.  By midday we were lugging
everything around town.  

Ah! Spring! Blues and greens with pink houses!
Everyone out sitting on the lawn.  Fresh green
springy grass under foot! 

Can you find Tera and Ed? What a gorgeous
cathedral.  You could tell that they put a lot
of money into the upkeep and restoration of this
place. 

Inside. 

A display showing what the construction site
may have looked like.  I had just finished reading
"Pillars of the Earth" and this reminded me so
much of the book.  

Once inside we were greeted by this man, Michael.  He
gave us a free tour of the place.  He told us so much and
had so much great history to share.  Here he is trying to
explain to Ed how this midevil clock works.  

The reflection of a stained glass window in
the Baptismal font. 

The ceiling.  I'm sure that's not proper
cathedral language.  I should know
better after all those years of art history. 

The strong box where all the Cathedral's
valuables were kept.  Four different locks
meant that four different people had keys
so it could only be accessed when they were
all together. 

Tomb.

About to go check out the Magna Carta.  You
couldn't take photos and there was another tour
guide waiting there to give us another history lesson.
How amazing it was to see that. It was so well preserved.
The writing was so tiny and perfect.  Amazing.  I feel
so lucky for having seen that.  

Walking the roads in Salisbury.  

Isn't that the most adorable little potting shed?
I could live in that!

Love this house. 

After the trip to Salisbury Tera began walking
around and talking about how they would
grow their gardens.  How they would need to
build a big wall, like this one, to keep the
deer out.  Then they could plant their shrubs,
and flowers, and veggies and have their own
little secret gardens.  Everyone that comes to
visit catches the "I want a pretty garden bug".

Moss and steeples. 

Boom! Paris! Notre Dame! Bonjour!

Inside dark Notre Dame. 

Tera lighting a candle in front of St. Theresa. 

This was nuts. INSIDE the church there were
those souvenier coin machines where you
put a penny in and it flattens it with a picture.
I love those (so does my nephew) but really?
In a CHURCH?  So much for a nice quiet atmosphere.
Loud tourists. Screaming kids.  Flashes.
Where is the peace? Where is the prayer? The holiness?
I dunno...there was something that just made me itch.
Maybe by this point I was sick of the crowds.  Maybe our
personal tour through the empty, bright, quiet Salisbury
Cathedral set the bar too high.  I'm not saying I didn't
enjoy it.  I just found myself getting caught up in
everything that wasn't the cathedral...the kids, the
noise, the tourists.  I couldn't focus. 

Sean the French guy.

Guess where we are!!!!!!!

From the first deck.

Hello below. 

Ah sun glare. 

The line for the elevators.  WIMPS.

Tera, Ed and Paris. 

Maybe he's sad because he's leaving the tower?

Arc de triomphe. 

Kissy kissy oui oui

Back in London and onto the London Eye.

A pod and the Aquarium. 

The sun came out!

Bell and Crown.  This is where my photos end.  Tera and Ed
are busy writing out postcards to their friends.  We are having
our St. Patrick's Day beer and watching the sunset on the river.
What a great week.  We got so much in.  So many sites.
So many new things for me too.  There's still so so so much
out there to explore and with the warmer weather and longer days
I think I'll be able to get out more. I may not have many
marathon days like the ones with Tera and Ed but
maybe I should....so I can get everything in!