Tenerife

During spring break, I went with Kelly and Lizzie to Tenerife which is one of the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are off the coast of Africa and are officially Spanish territory. They are popular vacation destinations because of the warm weather and beaches. I had never been anywhere so blatantly touristy before. We went to Playa de las Americas which is in the south of Tenerife. The main attraction is the beach. The beach is really interesting because the sand is dark because it’s volcanic ash. There is a volcano that is “no longer active”. Allegedly. This was not only the first time I’ve been on a small island that isn’t close to the mainland but the closest I have ever been to a volcano.

The island was beautiful. The people were also very nice but it felt kind of weird to be in place where most people’s livelihoods center around tourism. We also shocked a lot of people by speaking Spanish. I guess no one but Spaniards attempts any Spanish here. They all spoke English.

The beach was nice: really clean and the water was pretty. There were men who walked around selling fruit. They tried to entice us to buy some by yelling “watermelon, pineapple, ananas” and a bunch of other random words that included “Las vegas, Viagra”. It was also plainly obviously that we were among the minority by using sunscreen. No one else did and therefore, most people at the beach were lobster red. It was not cute. Many women went topless as per custom on European beaches and let me tell you: a lifetime without sunscreen while topless does not work out well.