It was my second full day in Tenerife and in the distance from the hotel I could see some kind of rock by the sea. I couldn’t see if it was an island or a mount, but I decided my mission for the day was to get to there. Well I decided this the day before. If I followed the coast I knew I could get there without getting lost and it didn’t look too far.
That morning I packed my bags and said my goodbyes to the rents. Off I set on my travels sun cream and water in hand. The terrain in Tenerife is rocky and dry especially along the beaches with the volcanic rock although there are occasional soft beaches with black sand. I started off scrambling along the rocks this was a way more interesting way to travel than to walk the coastal path. The coast of San Blas is full of fisherman and sunbathers and caves kitted out with sofas and beds.
It turns out that certain people within Tenerife near the San Blas area have decided to live within the caves. They have made them homely hanging decorations, some even have solar panels to give them energy and they park their motor bikes and cars on the rocky roads above. This really was living off the land. I liked it, I liked the individuality of the people in this area. The beauty of contrast in dry land next to the glistening sea. I mean I could easily live in one of them caves, if I had wifi of course!
The adventure continues…
As I ventured past the caves and came up to the first beach. The mountain thing (I still wasn’t totally sure what it was) in the back ground was getting slightly closer but I had definitely misjudged the distance and being ultra-prepared as always I had only brought one bottle of water. But my mission to get to the mount was not going to be stopped by the thought of me dying of dehydration.
The first beach gave me my first taster of what was to come for the rest of the trip, a naked man in the rocks. I don’t know why but I always find when you see a naked man or women you have to stare at their bits. I maturely continued along the beach laughing at the old man’s willy hanging in the wind. But these kind of adventures are what I love, these are adventures where absolutely anything can happen. Nothing surprises me.
By now I had reached the bottom of the mountain rock thing (I still wasn’t totally sure what it was) and started my climb. As I navigated the rugged and rough terrain there was a man hovering behind me. No one else was in sight and being a lone English girl in a foreign country you automatically assume the worst. Well in reflection there was no need to worry. After awkwardly walking the same speed and same direction for about 5 minutes I thought why not? Why not speak to him? Why not do the thing that every human tries to avoid? Interacting with a stranger. Then a thought hit me, everyone is a stranger till someone makes that awkward first move.
Remarkably, against all of our anti-social human instincts I started up a conversation. About 2 minutes later I realised this guy had 5 words of English in him and I had zero words of Italian. Despite this I managed to find out his name it was Stefano, which I repeated back to him about 50 times in the worst Italian accent ever. Thinking I was hilarious, of course! Stefano and I made it to the summit together and naturally I did the typical tourist thing and was like let’s get a selfie together. I just wanted something to remember the day I made friends with a stranger and did something I would usually avoid. Also, I found out that what I had climbed to the top of was called Mount Roja which happened to be an inactive volcano, pretty damn cool in my eyes!
I said my goodbyes to Stefano and started descending mount Roja (after taking a ridiculous amount of selfies of myself until I got the perfect angle and filter…obvs). Then it hit me again after the excitement of reaching the top I was still dying of dehydration, my progress down was slow. Stefano caught up with me once again for the awkward walk back to the beach. On the way down I managed to somehow translate that he had a wife and a child who was waiting for them on the beach. Apparently, his wife was fluent in English and he wanted me to meet her so she could translate.
Nervously I walked with him towards his wife. I could see already she already she was not pleased with him turning up with some random girl after going off by himself. I awkwardly stood there for a few minutes whilst she ranted in Italian and I quickly received a chow Lauren and the look every man gives you when he is in trouble from Stefano. I was relieved I could finally go.
Plus, all I could think was if only you knew I was gay and I was more interested in your hot 19-year-old daughter…
