Canary Islands

"I don't know where I'm a gonna go when the volcano blow!" --Jimmy Buffet

For those of you who don't know that song you should immediately
re-direct this page to youtube and listen to Volcano by Jimmy Buffet
before continuing reading......seriously.........go do it.........I'll
wait for you..........
(insert cheesy 'on hold' music here)
...great you listened, now we can continue!

If you hadn't already guessed while in the Canary Islands Danielle,
Sarah, Amy, the Hoff family (the ship doctor, her husband and their two
college age boys), and I climbed a volcano. Not just any volcano, but
the world's third highest active volcano and the highest outside of
Hawaii! When we were in Cadiz we had researched what to do in the
Canaries and found out that there were only 200 permits to the top of
the volcano on any given day, and that they were sold out. You could
get withing 200 meters of the top but not all the way. Then we found
out that there is a tiny little hostel just about 500 meters from the
top and that if you stay there you get a permit to go to the summit to
watch the sunrise. Needless to say we booked rooms on the spot!!!!
SO here is our story: We started out early in the morning and headed to
the market to get some food as we wouldn't get any once we started
climbing. After that we taxied out to the volcano, called Mt. Teide,
and before we even reached the base we had driven above the cloud line.
We started to hike at about 1130 and hiked for about an hour before
stopping for lunch at a beautiful overpass at 2407 meters. We had
sandwiches and cracker/cookies with apples and it was delicious--hiking
food always tastes good. Then we kept on going, and going, and going.
It was a beautiful hike as we were all above the clouds and the rocks
were deep red so we joked that we were walking on Mars. Seriously you
couldn't see anything for miles except for clouds and red rock so we
pretended to be space explorers hahaha.

We kept stopping for rests and to take pictures because we just couldn't
believe that it was real. As the terrain kept getting steeper we kept
slowing down as the path got steep and a bit slippery. We came around
one bend and looked up to see these giant black volcanic rocks called
"eggs" because they look like eggs spewed form the mountain from when it
last erupted. Right after that we saw the old lava flows. There were
literally trails of black lava rocks built up and cooled down. It
literally looked as if the flows had been flash-frozen because they had
cooled mid-lava flow. We started to climb almost straight up into one
of the flows and eventually all the red rock disappeared and we
continued the hike on cooled lava rocks. We finally reached the hostel
at about 1530 (so we made the hike in 4 hours instead of 5) but had to
wait outside as the hostel did not actually open until 1700. We ate
some more snacks, suntanned on the cooled lava pools, played Frisbee
(yeah that's right we played Frisbee on a volcano!!!), and talked to
some people from Germany and Switzerland who were also going to be
staying there. We saw a few more SAS groups but only three boys who
were also staying at the hostel. The others were going up as high as
they could and taking the gondola down (the gondola station was where
they wouldn't let you farther unless you had a permit). Anyway, once the
hostel opened we checked in and made the noodles that we bought earlier
for dinner. We talked to more people and met some really cool guys from
England--Tom and Ady. We told them about the ship and about how we were
traveling around on a study abroad. They were super jealous and told us
about their experiences in England and how they wish they had a program
like SAS.

Later we watched the moon rise (yeah that's right) and then took a quick
nap before the stars came out. Danielle and I are taking astronomy and
our professor let us borrow his binoculars so we were showing everyone,
including our London friend's, the stars and constellations that we
knew. We even showed them a galaxy that is 2.4 million light-years
away! Then it was back to bed to try to get as much sleep for the next day.

We woke up at five and ate an apple and granola bar before Danielle and
I headed out, as we knew that we might be going slow. We kept switching
up the groups and at one point I was on my own for about an hour but it
was actually really cool because I was climbing a volcano by the light
of a full moon--you seriously cannot get much cooler than that! I
caught up with one of the adults and we walked the rest of the way to
the Gondola station together. Once there we waited for a bit for
everyone who was behind us to catch up and then me, the doctor and her
husband hiked up the last, almost straight up, 200 meters to the
summit. As I was hiking/climbing the sky started to lighten and I was
afraid that I wouldn't make it to the top before the sun rose but the
sun decided to be slow that day so I beat it by about ten minutes and
was very glad. At the top it was freezing and so we were literally all
huddled around a sulfur vent because it was our only form of heat--maybe
not the best idea in the world but hey, we were cold! The sunrise was
absolutely, indescribably, beautiful so I won't even try to tell you.
We just partied with our friends from all over and it was amazing.
After that we climbed back down to the gondola and waited (and froze)
for the first gondola to come at seven. After riding down we took a
taxi back to the ship and showered--believe me we needed it. Then we
just walked around for a bit.

THEN: the ship decided that we were super awesome and they had a BBQ
that night!!!!!!!!! It was amazing! After having ship food for soooo
long it was great to have a typical American grill out--as sad as that
sounds. Everyone was very happy and we were all just chillin' out on
the deck, looking out over the beautiful Canary Islands--it was great!
We went swimming with the little kids too and they had fun turning us
into horses lol. All in all it was an amazing stop and while I am sad
that we missed Morocco I had tons of fun there and am glad that we had
that experience.

I love and miss you all and I am going to try to attach pictures again
so tell me if it works!
~Colleen