Resting in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife wk2

Monday, August 31, 2015
Monday, wash day!

In our fairly large bathroom we have a washer/dryer unit for clothes. This is something I have only heard of on the show International House Hunters and was always curious about it. The rental manager gave me a tip on which markings on the dial were for the dryer. Other than that I was on my own. I took a look at the dials, etc. somehow hoping my beginner Spanish might be able to decipher the information. Then out came Google Translate on my iPhone. It was quite easy to figure out once a few basic works were unlocked. The washing machine seemed to take longer than normally I am used to but it was a front loader. I also used round, hard discs as laundry detergent. I just had to check on them to see if they actually melted away into useable detergent and they did.

It was a beautiful hot day outside. I just had to put my laundry outside to dry. We have a metal, pull out rack to hang clothes on out on our balcony. In our closet are plastic hangers. Between the two everything was neatly arranged for easy drying. Fresh scented laundry was the result a few hours later.

One thing that is good about only having a suitcase of clothes is you have a lot less dirty clothes. You do have to do laundry more often.

Ken actually went and had a nap this afternoon. He must be decompressing from all the trip planning and arranging he is doing. He just keeps himself too busy.

On our way out the door to look into the idea of renting a car for maybe a month we realized that the Fiat 500, Vino Blanco, needed to be returned to the rental company today. Both of us kind of blanked out on realizing the reality of our rental car contract. We stopped at the northern airport hoping we could return our rental here so as to not make the long trek to the south. No such luck! We were told that we had to return our rental to the southern airport.

Off we drove to the southern airport to return the car. i found on-line that there were cheaper rentals than what we had or what the rental agency told us about. Ken patiently found us a more economical car, after all we require it for a month. It took lots of finagling on his iPhone to accomplish such a small task. This cheaper vehicle was luckily from the original rental company. Lucky us, because we would have needed a passport to do an new rental agreement with any other company.

The lengthy wait in line finally got us the keys for the new blue, Ford Focus. By the way, the airport had quite a few pooches in it, either waiting for arrivals or coming for a visit to the island. They all seemed to take the fact that they were in a crowded, busy airport in their stride. We never heard one bark. Out on the highway we both commented on the noise of the new rental. We had gone a considerable ways when we both decided, "lets take this noise piece of junk back". This time the line-up was quick according to Ken. I pulled off a quick nap while he was gone.

This whole processes was lengthy and took up the whole afternoon and early evening. We took a side trip into Santa Cruz for Vietnamese food. It was past supper and we did not want to eat too late. Once nearly home we realized that this new Ford Focus uses much more gas than the Fiat. That might mean another trip to the south for a less gas guzzling rental.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015
We wanted to check out another mall that is easy driving distance from our Tarahal flat.







It is fun to see what shopping is like in another country. We drove to the area known as San Jeronimo in La Orotava which is north of Puerto de la Cruz. Alcampo la Villa Shopping Centre was huge with the added bonus of above or below ground parking and a huge grocery story. We went there with the main intention of procuring a few more groceries.

This enormous shopping mall had Zara and many other stores that are common elsewhere. It also had a few beauty salons even dermatologists (at least in Canada a dermatologist would do those procedures). We found discount clothing stores and very expensive ones. Ken located their version of a Future Shop with all kinds of geek parphanalia. They also had big stores that sold only make-up. We did not want to purchase anything but food so off we went to the supermercado. It was definitely "super" sized. If by chance we knew of this shopping centre from the beginning of our stay we would have had to not go elsewhere. It had gluten-free, vegetarian, great wine, some Oriental stocks and more Mexican supplies then we saw anywhere else. The produce section was better than anywhere else we had been here on Tenerife and so was the cheese section. We were hungry so we had to work at not over stocking our small grocery cart.

The writer, Agatha Christie, came to Puerto de la Cruz in February of 1927 atter some emotional upheavals in her life - divorce and the recent death of her mother. We went for a walk in the evening and found Calle Agatha Christie quite close by. It was thought that perhaps she had a winter place on the Ocean near the author's name sake. But no, she was only here for a scant few days. In fact I read that she left and went to the big Island because she did not like the black sand. Street names and the reasons behind them can be rather interesting, don't you think?

Thursday, September 3, 2015
We just hung around our wonderful apartment today.

Not doing too much of anything. We walked to the store a few blocks away, that was about it.

I did go for a physiotherapy appointment, too.

Friday, September 4, 2015
Off to the Clinica Avvril to have work done on the foot that I have been trying not to mention lately.





I have had so much trouble with my foot, why did I not do something earlier. I guess I was just a big chicken. It is scary having something wrong medically in a foreign land not to mention that depending on where, it could be expensive. Plus, a big plus, I kept thinking it was getting better.

Did I mention that the office manager/secretary is fluent in like about six languages? She is amazing! One minute, Germany the next, English then talks in Spanish to the doctor without missing a beat. I had to wait maybe ten minutes for the ultrasound technician to get set up. I had an ultra sound to rule out a trambosis. Scary thought, but since my Grandfather had a coronary thrombosis thought it should be ruled out. Then I waited in the waiting room while the technician (who did not speak any English) wrote up my report. I was escorted into see the doctor who told me my veins were fine and that the physiotherapist would work to help my foot. No thromosis!

The physiotherapist could speak English. She did ultra sound, massage and TENS therapy on my foot. It was very effective and slightly painful massage to get those leg and ankle muscles mobile. We discussed stretches to be done after long walks. She was sweet and very efficient. I put my foot down on the floor and realized she had done wonders for my poor, aching foot. I could finally walk without a limp. I am going back not week.

I had a great nap in the afternoon after watching a fan made episode of the first Star Trek series off of YouTube. Nothing like massage to assist with sleep.





Saturday, September 5, 2015

Ken drove us to the big, capital city of Santa Cruz de la Tenerife.

The day started with ... Ken made us a wonderful "big" breakfast. It is nice to go out for a buffet breakfast but really, there is nothing like a breakfast made with love at home.

We are getting to know are way there but we still have the iPad set up with Google Maps. If we missed an exit it would reroute us which would be more comfortable than panicking. The map was set to a parkade which is good idea when going into an unknown, crowded city.

We were close to our destination, Mercado de Nuestra Senora de Africa. This market was completed in 1944 and is of Neo-classical style with three courtyards. Considering its age the building it was in extremely good condition. There were a few health food type of places, an Oriental store, several fruit and vegetable sellers, a section for those that sold sea food, etc. If you need a speciality food store such as certain types of grains this is the place for you. Artisans had tables set up to sell jewellery, purses, etc. We even found underground parking, next time that is where we will park. It was so clean and well managed. Inlaid into the pillars are painted tiles of Spanish couples in native costume. While were were at the Mercado we were lucky enough to encounter a dance troupe dress like the tiles enhancing the pillars.

We wanted to go wander around the plaza principle but I was too hot, tired and hungry. We went home. I used the spelt pasta from Italy that I bought at the Plaza as a base for a tasty pasta dish. It is great to be cooking again.

Sunday, September 6, 2015
I want to congratulate my Sister and Brother-in-law for being married for the past thirty-five years.

Wow, I can not hardly believe that your wedding was that many years ago! You two are such a wonderful couple I am not in any way surprised that you are still married. I just want to which you many, many more happy years together.

I am going to try our my new foot, so to speak. I have been doing a little walking since Friday's Physio but not much. Ken is finally feeling rested enough to take the car out and do something. Initially our intention was to drive into town then find a great place to eat, walking around and looking at the sights. We did not have great hope for the city because on an earlier mission we had looked at apartments in the city, in areas that were not the spectactular.

This time we really enjoyed or relished our visit to this first rate city of Puerto de la Cruz. Our mission was to find a great place to eat lunch, I know not a lofty goal. Ken picked the top four restaurants from Yelp, TripAdviser and Google to map out and investigate. We took pictures of the restaurants and their menus which we will save for future excursions into the city which is just below where our neighbourhood is perched. Many restaurants were more dinner places.

The older parts of Santa Cruz have narrow, windy cobblestone streets. It is dotted with sidewalk cafes full of people enjoying cafe, tapas and wine or beer. We found wonderful, lively parks like Plaza De La Iglesia with a fancy shell like cement fountain fed by a cement swan. The Plaza is full of palm trees and flowering bushes. It had a stone church off to the side, likely the main feature of the Plaza. As we walked along we noted many edificios (buildings) with lovely carved, wood balconies. We noticed that in almost all cases the old buildings have been well cared for with the wood recently shellacked on balconies and doors.

The Hotel Monopol had hibiscus flowers arranged neatly on their outside steps. To me it was a welcome invitation to step inside. I just knew it, a spectacular courtyard with tropical trees and plants, wicker furniture and spectacular wooden railings on the several story high hallways, facing into the courtyard. This place had it all - antiques, art, Spanish style chandeliers (after all we are in Spain), etc. Then we saw all the framed awards that the hotel had won over the past decades. We checked the price of a room on-line and it was totally reasonable, if not economical. Wow, I would love to stay there.

We had walked and walked not realizing it had gotten much hotter and we had gotten hungry. Often we on our exploratory walks this happens. Then it is hard to pick out a place to eat because we are so hungry and making decisions is difficult. Ah, but we knew his happens and had already picked a place. It was El Lemon, a little vegetarian cafe. The building must have been a couple hundred years old on a narrow, cobblestone street. Delicious, veggie burgers and fries.

We kept up our pace were walking toward to beach. We came to Plaza Benito Periz Galdoz. The palm trees leading up to this street and trees in this Plaza wore knitted or crotched clothing. Yes, you read correctly. This is a phenomena we have seen in many other places. Here it did look beautiful, the bright colours and all but seemed a bit unnecessary because of the heat. Love this idea. We also came across other street art, huge walls of buidlings painted.

The beach with black sand was our final destination. Were we ended up had more rocks than sand. The ocean was the most exquisite blue, matched only by the blue overhead. The malecon seemed more to our liking than abondoning the shade for the direct sun of the day. This was our Sunday excusion into a city of paradise island.